Reply #54: There's a surprising number of "hands on" type jobs lost just in that sentence..

[Fumesucker]

""Maybe those offices won't get painted every year, maybe the carpets won't be swapped out every two years.""

Perhaps it's because I have family members currently in construction and have spent some time in construction myself but I see the job losses inherent in those few words of your words I have quoted above.

Not only the painters and carpet layers, but those who make and sell the paint and carpet and those who provide the raw materials, those who transport the raw materials and those who transport the finished products.

And the job losses will trickle down through the economy, the painter won't be buying tools, ladders and such, the carpet layer won't be buying a new truck to transport the carpet, pad, glue and workers and so on and so forth.

A family member of mine has a painting business, his business is off about seventy five percent from what it was three or four years ago, if it drops much further he doesn't know what he's going to do. Luckily for him his house and property are paid for or he would already be out of a home, but then he was smart and got a fifteen year loan and paid it off even faster than that. Not to mention that he designed his own home on literally a blank sheet of paper and then built it with his own hands. If he had gone out and bought the McMansion that his income at the time would have easily let him do he would have long since defaulted on the giant loan that would have required.

But, like me, he grew up with parents that lived through the Depression and heeded their warnings, even if it took him a couple of decades to realize they really did know what they were talking about.