DarkLordOfOptics
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Another gem by George Friedman: Labor Shortage

Here is another really thought provoking piece by George Friedman of GPF. In this one, rather than offer up an explanation to some complicated geopolitical issues, he argues that we do not have a good understanding of what really caused the current labor shortage. That, in some ways, is a scarier thought than simply blaming it on excessive stimulus.
I do not have any insight into labor problems except in US and Israel. I live in the US and work for an Israeli-owned company.

I would need to do a little digging and look at the numbers, but I have a suspicion that he is underestimating a little bit the impact of the federal government giving everyone cash just for being alive. He is right, however, that this does not explain the skilled labor shortage.

I can offer a couple of things that might explain some of it. As far as white collar world is concerned, we live in a deeply credential driven society where a college degree or graduate degree seems to be a requirement for quite a few jobs that do not really require it.

With the jobs that do indeed strongly benefit from an appropriate college degree, America is not graduating enough people with relevant majors.

Thanks to the Left's takeover and subsequent near destruction of the American educational system, the whole thing got turned upside down. Vocational schools and apprenticeships have been largely destroyed.
With four year colleges, If memory serves me right, only about 18% of the people graduating college have STEM degrees and the situation is likely to get worse. Male college enrollment is already down and as far as technical disciplines go, they are still strongly dominated by men. Women, rather overwhelmingly, do not find STEM fields interesting and go into other majors. On top of that, somehow, everyone is convinced that all degrees have equal value and equal job prospects regardless of the field of study.

If you just stop and think, this is absolute nonsense, but noone does that any more (stopping and thinking). I can think of quite a few rather bright kids who went to college and chose majors strictly based on how easy they are, so that they have plenty of time to contract STDs and shake their ass on Instagram.

Don't get me wrong, as a society, we need psyche majors, english majors, etc. We just do not need quite as many of them as seem to be coming out of college. I need to do some digging with actual numbers, but people with degrees in Medieval Goat Fuckery and Central Asian Donkey Breeding all too often end up serving fries for a living and pondering how to pay off $400k of student debt.

If only 18% of graduating college students have STEM degrees, I can probably make an educated guess that over half of college population is getting screwed. All they get for their money is four years of indoctrination.

This situation will not resolve itself until the American educational system as we know it is either reformed or abandoned with companies large enough for it doing their own education and apprenticeship programs that circumvent all the political nonsense.

Either way, here is the link to the article and the text is pasted below:
https://bit.ly/2X2E66K

The current breakdown of the global supply chain threatens to change the future of the world. If this worsens, the fabric of the global economy will be torn – though I don’t know exactly how many months it would take – and reconstructing it will take longer than breaking it did.

Similar disruptions have been seen in wars when production facilities were destroyed and maritime trade was disrupted or suspended. In World War II, imposing economic disruption on the enemy while preventing the enemy from doing the same to you was if not the essence of the war then certainly critical. We are not seeing anywhere near those levels of disruption now, but the mechanics of what we are seeing have more in common with war than with ordinary economic events. Right now, it appears to be a major inconvenience. Over time, it could be much more.

In mid-2020, I wrote a piece about the course of the COVID-19 crisis. I argued (not very originally) that there were two courses the economic fallout of the pandemic could take: recession or depression. The possibility of robust growth was not in my mind an option. I defined recession as a financial event, painful but ultimately recoverable without substantial, long-term damage. I defined depression as the physical destruction of the economy, with companies and banks failing and ceasing to exist, massive unemployment, and so on. Depression might have a financial component, as the Great Depression in the United States did, or a military component, as it had in much of Europe after both world wars. A recession may take years to recover from. A depression takes a generation. I also said that in my mind, the pandemic would not cause a depression. My thinking was that in due course the pandemic would either subside on its own or give way to a medical solution. The key factor was how long the measures used to combat the disease would be in place. The longer the time, the greater chance of depression.

We are now seeing the physical degradation of the global economic system with shortages and disruptions that are not soluble by financial measures. We are seeing a phenomenon that appears to consist of many systems failing and interacting at the same time. Everyone has a different theory for the failures, but there is one that virtually everyone selects as a central cause, even if they disagree about its origins.

In the United States, there is a two-part thesis. The first is that overly generous unemployment and stimulus benefits reduce the willingness of many to work. People can make more money by staying at home. The problem with this claim is that someone who forgoes a salary for benefits wasn’t earning much to begin with. They would be relatively low-paid workers with little if any savings. It is hard to imagine they could not be coaxed back into the workforce. And it assumes the warehouse or restaurant the employee used to work at could outbid the benefit but either didn’t or wouldn’t. Certainly, I haven’t seen the balance sheets of these companies, but having relatively low-paying jobs left unfilled shouldn’t paralyze a business. In addition, in many sectors, job vacancies are at levels far above the point where they would be influenced by federal benefits. Benefits did not create massive labor shortages in the area of skilled labor, professional work, management and so on. Yet there are shortages there as well.

The second part of the thesis is the withdrawal of women from the workforce for home care. This is more persuasive than the first part of the theory but still flawed. U.S. labor statistics say some 1.8 million women remain out of work, but that doesn’t necessarily give us the full picture. Most of the schools that were initially closed have since been reopened. Some women have had babies during the pandemic and have thus recused themselves from the workforce, but others haven’t. About 40 percent of U.S. homes have children under the age of 18, and about 20 percent have children under the age of nine. Every household, I’m sure, has different standards for how young is too young for a child to be left alone, and different tolerances for how much money is acceptable to forego for child care. We must always remember that many of us work because we have to. The number of women who either do not need their paycheck or have no way to care for a school-age child seems insufficient to explain the magnitude of the loss in the labor force.

Importantly, many of these theories use the American model as the essential one, but what may explain shortages in the U.S. may not hold true for another country and vice versa. Some of these countries have vastly different cultures, job markets and so on. In China and Israel, for example, the shortage is in workers with technical expertise. Anecdotally, I know that in Italy, where it’s common for extended family members to live together, mothers may work while grandmothers care for the children.

What I think is clear is that we do not know why there has been a global reduction of labor, unless it took place only among those who don’t need to work (and those people have Zoom). That is not a good answer, but it has some value. This is what is most frightening about this development. Many agree that a labor shortage is a key driver of the supply chain problem. Yet the dominant theories of what happened, while not refuted, have many weaknesses. That means that there must at least be additional explanations. So, we are facing a depression, originating not in financial events but in the displacement of people, transport and other elements. Facing a system failure with a known cause is one thing. Facing one for which you have no model is another.

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Burris XTR PS Wrap-Up

The first Burris XTR PS scope I got my hands on landed here in the beginning of March.
That means I have been messing with this design for a bit under four months. That does not quite qualify as a long term test by my standards, but it is a fair amount of time and quite a few rounds shot, mostly 5.56 and 308.
I have both of the models of XTR PS and both work well.
https://alnk.to/3U3cZEC

For matches and such, I would lean toward the 5.5-30x56 version, but for general purpose use, the smaller 3.3-18x50 model does have an edge. You can shoot a match with it, take it hunting in the mountains or slap a thermal clip-on in front to go shoot some pigs. While not light weight, it is a very flexible design owing to moderate size and mid-pack magnification range.

As I said in the video, I think XTR PS is a meaningful step forward in simplifying how we shoot at distance.

I will provide occasional updates as I continue using the scope.

00:26:02
5x Prismatic Wrap-up

This is not the end of my commentary on 5x prismatics, but it is a wrap for an unintentionally very long term project I had. I spent an unhealthy amount of time evaluating these four prismatic riflescopes:
Element Immersive 5x30 https://alnk.to/gzXEPUr
Swampfox Sabre 5x36 https://alnk.to/aAPTubq
Vortex Spitfire Gen2 5x https://alnk.to/3co4hVD
Primary Arms SLx 5x https://alnk.to/2jOhnT7

Two are large prism designs. Two are small prism designs.

The order in which I list them above corresponds to the image quality, from best to worst, although there isn't a ton of difference between SLx and Spitfire Gen2. Purely on the merits of resolution, Sabre is comparable to them as well, but much wider FOV and forgiving eyebox does put it a step above in terms of performance (at the expense of about a pound of weight). Element Immersive 5x30 is a different beast optically and it should be at a higher price at which it sells. It resolves better, has higher contrast and widest FOV of the bunch. Side-focus adds ...

00:16:40
Blast From The Past: Millett ZoomDot RDS

I dug this thing up purely by accident. It has been a long time since I used it for anything, but I am thinking I should, especially as I work on a magnifier video.

MIllet's ZoomDot was a unique red dot sight that had auto brightness and variable dot size from 1MOA to 10MOA.

Early ones, like mine, were made in the US. Millett had some aspirations of selling these to the US military.

I do not think they got very far, then the company was bought by Bushnell and essentially shut down after a little bit. At some point, the manufacturing for the ZoomDot moved to China and it was not really the same.

00:05:44
Independence Day, 2025

Publishing a "Happy Independence Day!" a day after independence day is probably bad form. It is also bad for posting affiliate links. Everybody and their grandmother is having discounts and I am not posting any links. To be honest, I do not particularly like posting general links and I simply did not have time to dig through everything and come with specific product links.
Still, if you plan to be buying something from one of the retailers I have an affiliate account with, I would appreciate it if you were to start with one of my links listed in the FAQ: https://darklordofoptics.locals.com/faq

I started writing the more substantive part of this post yesterday, but got sidetracked with thinking about the origin of the ideas that make America and ran out of time. I was only able to get back to it now. I suppose, better late than never.

We live in the world that, as far as the details go, is dramatically different from the world of the founders of the United States.

For the majority of this ...

July 04, 2025

This is a good deal:

https://alnk.to/c0a5bf9

Hi Ilya,

For many years I have been looking for a new spotting scope that has an FFP mil reticle for accurately calling corrections.  I have the angled version Kowa TSN-883 with 20-60 eyepiece that is great except it doesn’t have a reticle so the correction calls are not as precise or as fast as they could/should be. An ideal reticle would have a crosshair or L with a grid off of center but a simple crosshair, L or a tree would be sufficient.

I really like dual focus (can settle for single focus) that uses the small knobs that rotate very easily/smoothly so the scope can be focused on a v-bag while staying on target when it's impractical or a hassle to use a tripod. 

I also like an angled eye piece because it’s easier to establish a comfortable position in many situations as compared to straight eyepiece where you need to be directly behind the scope.  

I haven’t found anything with these attributes with max magnification and glass quality at least “good enough” for clear ...

A morning with a chronograph

When I tell people that I am using Hornady's factory ammo for matches, I get occasionally surprised looks.  Occasionally.  Most of the time, I get fairly condescending looks from handloaders who would not let a factory round pollute the chambers of their precision rifles if their lives depended on it.

To be fair, if I had the time, I might be reloading as well.  I might be able to do better than modern factory ammo, but the truth is that I am not a quarter MOA shooter, so a lot of that would be lost on me.  The UKD matches I fidn most interesting can be done by a competent shooter with a 1MOA gun.  I am working on that first part.  I reload when I have to, but if I can get factory ammo that's not outrageously expensive and that shoots well, I will go with that every time.

I looked around and realized that I have about 600 rounds of Hornady 147gr 6.5CM factory ammo from two lots.  400 rounds from one that I will use during the match later this month.  The remainder I will likely use up practicing prior to that.

I woke up early and snuck out to the range while my family was still asleep earlier today.

I set up in the 100 yard tunnel we have.  I took my four shots to zero with the lot I plan to use for the match.  Then I fired a six shot ~0.7MOA group.  That's accurate enough for my purposes.

Here are the chronograph results:

It is slow, but accurate and consistent.

Then I shot a five round group of Hornady 147gr ammo from the other lot.

Both of those lots are not too shabby for factory ammo.  POI was within 0.2mrad between the two lots, all laterally.  

 

I had some other ammo on hand, so I fired two five shot groups with Berger 144gr hybrid target ammo and Sako TRG 136gr.

Here is what I got for five rounds of Berger:

That's not a ton of statistics, but it is a data point.  The group was ~1.1MOA

 

Here the data for the Sako TRG 136gr ammo:

This ammo showed some mild pressure signs, but not too significant.  

Again, this is not a ton of data, but Hornady is looking pretty decent here.

I'll repeat the zero retention and consistency tests a couple more times between now and June 18th when we head to Wyoming.

I might pick up a couple more boxes of Hornady 147gr from a different lot to get some more data.

More to come.

 

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First PRS Match is behind me
High Noon at Del Norte

My first PRS match is officially behind me.  It was, I think an officially sanctioned regional PRS match at the shooting range called Del Norte about an hour from me (just east of Rio Rancho).
As I discussed previously, rather than using the rifle I originally prepared for it, I ended up having to change gears at the last moment and slapping a 5-25x56 Tangent on my daughter's 6ARC MiniFIx.  A lightweight 16" Proof barreled 6ARC is not an ideal set up for PRS competition, but, in the grand scheme of things, the rifle did hot hold me back at all.  I had a couple of weights that fit the Q-cert handguard, so I slapped them on there as well, which got the rifle to right around 12lbs.  The balance point was almost where I want it, but not quite.  In all other ways, this was a very handy rifle to shoot.  I am actually thinking of getting a couple more weights that I can stack on it (Sawtooth weights are stackable), so that I can shoot some future local matches with it.  It shoots Hornady's Black 105gr ammo very well (it also shoots 108gr ELD-M and 103gr ELD-X well, but I had a larger supply of Hornady Black ammo on hand).

It chrono'ed pretty consistently for factory ammo.  Here are the measurements for a 20 shot group.

If I were to take out the fastest shot, SD drops down to 8fps.  

In terms of wind performance, it is a 5mph rifle, so slightly better than the 308 ammo I was going to use originally, but not as good as the 6.5CM that was my intended match rifle for this year (we make plans, but then life happens).

I do have to admit that I really enjoyed shooting the match with the MiniFix.  So much so, that I am seriously thinking of building another one for myself, since this rifle is technically my daughter's.

The closest shot we had was a bit over a couple of hundred yards.  The furthest was around 1150.  That was a bit challenging for the 16" barreled 6ARC, especially since the terrain there is tricky and wind is doing strange things.  Morning was relatively quiet wind-wise, but then the wind becamse gusty with changing directions.

It was a one day match with about 30 shooters (six squads) and ten stages.  The 17 year old kid who won the match was in my squad with his dad.  Apparently he is on the US team, so it should not be surrpising that he won.  He was very good.

Overall level of the shooters in the match was quite good.  I really was not sure what to expect.  Somewhat paradoxically, the only matches that I have shot in so far are the much larger two day NRL Hunter matches.  In those, I am just out of the bottom third in terms of skill level.  In this match, it was pretty much in the same spot, I think.  

The terrain was a little bit like Cameo, I think (I have been there, but not shot there), with some angle changes and sufficient vegetation to make getting on target occasionally troublesome. 

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Getting back on the horse, little by little

My original plan was to do a livestream on Thursday of this week, but I think I'll push it out to next week.  A few days at home is doing wonders for my recovery, but my voice is still not quite there.  I do not think any of you are looking to listen to me cough for two hours straight.

Also, I am going to try to shoot that local PRS match this coming Saturday, so doign a livestream next week after the match is likely to be more productive.  It is my first one, so I fully expect that I will screw it all up.  It should be a good learning experience.  I do not have a dedicated PRS rifle and I am not looking to set one up jsut yet.  If I like it, I'll put something together, but as far as competition goes, my focus is really on UKD matches like NRL Hunter, Competition Dynamics, etc.  My 6.5CM is not back yet, so I'll just shoot it with my 308 FIx.  It is not ideal, but it will do just fine for my purposes.  I am in no danger of winning anything either way and this will stress my ability to read wind.  A secondary purpse here is that I am not 100% certain what rifle I will take on a mule deer hunt with later this year, but it will be either something new to test or this 308.  Now that I think about it, the 308 is going with me regardless either as a primary rifle or as backup.  The rifle shoots, so if I miss, I know it is on me.

For the match, I have Burris XTR PS 5.5-30x56 scope on the 308 Fix.  I think the way they did the heads up display in these is a meaningful improvement over conventional riflescopes.

https://alnk.to/d3EjPHC or https://alnk.to/8iVRlGN

Optically, I think XTR Pro is a little better, but the EO integration in the XTR PS is, I think, in advantage.

In parallel, I am looking at the replacement AAC ammo (they replaced the faulty ammo and I have chrono results on it) and testing the optics of the 40mm scopes in parallel.

 

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