NO DELIVERY

  Not failed delivery. Or missed delivery. Or late. Or will try again. Simply no delivery. At all. For months. And months. Despite numerous phone calls. Day after day. For months. False promises. Lots of empty words. Last night a phone call informing us that there is now a new position meant to address and fix this situation. Gee, wonder why I remain skeptical. It is not a personal problem. Nor an area problem. Apparently, it is a national problem. Whoa!

Much can be extrapolated and interpreted from this seemingly annoying, but minor problem. Sure, it bugs the heck out of us and other people in the same boat, but is it truly a problem of great import? Oh, yes, for understanding what it means, what it tells us is indeed both important and worse, truly, bad news. It does not bode well for the future.

What am I talking about here? Seems simple. The most annoying failure, for months, to get a simple thing accomplished, something which we have been doing for decades, wherever we lived. What? The daily delivery of the NY Times. Yup. Just that. First, day after day, then week after week, then month after month and I dread the future. Not so much for the delivery, as most days we can buy it, though far more costly to do so - and annoying! What is actually quite telling of this failed delivery system is of far more import than my convenience.

Last night I was told by the appointed person that this failed delivery was a national problem. Yes, national. The American pie system of daily delivery of the paper has gone underground, apparently dug its own grave for lack of personnel to fulfill the demands of a delivery job. Now mark you well. I am not belittling the demands of the job. Even as I am up, awaiting the early delivery I am used to, I am still in my home, not out delivering papers in the wee hours of the morn, day after day. In the cold. In the heat. On holidays. I understand that this is actually an important job. I respect the deliverer, showing my gratitude with a substantial Christmas gift. So what has happened to change this so?

COVID happened. A pandemic happened. Yet delivery remained in place for months, more than a year after the onset. What happened to change this fact, this process, seemingly minor, but really not so. In a wonderful gesture of understanding, sympathy, and good will, to tide people over as jobs were lost or sickness occurred, bonus payments, supplements, were added to unemployment compensation. Understandable as so many could not afford rent or mortgage, or even to pay the grocery bill, the utilities, or put gas in the car. This bonus, this additional payment, plus child payment additives, has ruined the system. It has ruined the delivery system of a nation.

No, not just the Times, but rather the implied delivery system of fair pay for fair work, a system wherein a job was done and payment was received in turn. The market and demand - or not - determined the rise and fall of these remunerations, of the delivery of the various services. While certainly not perfect, this delivery system worked. Till it didn't.

Americans are spoiled now. Able to sit home, able to pay bills, live a decent life, even as one did not work, did not partake of this promise, of this segment, of the national delivery system, Americans became used to not working. Simple as that. Now, the apparent thinking is  - why the hell go to work. Why get up every morning or middle of the night, to fulfill obligations of my part in this national delivery system? Hell, no! I would rather get paid for doing nothing other than enjoying my perpetual vacation. The system is broke!! 

Broken and shattered and I wonder if we understand that the simple failure of daily delivery of the newspaper is far more than that. It is the breakdown of the system to a degree which we have not fully integrated into our national understanding. But we are beginning to as we learn that hell, yes, there are plenty of jobs out there now. Some good. Some great. Some not so good. But they are there. 

Where are the workers to fill those jobs? Where are the jobseekers at the fairs, the beckoning signs of HIRING ignored? The standard of knowing one had to work for one's living? Gone by the wayside. And why not? If my bonuses added during the pandemic mean I can do the same or better than when I did work, then why work!! Think about that for a moment. 

That means that the driver of the truck that delivers food to the markets is not there - and neither are the food products. So they are unbought. The company loses income. The company downsizes. No fair value is generated. The economy shrinks. The costs escalate as shortages occur on a growing basis. Yet even as we whine, as we suffer consequences of increasing import, even then, we still do not go back to work. We prefer to 'work' at home or simply  stay home and get money for seemingly nothing. The system is patently now broken and demands fixing.

It is a difficult task. People have to understand how the market works. Yes, it is most manifestly not always fair. Capitalism is a poor system of economics, but it sure as hell works better than Communism or Socialism in the long and short run. There is room to move up, to better oneself.  Americans have done that for centuries, drawn immigrants hoping to do that, like bees to honey.

 The system of national delivery worked, with creaks and groans, with demands on all sides, cracked and fractured at times, but somehow managed to plug away as all, or most, understood to some degree at least that national delivery was a must. We need to return to that understanding. While we need to insure that people in America do not go hungry, that all children attend schools which actually educate, that shelter is provided for all, we also must insist that the bonuses of COVID time be stopped. We must encourage, explain, that we need the participation of all within the national delivery system or else it will not work. 

Or else it will not only be my NY Times not delivered, but much more than that. Not a good future to imagine. In fact, never mind imagine. Just look around, see the temperament of the nation. Understand that we had better fix the national delivery system, that we had all better become deliverers of some product or another, or we will face much worse than some annoying shortages.

In the meanwhile I want my paper!