They’ll start with the union leaders, and work their way down until the organization is broken enough that everybody goes back to work.

Some CSAs will deliver weekly, which may help.

Small farmer here - we keep exactly one less production bird than the maximum legal requirement, as most farmers of our scale do.

They tend to shut up when you ask them to actually help in any meaningful, concrete way. They’ll sure protest though.

all the little joys that you try to inject into your miserable existence

Related: opioid epidemics.

We did the same - bought a foreclosure at auction about a decade ago at the max we could afford, about $325k.

Now it’s a $1.2 million property. We could subdivide and pay off our mortgage entirely, if we needed to.

unless you already have the money you need to launch

I’ve noticed this as well, from being involved in the tech startup scene on the west coast for a while. There’s lots of funding and programs to expand your business, but none to help get it off the ground.

people don’t want to spend their money on starting businesses

I’d love to. Unfortunately if I quit my day job we’ll lose the house in six months.

We live in a more geographically isolated part of Canada (ie: not a big city) and at this point, our monthly grocery bill is approaching our mortgage payment amount. I still have to drive to three different stores to buy basics, because they’re all frequently out of stock for common items (like milk, sometimes). It’s not uncommon to pick up 3-4 bags of groceries (no meat) and pay $150-$200.

We garden, and have birds, and even started raising dairy sheep to reduce costs, but it’s still too much.

Yet, there are seven cannabis stores in town, and they’re all well stocked, somehow.

A government willing to go into debt with public spending? Cut off corporate subsidies and allocate the increased revenue to new technology businesses to reduce the risk involved in trying something different?