I am all in with free enterprise! But, Meeker, Craig, and Hayden are now service towns to Steamboat and the upriver wealthy. Even little ole Rangely has workers commute to Steamboat daily. Steamboat out competes the surrounding towns by paying nearly double for services ever with 3 hour commute. We can hardly get a plumber, electrician, or general contractor in town because we can't compete with the "financially rich". I get why these contractors do it but to the folks living in these wealthy communities they have no care for cost rather they care about getting the product they want. In the mean time out smaller rural communities have a truly tough time adding new homes or upkeep to their property bringing my property values down. Mean while their property valuation increase while our community decreases hurting out schools, hospitals, recreation districts, and other taxing districts Guess it's the price we pay living in a state that is catering to the super wealthy.
You have brought up a good point, and I don’t doubt for a minute that it’s factual. As I said, free enterprise economics is not cut and dried simple, and you’re living proof of that.
Consider this, beyond the face value of what’s happening in your community that is providing services to the growing wealthy community:
The service workers that travel to the wealthy community for work…….. because they are paid more, thereby making services more expensive and less available to the neighboring community, bringing home more dollars than your community is willing or able to pay them.
They come home from working in the wealthy community, where the homes cost them less, their groceries cost them less, their property taxes cost them less, their clothing costs them less, etc etc. This adds to the income and raises the standard of living of your community……. top to bottom. Yes, there a chance, that you mentioned, it’s harder to hire labor and services in your community and your cost for those services increase as a result, but their not as high as your wealthy neighbors are paying. (Not many service people would drive down the road to work, if they could make the same money working in there home town.) So……. while some, in the service community, are lifted up, by the raising standard of live, some are not. The fixed income folks tend to have less spendable income but most of those are older and retired, with less expenses such as a mortgage, 3 children to feed and cloth, less interest debt, etc.
The frustration with a lack of cheap labor is real however, but in a @truly free enterprise system” there is going to be dynamics that shift and slide, as I said previously, people move up and down the wealthy/poor scale.
There are causes and effect trade offs in all economic systems, be they capitalism, socialism or communism……. each has its “gotchas”. As frustrating as capitalism is, obviously, for me, it’s by far the system I prefer and appreciate.
I was born in Canada and had my wages frozen by the government in 1974. I promise you, socialism is not what I ever want to live under….. ever again.
