Date: September 26, 2017
To: Mr. Roger Goodell, Commissioner, National
Football League
From: "The Chuckmeister"
Subject: Patriotism and Whiny Kneelers
Dear Mr. Goodell;
As near as I can tell, the only difference between you and the Captain of the Titanic is that it's going to take you just a bit longer to drown.
You had a chance to do something meaningful last year in the wake of Mr. Colin Kooperdrink's having chosen to make his defiant Black Muslim disc jockey girlfriend proud by "taking a knee" when our National Anthem played at football games.
Yes, Mr. Goodell, you had the chance to show your leadership by forcefully coming out in support of an already-existing official NFL policy condemning such actions as being detrimental to the game and to the country we love so much. A policy that permits you to levy suspensions, and penalties, and fines, and outright dismissals of any player who chooses not to conform to the rules as written.
Put simply, the NFL's own rules prohibit everything these pampered millionaire whiners have been doing as of late; kneeling and stretching and hoisting the Black Power salute and scratching their asses. In short, showing disrespect to the legions of brave Americans who have fought and died in the service of our Great Country since its baptism by fire.
But you didn't.
You wimped out by puking forth a tepid missive that stated the flag is okay, but you know, like, ahem, so is giving the Black Power salute and sitting on your butt when the rest of us stand, hand over our hearts, proclaiming our fealty and support for the military, our First Responders and those who have gone before us in wars fought far and wide over more than two centuries. You took the easy way out. You didn't demand that your gladiators follow the rules. You didn't condemn such actions. You indirectly added your support.
Now you're reaping the whirlwind.
May I remind you that you refused to permit your players to wear a patch on their uniforms memorializing the 15th anniversary of 9/11, the worst tragedy to ever befall our great nation. You said it was too political. When asked by one of the Dallas Cowboy's players to permit his team to wear patches in honor of the five policemen assassinated by a sniper while protecting the participants in a Black Lives Matter protest in his town, you refused. You though it might offend somebody or other. (You're right. It did! Me, and millions of others!).
And now, when given the chance to redeem yourself by refusing to permit employees of the owners of the teams which hired them - and you - to disrespect the flag for which so many have fought and died, you wimped out again. No problem, you said. And I'm guessing to you, it isn't.
But to many of us, it is...
My own personal view is that this kerfuffle was caused by our decision to eliminate conscription after the Viet Nam, er, unpleasantness. Since then, we've enjoyed an all-volunteer military. Those wishing to serve our fine land will vote with their feet; they will head on down to the recruiter's office and sign up. And so they have, by the hundreds of thousands, most specifically since 09/12/01. Those joining up are patriots. They want the very best for their Country. And they're willing to sign a blank check made out to Uncle Sam for an amount up to and including their lives.
But that means that the other 99% of us, as only about 1% choose to serve, must rely on the "few and the proud" to defend us. And that also means that we've lost the benefit of having rich and poor, Black and White, young and younger, men and women, take up arms in our stead. And so we've lost that feeling of universal service. And with it the sense of patriotism that each and every person who serves learns to their very quick. No draft, no reason to honor the flag under which we all served. Too bad...
But back to the point: The reality is that Clinkerdrip's actions, and the actions of those that followed him in his lame protests, led to a ratings disaster for the NFL last year. Viewership was down an overall 8% from the previous year. This year's ratings are down another 15%! so far. A recent survey showed that fully 34% of respondents would be willing to turn off football forever if these feckless misguided protests continue. You, Roger, are in a high-wire act, and you're beginning to lose your balance.
The NFL's media deal with the networks is worth about $2.5 Billion in revenue over a five-year period. That revenue stream is predicated upon anticipated viewership ratings. If they improve, the ad payments go up. And if they go dowwwwwwwwn, the opposite happens. Ummm, like what's happening right now, Rog baby. The owners are facing what could be a $250 Million Dollar haircut just in 2017 if current ratings trends don't improve. And I get the feeling they're getting a bit nervous. And if you're not, you're not as smart as you look.
And knowing this, you still decided to permit your paid performers - for that is exactly what they are -- they are no different than bull riders in a rodeo, or acrobats in a circus, or stand-up comedians at the Laugh Factory -- to make fools of themselves on national TV. And a fool of you. And fools of the owners who are paying you. And some think fools of those who continue to watch football on the NFL.
Oh, and insult every single American who ever wore the uniform of this Great Country. And their wives and husbands and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and grandmas and grandpas. In short, millions and millions of Americans are outraged at what's unfolding on their TV screens. Face it, Rog. Everybody between Tahoe and Tallahassee thinks you're a raging dolt. And you've earned every bit of their enmity.
I don't know why your owners don't send you packing. You could open a consulting business with Colleen Klapperdangle. Your ad line could be, "Hire us and we'll show you how not to do it!"
The Chuckmeister
Tuesday, September 26, 2017
Saturday, September 23, 2017
Hillary's Book Tour.
As we all know by now, unfortunately, Hillary Rodham Clinton has just released her latest "tell all" book. It's entitled, "What Happened."
Now, I don't know about you, but I would have thought that the title should have been followed by a period. Or an exclamation point. Or perhaps a question mark. Or at least a semi-colon. Or given that it's Her, a huge $ sign.
But no. Just a naked "What Happened." Even though she begins most every book tour commentary with "I take full responsibility for my loss, but my decisions and actions were not the reason I lost." I love that intro. It's so telling about her mental state and her grasp of reality. Kind of like, "I did it, but I didn't really do it, somebody else did it, or several somebodies, unless my having done it proves to be helpful to me, but not if it isn't. Or something..."
But back to the subject matter at hand. It seems to me that Her book title indicated that she doesn't know, but would like to. But as to the rest of us, I'm pretty sure we already know. But for those who don't, I've compiled a list of all the reasons she's given on her book tour why she says she lost the 2016 Presidential Election. And those reasons are very telling, my friends. So telling I thought it might be interesting to my growing cadre of loyal readers to take a trip to this Land of Oz tour to find out for ourselves exactly what she has in mind for us, her loyal subjects.
So, in no particular order, and without editorial commentary of any kind, more or less, here is a representative sampling of those excuses...er, reasons. Most are direct quotes, but a few are paraphrases. But all are accurate:
- The Russians weaponized information.
- The Trump campaign embraced 1,000 Russian agents in an effort to undermine my campaign.
- Wikileaks release of data and my emails were taken out of context.
- I would have been succeeding a two-term Democrat President.
- The release of the James Comey letter significantly harmed my campaign.
- I got no respect from Trump.
- My emails were treated as the biggest scandal since Lord knows when!
- My "traditional" campaign couldn't compete.
- The "tech revolution" weaponized data and information for the very first time.
- "Citizens United" campaign financing undermined my effort.
- The governors and legislatures of Red States did their very best to suppress their voters.
- President Obama could have made a Presidential address to the nation supporting my campaign, but he didn't.
- I inherited nothing from the Democrat Party.
- The DNC's data was mediocre to poor, and they were effectively bankrupt and threatened with insolvency.
- I was hampered by the idea of a woman being elected to POTUS.
- The question of equal pay for equal work.
- Sexism and misogyny.
- Negative stories about me in the press and on cable.
- The unprecedented interference in my campaign by the Trump campaign.
- I got no respect (with apologies to Rodney Dangerfield. Sorry, couldn't help myself).
- Bernie's not a Democrat.
- My emails were the biggest nothingburger ever.
- Manchurian content farms (Whaaaaat? Wha' dat?) (Sorry again).
- The many attacks on me were sexist.
- Radio broadcaster Alex Jones.
- Foreign power interference.
- Joe Biden didn't support me sufficiently.
- Republican supporters continued to harass me.
- I didn't break any rules.
- Facebook stories ("?," again).
- People wanting "change."
- Questionable campaign donations from the Koch Brothers.
- Incessant negative stories about me in the Drudge Report.
- Massive voter suppression, particularly in the Black Community (where is that Black Community, exactly?).
- Hostility from The Today Show's Matt Lauer.
- I had the election stolen from me even though I was very responsible and not at all careless. (About anything. Ever.)
- And, of course, "low information voters."
I actually had to pare this listing down so as not to put my dear readers to sleep. But this should give you a sense as to how Ms. Clinton is dealing with her (second) loss. I, for one, although having not read the book, which I have no interest in so doing, although it's now more accessible to average folks like me due to Amazon's having just reduced the price from $30.00 to $17.99, am extremely grateful for her thoughtful list of reasons why the election was taken from her next-in-line, deserving grasp. Too bad. Maybe next time.
Yeah, I know, it was a long sentence. My blog, my sentence length...
I can't help but thinking that Ms. Clinton left out several even more obvious reasons why she lost the campaign. Those would include:
- Undesired changes in barometric pressure.
- Congress' failure to increase the minimum wage.
- Coal. And coal miners.
- Global Warming.
- Dirt.
- North Korea.
- South Korea.
- East and West Korea.
- The "vast, right-wing conspiracy."
- Solar flares.
- Opioids.
- A shortage of pantsuits.
And finally,
- Non-voting illegal aliens.
I'm pretty sure she'll learn from this painful experience and do better next time. Please God, I truly hope there's a next time...
Now, I don't know about you, but I would have thought that the title should have been followed by a period. Or an exclamation point. Or perhaps a question mark. Or at least a semi-colon. Or given that it's Her, a huge $ sign.
But no. Just a naked "What Happened." Even though she begins most every book tour commentary with "I take full responsibility for my loss, but my decisions and actions were not the reason I lost." I love that intro. It's so telling about her mental state and her grasp of reality. Kind of like, "I did it, but I didn't really do it, somebody else did it, or several somebodies, unless my having done it proves to be helpful to me, but not if it isn't. Or something..."
But back to the subject matter at hand. It seems to me that Her book title indicated that she doesn't know, but would like to. But as to the rest of us, I'm pretty sure we already know. But for those who don't, I've compiled a list of all the reasons she's given on her book tour why she says she lost the 2016 Presidential Election. And those reasons are very telling, my friends. So telling I thought it might be interesting to my growing cadre of loyal readers to take a trip to this Land of Oz tour to find out for ourselves exactly what she has in mind for us, her loyal subjects.
So, in no particular order, and without editorial commentary of any kind, more or less, here is a representative sampling of those excuses...er, reasons. Most are direct quotes, but a few are paraphrases. But all are accurate:
- The Russians weaponized information.
- The Trump campaign embraced 1,000 Russian agents in an effort to undermine my campaign.
- Wikileaks release of data and my emails were taken out of context.
- I would have been succeeding a two-term Democrat President.
- The release of the James Comey letter significantly harmed my campaign.
- I got no respect from Trump.
- My emails were treated as the biggest scandal since Lord knows when!
- My "traditional" campaign couldn't compete.
- The "tech revolution" weaponized data and information for the very first time.
- "Citizens United" campaign financing undermined my effort.
- The governors and legislatures of Red States did their very best to suppress their voters.
- President Obama could have made a Presidential address to the nation supporting my campaign, but he didn't.
- I inherited nothing from the Democrat Party.
- The DNC's data was mediocre to poor, and they were effectively bankrupt and threatened with insolvency.
- I was hampered by the idea of a woman being elected to POTUS.
- The question of equal pay for equal work.
- Sexism and misogyny.
- Negative stories about me in the press and on cable.
- The unprecedented interference in my campaign by the Trump campaign.
- I got no respect (with apologies to Rodney Dangerfield. Sorry, couldn't help myself).
- Bernie's not a Democrat.
- My emails were the biggest nothingburger ever.
- Manchurian content farms (Whaaaaat? Wha' dat?) (Sorry again).
- The many attacks on me were sexist.
- Radio broadcaster Alex Jones.
- Foreign power interference.
- Joe Biden didn't support me sufficiently.
- Republican supporters continued to harass me.
- I didn't break any rules.
- Facebook stories ("?," again).
- People wanting "change."
- Questionable campaign donations from the Koch Brothers.
- Incessant negative stories about me in the Drudge Report.
- Massive voter suppression, particularly in the Black Community (where is that Black Community, exactly?).
- Hostility from The Today Show's Matt Lauer.
- I had the election stolen from me even though I was very responsible and not at all careless. (About anything. Ever.)
- And, of course, "low information voters."
I actually had to pare this listing down so as not to put my dear readers to sleep. But this should give you a sense as to how Ms. Clinton is dealing with her (second) loss. I, for one, although having not read the book, which I have no interest in so doing, although it's now more accessible to average folks like me due to Amazon's having just reduced the price from $30.00 to $17.99, am extremely grateful for her thoughtful list of reasons why the election was taken from her next-in-line, deserving grasp. Too bad. Maybe next time.
Yeah, I know, it was a long sentence. My blog, my sentence length...
I can't help but thinking that Ms. Clinton left out several even more obvious reasons why she lost the campaign. Those would include:
- Undesired changes in barometric pressure.
- Congress' failure to increase the minimum wage.
- Coal. And coal miners.
- Global Warming.
- Dirt.
- North Korea.
- South Korea.
- East and West Korea.
- The "vast, right-wing conspiracy."
- Solar flares.
- Opioids.
- A shortage of pantsuits.
And finally,
- Non-voting illegal aliens.
I'm pretty sure she'll learn from this painful experience and do better next time. Please God, I truly hope there's a next time...
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Hurricanes and Global Warming...
A short while back a whole spate of glamorous celebrities hosted the "Hand in Hand" fundraiser for victims of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.
It was on multiple channels, and in prime time. They raised more than $44 Million. That's nice of them. The money is sorely needed. But it would have been even nicer if they would have just showed up, make their spiel, collected the dough and were chauffeured on back to their tony Beverly Hills digs.
But they didn't.
Several of the more aged of them felt that we, undeserving rubes that we are, needed to be educated and enlightened by their wonderful selves about the deleterious effects of human-caused "global warming" (GM), and why it will kill us all if we don't...ummm...do something. Stevie Wonder even chose to share with us that we are "blind" or unintelligent if we fail to see that GM is due to human activity. Cute.
Babs Streisand scowled as she wagged her well-manicured finger at us unbelievers, letting us know in no uncertain terms that GM isn't "fake news." It's real, she told us. And that we must stop driving our SUVs and living in homes bigger than a shoe box if we don't want to die in a flaming inferno.
A little guy named Bieber, whoever he is, and a graying gent named Clooney, and a tall Black chick named Beyonce, and a diminutive fellow called Leo, and several others must have felt that it was their God-given duty to bring us toothless "flyover" commoners up to speed on why we should be scared you-know-what-less about GM. Oh wait, they don't believe in God.
And, of course, Alberto Gore has made hundreds of millions of $s touting GM, telling us that Polar Bears are drowning and the Arctic ice cap is melting and that Miami will be under 20 feet of water by...2005...if we don't heed his sonorous, preacherly warnings. All this while living in a 20,000 square foot mansion in Nashville, consuming more than 25 times the electricity every month than the average family, and flitting around on a tired Gulfstream 2, the very noisiest and dirtiest of all the uber-expensive private jets. So there.
Of course, Miami's still above sea level and Polar Bears can swim for 60 miles looking for a seal snack and the ice cap is right where it ought to be, thank you very much. Has Al apologized for his incorrect predictions?
Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, no! He just released a follow-up docudrama that doubles down on his earlier predictions and excoriates us double-digit I.Q. dummies to get with the program before it's too late.
They all seem to believe that the two bigass storms that just hit, Harvey and Irma, are ironclad evidence that GM is reeeeeeeel, and that no one, anywhere, should be permitted to deny its existence. It was just reported that Canada will start to prosecute those who publicly deny GM. Those damn climate deniers! The Brits are considering doing the same. It's become a sort of religion among the Liberal elite. Of course, since they have no other religion, it's nice that they finally found something to believe in, right? Druidism is looking for converts, so our aging stars should really look into that. Famed climate Scientist Jennifer Lawrence just stated that these storms were the result of Mother Nature punishing us 'Muricans for having voted for D. J. Trump.
Don't you wonder why these elite celebrities make such a point out of routinely insulting half of their potential fans? Doesn't that prove that they're all dumber than a bag of rocks?
Sooooo, dear friends and loyal readers, The Chuckmeister, your faithful scribe without portfolio, decided to look into the matter a bit further. Not that I'm unwilling to take the word of poorly-educated folks who pretend to be somebody else for a living, mind you. I mean, they make millions because they can sing and dance and memorize lines to be puked forth on cue (action!), so surely their words can be taken to the bank, right? But hey, I'm just one of those people who need a second opinion, doncha' know.
So here, kiddies, is the straight scoop: There have been a grand total of 293 named hurricanes that have made landfall on the Continental United States since 1887. That's the year we started keeping tabs on such things, so that's where we begin our data gathering.
And, for those who point at Harvey and Irma as proof that GM is going to roast us all in a fiery Hell, there have been a total of 75 years in the intervening period in which five or more hurricanes have reared their ugly heads. In eleven of those years there were ten or more. Ten! So two in any one year isn't unusual. In fact, the only reason these two were notable is because they scored direct hits with above Cat 3 ratings when they made landfall, and happened to cause significant damage.
In fact, with exception of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which ripped New York's Rockaway peninsula to shreds, only smallish Cat 1 storms have made landfall since Katrina unloaded on New Orleans back in 2005. So, with apologies to S. Wonder and B. Streisand and L. DeCaprio and Beyonce, and all their really special little friends, no, there hasn't been a "rash" of GM-caused hurricanes unloading on us poor guilty humans.
In fact, let me remind the reader that back in 1975 the magazine Newsweek ran a blaring headline on its cover, stating, "Are we ready for the coming Ice Age?" Perhaps they hadn't yet discovered back then that they could made a big bunch of dough by shaming the public into rolling over for a big tax increase in order to forestall a fiery Hell.
So far, Irma has killed a total of 11 people, and 8 of those were in an old-age home in Hollywood Hills, Florida, victims of presumed criminal activity. Contrast that factoid with the hurricane that hit Galveston, TX in 1900. A total of 8,000 perished in that storm.
By the way, since the Galveston tragedy, and up until the recent day, there was no such thing as global warming before Katrina hit. It had not yet been "invented" by Leftists who figured out that they could use fear (the sky is falling!) to wrest a bunch more tax money out of gullible 'Muricans' pockets by using it as a lever.
Think Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown, Guv of Taxifornia, if you need proof. Old Jer is a big believer in GM. So much so that he's spearheaded "cap and trade" legislation in the once-Golden State to "fix it." He seems to believe that there's a 60,000 high Plexiglas wall enclosing CA, preventing the smog and soot and dirt in China's and India's air from polluting our air. He's obviously unaware that what's in the atmosphere in China today will be here in a week. So he makes it even tougher to start and business or earn a living here due to onerous additional - and unnecessary - taxation.
So, let's summarize. Whether you want to call it Global Warming (the globe is NOT warming!), or Climate Change (it's always changing!), or Climate Chaos (the only chaos I can see is among this bunch of flim-flam artists who are trying to figure out what to call it next!).
One Mr. John Coleman, Co-Founder of Weather Channel, tells us that we're dumbass fools if we buy into this nonsense. I'm not, are you?
It was on multiple channels, and in prime time. They raised more than $44 Million. That's nice of them. The money is sorely needed. But it would have been even nicer if they would have just showed up, make their spiel, collected the dough and were chauffeured on back to their tony Beverly Hills digs.
But they didn't.
Several of the more aged of them felt that we, undeserving rubes that we are, needed to be educated and enlightened by their wonderful selves about the deleterious effects of human-caused "global warming" (GM), and why it will kill us all if we don't...ummm...do something. Stevie Wonder even chose to share with us that we are "blind" or unintelligent if we fail to see that GM is due to human activity. Cute.
Babs Streisand scowled as she wagged her well-manicured finger at us unbelievers, letting us know in no uncertain terms that GM isn't "fake news." It's real, she told us. And that we must stop driving our SUVs and living in homes bigger than a shoe box if we don't want to die in a flaming inferno.
A little guy named Bieber, whoever he is, and a graying gent named Clooney, and a tall Black chick named Beyonce, and a diminutive fellow called Leo, and several others must have felt that it was their God-given duty to bring us toothless "flyover" commoners up to speed on why we should be scared you-know-what-less about GM. Oh wait, they don't believe in God.
And, of course, Alberto Gore has made hundreds of millions of $s touting GM, telling us that Polar Bears are drowning and the Arctic ice cap is melting and that Miami will be under 20 feet of water by...2005...if we don't heed his sonorous, preacherly warnings. All this while living in a 20,000 square foot mansion in Nashville, consuming more than 25 times the electricity every month than the average family, and flitting around on a tired Gulfstream 2, the very noisiest and dirtiest of all the uber-expensive private jets. So there.
Of course, Miami's still above sea level and Polar Bears can swim for 60 miles looking for a seal snack and the ice cap is right where it ought to be, thank you very much. Has Al apologized for his incorrect predictions?
Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, no! He just released a follow-up docudrama that doubles down on his earlier predictions and excoriates us double-digit I.Q. dummies to get with the program before it's too late.
They all seem to believe that the two bigass storms that just hit, Harvey and Irma, are ironclad evidence that GM is reeeeeeeel, and that no one, anywhere, should be permitted to deny its existence. It was just reported that Canada will start to prosecute those who publicly deny GM. Those damn climate deniers! The Brits are considering doing the same. It's become a sort of religion among the Liberal elite. Of course, since they have no other religion, it's nice that they finally found something to believe in, right? Druidism is looking for converts, so our aging stars should really look into that. Famed climate Scientist Jennifer Lawrence just stated that these storms were the result of Mother Nature punishing us 'Muricans for having voted for D. J. Trump.
Don't you wonder why these elite celebrities make such a point out of routinely insulting half of their potential fans? Doesn't that prove that they're all dumber than a bag of rocks?
Sooooo, dear friends and loyal readers, The Chuckmeister, your faithful scribe without portfolio, decided to look into the matter a bit further. Not that I'm unwilling to take the word of poorly-educated folks who pretend to be somebody else for a living, mind you. I mean, they make millions because they can sing and dance and memorize lines to be puked forth on cue (action!), so surely their words can be taken to the bank, right? But hey, I'm just one of those people who need a second opinion, doncha' know.
So here, kiddies, is the straight scoop: There have been a grand total of 293 named hurricanes that have made landfall on the Continental United States since 1887. That's the year we started keeping tabs on such things, so that's where we begin our data gathering.
And, for those who point at Harvey and Irma as proof that GM is going to roast us all in a fiery Hell, there have been a total of 75 years in the intervening period in which five or more hurricanes have reared their ugly heads. In eleven of those years there were ten or more. Ten! So two in any one year isn't unusual. In fact, the only reason these two were notable is because they scored direct hits with above Cat 3 ratings when they made landfall, and happened to cause significant damage.
In fact, with exception of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which ripped New York's Rockaway peninsula to shreds, only smallish Cat 1 storms have made landfall since Katrina unloaded on New Orleans back in 2005. So, with apologies to S. Wonder and B. Streisand and L. DeCaprio and Beyonce, and all their really special little friends, no, there hasn't been a "rash" of GM-caused hurricanes unloading on us poor guilty humans.
In fact, let me remind the reader that back in 1975 the magazine Newsweek ran a blaring headline on its cover, stating, "Are we ready for the coming Ice Age?" Perhaps they hadn't yet discovered back then that they could made a big bunch of dough by shaming the public into rolling over for a big tax increase in order to forestall a fiery Hell.
So far, Irma has killed a total of 11 people, and 8 of those were in an old-age home in Hollywood Hills, Florida, victims of presumed criminal activity. Contrast that factoid with the hurricane that hit Galveston, TX in 1900. A total of 8,000 perished in that storm.
By the way, since the Galveston tragedy, and up until the recent day, there was no such thing as global warming before Katrina hit. It had not yet been "invented" by Leftists who figured out that they could use fear (the sky is falling!) to wrest a bunch more tax money out of gullible 'Muricans' pockets by using it as a lever.
Think Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown, Guv of Taxifornia, if you need proof. Old Jer is a big believer in GM. So much so that he's spearheaded "cap and trade" legislation in the once-Golden State to "fix it." He seems to believe that there's a 60,000 high Plexiglas wall enclosing CA, preventing the smog and soot and dirt in China's and India's air from polluting our air. He's obviously unaware that what's in the atmosphere in China today will be here in a week. So he makes it even tougher to start and business or earn a living here due to onerous additional - and unnecessary - taxation.
So, let's summarize. Whether you want to call it Global Warming (the globe is NOT warming!), or Climate Change (it's always changing!), or Climate Chaos (the only chaos I can see is among this bunch of flim-flam artists who are trying to figure out what to call it next!).
One Mr. John Coleman, Co-Founder of Weather Channel, tells us that we're dumbass fools if we buy into this nonsense. I'm not, are you?
Thursday, September 14, 2017
Eau de Bacon!
This outstanding business opportunity is being made available to a very select group of friends and family. If you are among the recipients, consider yourself among the exalted few. And now, my friends, prepare to be amazed...
Eau de Bacon!
Yes, my friends, Eau de Bacon (that's "Eau" with a long "O." It's French, doncha' know). My answer to the rash of beheadings which have taken hold of the world, also presents with it an amazing business opportunity It appears that the Islamic Jihadist terrorist killer thugs are beheading all thither and yon, presumably upset are they that we, Westerners and non-believers, won't convert en masse to Islam. And so, they're in a tizzy. And when you get an Islamic terrorist in a tizzy, you just know the results aren't going to be good. They go all medieval on you, knifing and stabbing and shooting and running you over with big box trucks. Not good at all.
So, what do we know? We know that Islamic terrorists hate dogs, and capitalism, and tight-fitting clothes, and females over the age of twelve, and running out of ammunition, and freedom, and pork, and all products made therefrom.
Soooooo, for those who have decided not to carry a concealed weapon and use it if and when the need arises (shame be upon thee!), it struck me that one of the things we Westerners can do to protect ourselves from these roving Jihadist thug murderers is to create a Porcine Protective. A Ham Hamperer. A Bacon Barrier. Soooo, for women I propose bacon earrings! Yes, strips of nice, thick-cut, smoked, cured and brown sugar-infused bacon strips, hanging proudly from their earlobes, protecting them from roving bands of Muslim Marauders.
And for the guys, I recommend a couple of shots of Eau de Bacon, The Chuckmeister's answer to aftershave and cologne. Just a couple of squirts on your neck and underarms before you head out the door will cause the essence of pork to waft unhesitatingly toward any Jihadist in the immediate vicinity. And they will run, my friends, not walk, in the opposite direction to avoid any contact at all with those who wear it.
And here in Taxifornia, where folks are often unsure of their own gender, perhaps wearing both would provide the necessary protection. I mean, you don't want to venture out without protection, do you? You could even keep some extra in your billfold. Heh, heh.
Just think of it. Bacon earrings all a'dangle, or Bacon cologne, liberally applied, will stop a prospective beheader in his sandals! They won't know what to do with themselves! They'll likely put down their machine guns and head on back to the mosque to confer with their Imam and get further instructions as to how they can come up with another nefarious plan to ruin our collective days. And if enough of us protect ourselves in this fashion, along with the smart ones of us who are packing heat, I'm of the opinion all these Islamic terrorists will head on back to France, or England, or Indonesia, or Amsterdam, and even back to Afghanistan, or Pakistan, or Kurdistan, or one of the other "stans," to tend to their goats and think about the beheadings that could have been...
I'm looking for some entrepreneurial types who will join with me to manufacture some great Piggy Products. I mean, how much can it possibly cost to put together a credible bacon processing and repurposing enterprise? Does anyone know Hormel's phone number? This is a sty-floor opportunity! There's money to be made here, folks! And we might as well be the people to make it! And just think! We could save some lives in the process!
Get back to me. This is an idea whose time has come!
Sunday, September 10, 2017
"Statuegate," Part Deux...
My old friend and blog-mentor Geoff West has ascribed the term "Statuegate" to the furor unfolding around the flagellating Leftoids' double-time effort to remove statues of Confederate leaders (and presumably anyone else who offends their tender sensibilities) from the Public Square. Oh yeah, and The Chuckmeister's choosing to cast on it the harsh light of negative publicity.
Sounds good to me. And, as you'll recall from my 08/28/17 posting, "Why Stop at Just Statues," I offered up suggestions as to some other stuff that these bozos should get about removing if they were really serious about erasing potential "triggers" from Leftist snowflakes.
That posting stirred up a lot of back-and-forth. So, I, The Chuckmeister, your humble scribe, decided to do even more in-depth research and find a few more statues that we should remove post-haste if we're really serious about sanitizing our history of the Bad Guys and their evil actions. Ready? Here we go...
1. Statue of Che Guevara: There's a statue of Ernesto "El Che" Guevara located in Central Park in New York City, today. Yes, my friends, this idol of the fawning Left and notorious crazed mass murderer has a statue right in the heart of the City he openly stated he would have "taken out" if Soviet missiles hadn't been removed from Cuba in the '60's. An early supporter of Castro, Che killed thousands of Cuban dissidents during the uprising that overthrew the elected government of Juan Batista. He stated that "he didn't have time for trials to determine guilt." Hmmm. Sounds a lot like the rush to sanitize our history of all "unpleasant" things unfolding today in Liberal-dom.
The crazed Leftists that are defacing Lincoln's statue and declaring Chris Columbus a mass murderer have somehow failed to notice that an actual communist mass murderer's statue is located within blocks of the New York Times (and close by numerous souvenir shops who persist in selling "El Che" t-shirts). Does one have anything to do with the other? Hmmm, again. Maybe this posting will provide the necessary alert they need...
2. Statue of Margaret Sanger: In the venerable old Smithsonian Institution is a statue of famous racist and eugenicist Margaret Sanger. Even if you happen to agree with what her organization, "Planned Parenthood," has become today, you have to temper that enthusiasm with the reality that she was a Black-hating eugenicist. One of her more popular writings was entitled, "The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda." In it she said things like "Eugenics is...the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems." Eugenics, if you aren't aware, is "the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the desirable heritable characteristics." In other words, abort those who are less desirable to improve the breed. Like Blacks. And Hispanics. And American Indians. Adolph Hitler used Sanger's work as a basis for his "Final Solution." Black groups and pro-life supporters have worked for years to try and get this statue taken down, with no success. Maybe those who are busy tearing down statues ought to consider adding this one to their list...
3. Statue of Robert Byrd: Located in the Capitol Building's Statuary Hall is a statue of Robert Byrd, one of the longest serving U.S. Senators. You may not know that this guy was at one time the leader of his Ku Klux Klan chapter, winning the title of "Exalted Cyclops" unanimously. I guess that's good. In 1944 he wrote a letter to Mississippi senator Bilbo stating, "I shall never fight in the armed forces with a negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds."
Fewer than 10 years after writing that alarming piece, he was elected a Senator in the Democrat Party. Oh yeah, by the way, the Democrat Party started the Ku Klux Klan. He ran on a platform of opposing desegregation and civil rights, arguing it was for the states to decide, and was reelected time and again, holding that Senate seat until his death. Doesn't anybody but me know that Byrd's statue is in the Capitol? If you're of a Leftoid persuasion, would you be so kind as to inform your ideological soul-mates that here's another one for them to target?
4. Statue of Vladimir Lenin: Located in a park in Seattle is a 16 foot-high statue of this (in)famous communist leader. Has he gotten a pass because he was a liberal? He was as violent and deadly as any Confederate soldier ever was, having used executions, hostage taking and concentration camps to force obedience or punish his enemies. He used mass starvation of the peasants to insure his own followers were well fed. In all, his death toll is counted at 4 million. Yet his statue still stands. Leftist thugs are removing statues of Confederate heroes while this enemy of right-thinking people everywhere is still standing proudly. Why?
Oh yeah, I'd be remiss if, in closing, I didn't mention to the nice folks in "flyover country," my old homies, that the Lost Angeles City Council voted last week to officially change "Columbus Day" to "Indigenous Peoples' Day." Yes, they actually did that. To them, this explorer, discoverer of the New World and hero of Italians everywhere is a mass murderer and exploiter of poor people who weren't bothering anybody, and It's getting to the point where one has to double check every unbelievable story like this one to make sure it wasn't ripped from the pages of "The Onion" or dreamed up by Saturday Night Live. It wasn't...
By the way, the next time somebody wants to play Cowboys and Indians, tell them to change the designation to "Bovine Management Specialists and Indigenous Mistreated Peoples" before you agree to play along...
Sounds good to me. And, as you'll recall from my 08/28/17 posting, "Why Stop at Just Statues," I offered up suggestions as to some other stuff that these bozos should get about removing if they were really serious about erasing potential "triggers" from Leftist snowflakes.
That posting stirred up a lot of back-and-forth. So, I, The Chuckmeister, your humble scribe, decided to do even more in-depth research and find a few more statues that we should remove post-haste if we're really serious about sanitizing our history of the Bad Guys and their evil actions. Ready? Here we go...
1. Statue of Che Guevara: There's a statue of Ernesto "El Che" Guevara located in Central Park in New York City, today. Yes, my friends, this idol of the fawning Left and notorious crazed mass murderer has a statue right in the heart of the City he openly stated he would have "taken out" if Soviet missiles hadn't been removed from Cuba in the '60's. An early supporter of Castro, Che killed thousands of Cuban dissidents during the uprising that overthrew the elected government of Juan Batista. He stated that "he didn't have time for trials to determine guilt." Hmmm. Sounds a lot like the rush to sanitize our history of all "unpleasant" things unfolding today in Liberal-dom.
The crazed Leftists that are defacing Lincoln's statue and declaring Chris Columbus a mass murderer have somehow failed to notice that an actual communist mass murderer's statue is located within blocks of the New York Times (and close by numerous souvenir shops who persist in selling "El Che" t-shirts). Does one have anything to do with the other? Hmmm, again. Maybe this posting will provide the necessary alert they need...
2. Statue of Margaret Sanger: In the venerable old Smithsonian Institution is a statue of famous racist and eugenicist Margaret Sanger. Even if you happen to agree with what her organization, "Planned Parenthood," has become today, you have to temper that enthusiasm with the reality that she was a Black-hating eugenicist. One of her more popular writings was entitled, "The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda." In it she said things like "Eugenics is...the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems." Eugenics, if you aren't aware, is "the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the desirable heritable characteristics." In other words, abort those who are less desirable to improve the breed. Like Blacks. And Hispanics. And American Indians. Adolph Hitler used Sanger's work as a basis for his "Final Solution." Black groups and pro-life supporters have worked for years to try and get this statue taken down, with no success. Maybe those who are busy tearing down statues ought to consider adding this one to their list...
3. Statue of Robert Byrd: Located in the Capitol Building's Statuary Hall is a statue of Robert Byrd, one of the longest serving U.S. Senators. You may not know that this guy was at one time the leader of his Ku Klux Klan chapter, winning the title of "Exalted Cyclops" unanimously. I guess that's good. In 1944 he wrote a letter to Mississippi senator Bilbo stating, "I shall never fight in the armed forces with a negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds."
Fewer than 10 years after writing that alarming piece, he was elected a Senator in the Democrat Party. Oh yeah, by the way, the Democrat Party started the Ku Klux Klan. He ran on a platform of opposing desegregation and civil rights, arguing it was for the states to decide, and was reelected time and again, holding that Senate seat until his death. Doesn't anybody but me know that Byrd's statue is in the Capitol? If you're of a Leftoid persuasion, would you be so kind as to inform your ideological soul-mates that here's another one for them to target?
4. Statue of Vladimir Lenin: Located in a park in Seattle is a 16 foot-high statue of this (in)famous communist leader. Has he gotten a pass because he was a liberal? He was as violent and deadly as any Confederate soldier ever was, having used executions, hostage taking and concentration camps to force obedience or punish his enemies. He used mass starvation of the peasants to insure his own followers were well fed. In all, his death toll is counted at 4 million. Yet his statue still stands. Leftist thugs are removing statues of Confederate heroes while this enemy of right-thinking people everywhere is still standing proudly. Why?
Oh yeah, I'd be remiss if, in closing, I didn't mention to the nice folks in "flyover country," my old homies, that the Lost Angeles City Council voted last week to officially change "Columbus Day" to "Indigenous Peoples' Day." Yes, they actually did that. To them, this explorer, discoverer of the New World and hero of Italians everywhere is a mass murderer and exploiter of poor people who weren't bothering anybody, and It's getting to the point where one has to double check every unbelievable story like this one to make sure it wasn't ripped from the pages of "The Onion" or dreamed up by Saturday Night Live. It wasn't...
By the way, the next time somebody wants to play Cowboys and Indians, tell them to change the designation to "Bovine Management Specialists and Indigenous Mistreated Peoples" before you agree to play along...
Tuesday, September 5, 2017
In Honor of Labor Day...
Labor Day has come and gone. Once again. And in honor of this annual paean to the "Dirty Jobs" crowd, I thought it only fair and reasonable to take a look at a really dumb, ignorant, and foolish movement that Just. Won't. Die.
You might have heard that the Left is in full "beast mode" over the "Fight for Fifteen." That's the little tag line they've given to the Social Justice Warriors' effort to get the "little guy" a "living wage."
Now, you of course know that the minimum wage was never intended to be a "living wage." It was intended to be a starting wage for a pimply-faced teenager who's working his way through junior college while living in his parent's basement. Just enough income for him or her (or, in California, "it") to put a couple of gallons of gas in the family truckster so it can trundle on down to the Weinerschnitzel where little Johnnie or Joannie can earn that piddling hourly income. Just enough to hopefully teach the newfer hire to get to work on time, to learn how to interact with others, to do the job as indicated, and to develop the work-related skills necessary to earn an eventual living. The amount your Elected Leaders have decided to forcibly extricate from employers and redistribute to Johnnie/Joannie in an effort to attempt to justify their overblown salaries.
That of course assumes that the Gummint has any right to determine what constitutes a "minimum wage." Somehow the "more equal than you" ("Animal Farm") decided that they were going to go to bat for those without the power to determine their own fate by interjecting themselves between the buyer (the employer) and the seller (the employee). It would seem to me that a "market driven" approach would be to permit the prospective employee and the prospective employer to negotiate between themselves a rate of pay acceptable to each party. For after all, if the buyer (employer) can't entice the seller (employee) to take the bait and come to work, then that buyer will necessarily have to hike his starting pay higher and higher in order to find a number acceptable to the would-be hire.
But nooooooooo! They just have to muck things up. To them, a "market driven" approach would likely be trying to decide which of their electric cars they were going to drive to the local Whole Foods Market to pick up their supply of gluten-free, GMO-free, calorie- and carbohydrate-free, nuts, fruits and berries.
And just to button things up, it would seem that our elected officials forgot to read the 10th Amendment to the Bill of Rights, which forbids the Feds from doing exactly what they've been doing. Read it. You'll be amazed at what those we employ are doing to us in front of our backs. But back to the rant...
The Obama Years so devastated the economy, and destroyed the job market, that many of our neighbors were forced to work at sometimes two or even three min-wage jobs because their normal middle-class job just flat went away. And so the focus turned to min-wage in an effort to get some of the 93+ million who've been out of the work force, an all-time new record, by the way, back into the traces.
And to that we add the private-sector unions continual loss of members over the past several decades. Private-sector union membership in this category is at an all-time low at about 6.7%. That means that the fat cat union bosses are in danger of no longer being able to vacation several times a year to the toniest of locations around the globe, or take their trophy wives (or girl friends! Or both!) on high-zoot shopping trips and super-scrumptious din-dins at the most expensive shops and eateries.
So, they went looking for a new target. Voila! They sensed an opening at your local McDonalds. And Jack-In-The-Boxes, and at the local Burger King, but mainly MickeyD's, being the oldest, the largest, and presumably the most manipulable.
They decided if they put a full-court press on their elected Democrat serfs they could shame the fast food joints into coughing up $15 an hour for their entry level burger flippers. An amount, by the way, which is greater then what we pay our newly-minted soldiers for agreeing to risk their lives to keep us all safe. And what if they're successful? They'd swoop in and unionize these newly-rich zombies, and reap the rewards for having done so.
Don't tell anyone but if successful, these "newly rich" would lose their Earned Income Tax Credits (a check from the Gummint for not making enough money!), and have to start paying income taxes. The net result, after the loss of bennies and the tax bite, plus confiscatory union dues, would be less take-home than if things were left completely as-is. Not to mention the fact that employers would have no choice but to reduce the hours min-wage-types could work, so as to forestall their possible bankruptcy.
They began protesting 24/7 around MickeyD's Oak Park, IL headquarters, apparently blissfully unaware that franchisers cannot dictate to their franchisees how much to pay their employees. If they did, dear union dweebs, they would be guilty of breaking the law. Kind of like it being illegal for auto makers to tell their dealers how to price the cars they sell. It's illegal. Got it?
But there's One Major Factor at the foundation of this whole argument. The Lefties who have never started or operated a business believe down deep in their hearts that every single business owner is a millionaire, and that they should be forced to turn loose of some of their Vast Wealth to enable their flunky employees (and future Democrat voters) to live like college graduates. They're very simply jealous. Jealous of those who've worked hard and made a success out of their businesses and their lives. They're weapons-grade dumb. Really dumb. And socialistic in the extreme.
So they all got together around a table at one of those top-tier steak houses and decided how deeply to dive into the Korean grocers' pockets. And the guy's who owns the local lumber yard. And the doctor's, and dentist's, and the car salesman's. And while we're on this subject, let me bring to your attention something you may not have considered before. Ready? Here goes:
What gives these self-dealing, socialist bozos the right to take from citizen "A" and redistribute it to citizen "B?"
Put another way, why should elected bureaucrats be permitted to literally take, via coercion, and replete with the threats of legal action, something, anything, from that self-same Korean grocer and give it to some dimbulb 25 year-old with a degree in Medieval Lesbian Poetry simply because he just can't find a job? And then take more if and when the spirit moves them to do so? And more!
And while we're on the subject, why $15.00 an hour? Where did that arbitrary number come from? And who decided it was the hill upon which they would choose to die? Could that be the exact number that would permit the unions to capture a whole flock of new members?
Against a Fed Min-Wage of $7.25, most states have min-wages in the $7.25 - $9 dollar range. To make the leap all the way to $15 is extreme! And likely bizz-killing to businesses that operate on thin profit margins. Like 2% - 5%. Like fast food joints. And supermarkets. And department stores. Are we really ready to see vast numbers of businesses close their doors all because we want to redistribute some of their "vast" wealth to losers, with the hoped-for result being the garnering of the recipients votes? And if $15 is good, isn't $20 better? Or $25? Or how about $50? Since we're unfairly picking the pockets of that Korean grocer, why not really stiff the bastard by taking everything he owns?
Santa Monica adopted $15 an hour min-wage a couple of years back. And they've lost over 20% of all their fast food sector as a result. The Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SeaTac) did the same in 2016. Fully half their restaurants have closed in the terminals and those with plans to open have shelved them. The same has happened in other locales which have bowed to the wishes of the Far Left. Where will it end?
Maybe we mere tax payers should get together, take the reins of this out-of-control situation, and return the favor. What if we ordinary types decided to require, nay demand, that lawmakers, the self-same scam artists that have so effectively taken control of our pay checks, how much of the lawmakers' salaries should be donated to charity? I mean, they probably average, ummm, ZERO! What if we required, say 15%? Not 7%, not 10%, fifteen percentoids! Something tells moi that they would scream like schoolgirls at a midnight "Carrie" screening.
I've done the numbers, my friends. A bump in min-wage from $8 to $15 an hour would cost the average MickeyD's about $150,000 a year. The average MickeyD's franchisee makes about $150,000 a year. Plus, such an increase would necessarily force a price increase so that $5.99 value meals would become $8.99 no-value meals. A 20% reduction in sales could therefore be predicted. And therefore a loss of somewhere around $250,000 a year. So, this wealth redistribution exercise would remove all the motivation a guy would have to have to both open a franchise (roughly $700,000!), and then work his arse off to run it. And it would likely put Mickey out of business, and Jack, and Wendy. Get it? I thought you would...
Example of this monumental failure? Sure. St. Louis City adopted a $13.00 an hour starting on July 1st. That rate was increased from last year's $9.00, and the $11.00 rate that became effective on January 1st. When they learned that employees' hours worked were going down precipitously as a result, they immediately pushed through a quick re-do, rescinding their previous increase post-haste. Smart, right?
Smarter than the City of Seattle, which bumped up the min-wage back in 2014 from the already high $9.47 an hour, to $11.00 in 2015, and boosted it up again to a stratospheric $13.00 in 2016. Seattle was interested in finding out what their rash actions might do to, you know, peoples' incomes (wouldn't you think they would have done that first?), that they commissioned a study by the University of Washington. Their results indicated that these disruptive and anti-business actions caused hours worked by low-skilled workers to fall by 9.4% during the three quarters when the minimum wage was $13, resulting in a loss of 3.5 million hours worked per calendar quarter. Those lost hours cost the average min-wage employee $179.00 pr month, while the wage increase would recoup only $54.00 of this loss, leaving a net loss of $125.00 per month (6.6%)!
If only workers were getting hurt it would be bad enough. But businesses were getting hammered, as one would expect. Results from the study also indicated that business operating profits were down more than 25% and closures had skyrocketed more than 9%! Not good, my friends. And businesses started leaving Seattle in droves, relocating to the suburbs so as to avoid getting screwed by their Leftist overlords in the City Council.
I mean, what do these bozos expect? Do they really believe that business owners will just bend over and take it up the kazoo when law makers make dumb laws? Obviously not...
And so, dear readers, remember that those who attempt to use threats, coercion and the heavy hand of governmental intrusion to reorder economic realities in an effort to feather their own nests are the enemies of freedom! And they should be treated as such.
Oh yeah, by the way, I am a graduate economist and actually know in this one, rare instance what the Hell about which I'm actually talking (with apologies to Yoda). So if you are usually persuaded to disregard the pronunciamentos spewing forth from The Chuckmeister's gargantuan intellect, choose to wrap your collective brains around this one. It's actually rooted in reality...
Of course, the otherwise-unemployable dimbulb politicians in Sacramento, and other Deep Blue state capitols, can sleep well knowing that the havoc they wreck, if successful, will likely result in hundreds of thousands of bankruptcies and a huge bump in unemployment, and quite possibly a full-blown recession. But that's okay. They're probably too damn dumb to notice. And the people to put them there, and keep sending them back, are as well...
You might have heard that the Left is in full "beast mode" over the "Fight for Fifteen." That's the little tag line they've given to the Social Justice Warriors' effort to get the "little guy" a "living wage."
Now, you of course know that the minimum wage was never intended to be a "living wage." It was intended to be a starting wage for a pimply-faced teenager who's working his way through junior college while living in his parent's basement. Just enough income for him or her (or, in California, "it") to put a couple of gallons of gas in the family truckster so it can trundle on down to the Weinerschnitzel where little Johnnie or Joannie can earn that piddling hourly income. Just enough to hopefully teach the newfer hire to get to work on time, to learn how to interact with others, to do the job as indicated, and to develop the work-related skills necessary to earn an eventual living. The amount your Elected Leaders have decided to forcibly extricate from employers and redistribute to Johnnie/Joannie in an effort to attempt to justify their overblown salaries.
That of course assumes that the Gummint has any right to determine what constitutes a "minimum wage." Somehow the "more equal than you" ("Animal Farm") decided that they were going to go to bat for those without the power to determine their own fate by interjecting themselves between the buyer (the employer) and the seller (the employee). It would seem to me that a "market driven" approach would be to permit the prospective employee and the prospective employer to negotiate between themselves a rate of pay acceptable to each party. For after all, if the buyer (employer) can't entice the seller (employee) to take the bait and come to work, then that buyer will necessarily have to hike his starting pay higher and higher in order to find a number acceptable to the would-be hire.
But nooooooooo! They just have to muck things up. To them, a "market driven" approach would likely be trying to decide which of their electric cars they were going to drive to the local Whole Foods Market to pick up their supply of gluten-free, GMO-free, calorie- and carbohydrate-free, nuts, fruits and berries.
And just to button things up, it would seem that our elected officials forgot to read the 10th Amendment to the Bill of Rights, which forbids the Feds from doing exactly what they've been doing. Read it. You'll be amazed at what those we employ are doing to us in front of our backs. But back to the rant...
The Obama Years so devastated the economy, and destroyed the job market, that many of our neighbors were forced to work at sometimes two or even three min-wage jobs because their normal middle-class job just flat went away. And so the focus turned to min-wage in an effort to get some of the 93+ million who've been out of the work force, an all-time new record, by the way, back into the traces.
And to that we add the private-sector unions continual loss of members over the past several decades. Private-sector union membership in this category is at an all-time low at about 6.7%. That means that the fat cat union bosses are in danger of no longer being able to vacation several times a year to the toniest of locations around the globe, or take their trophy wives (or girl friends! Or both!) on high-zoot shopping trips and super-scrumptious din-dins at the most expensive shops and eateries.
So, they went looking for a new target. Voila! They sensed an opening at your local McDonalds. And Jack-In-The-Boxes, and at the local Burger King, but mainly MickeyD's, being the oldest, the largest, and presumably the most manipulable.
They decided if they put a full-court press on their elected Democrat serfs they could shame the fast food joints into coughing up $15 an hour for their entry level burger flippers. An amount, by the way, which is greater then what we pay our newly-minted soldiers for agreeing to risk their lives to keep us all safe. And what if they're successful? They'd swoop in and unionize these newly-rich zombies, and reap the rewards for having done so.
Don't tell anyone but if successful, these "newly rich" would lose their Earned Income Tax Credits (a check from the Gummint for not making enough money!), and have to start paying income taxes. The net result, after the loss of bennies and the tax bite, plus confiscatory union dues, would be less take-home than if things were left completely as-is. Not to mention the fact that employers would have no choice but to reduce the hours min-wage-types could work, so as to forestall their possible bankruptcy.
They began protesting 24/7 around MickeyD's Oak Park, IL headquarters, apparently blissfully unaware that franchisers cannot dictate to their franchisees how much to pay their employees. If they did, dear union dweebs, they would be guilty of breaking the law. Kind of like it being illegal for auto makers to tell their dealers how to price the cars they sell. It's illegal. Got it?
But there's One Major Factor at the foundation of this whole argument. The Lefties who have never started or operated a business believe down deep in their hearts that every single business owner is a millionaire, and that they should be forced to turn loose of some of their Vast Wealth to enable their flunky employees (and future Democrat voters) to live like college graduates. They're very simply jealous. Jealous of those who've worked hard and made a success out of their businesses and their lives. They're weapons-grade dumb. Really dumb. And socialistic in the extreme.
So they all got together around a table at one of those top-tier steak houses and decided how deeply to dive into the Korean grocers' pockets. And the guy's who owns the local lumber yard. And the doctor's, and dentist's, and the car salesman's. And while we're on this subject, let me bring to your attention something you may not have considered before. Ready? Here goes:
What gives these self-dealing, socialist bozos the right to take from citizen "A" and redistribute it to citizen "B?"
Put another way, why should elected bureaucrats be permitted to literally take, via coercion, and replete with the threats of legal action, something, anything, from that self-same Korean grocer and give it to some dimbulb 25 year-old with a degree in Medieval Lesbian Poetry simply because he just can't find a job? And then take more if and when the spirit moves them to do so? And more!
And while we're on the subject, why $15.00 an hour? Where did that arbitrary number come from? And who decided it was the hill upon which they would choose to die? Could that be the exact number that would permit the unions to capture a whole flock of new members?
Against a Fed Min-Wage of $7.25, most states have min-wages in the $7.25 - $9 dollar range. To make the leap all the way to $15 is extreme! And likely bizz-killing to businesses that operate on thin profit margins. Like 2% - 5%. Like fast food joints. And supermarkets. And department stores. Are we really ready to see vast numbers of businesses close their doors all because we want to redistribute some of their "vast" wealth to losers, with the hoped-for result being the garnering of the recipients votes? And if $15 is good, isn't $20 better? Or $25? Or how about $50? Since we're unfairly picking the pockets of that Korean grocer, why not really stiff the bastard by taking everything he owns?
Santa Monica adopted $15 an hour min-wage a couple of years back. And they've lost over 20% of all their fast food sector as a result. The Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SeaTac) did the same in 2016. Fully half their restaurants have closed in the terminals and those with plans to open have shelved them. The same has happened in other locales which have bowed to the wishes of the Far Left. Where will it end?
Maybe we mere tax payers should get together, take the reins of this out-of-control situation, and return the favor. What if we ordinary types decided to require, nay demand, that lawmakers, the self-same scam artists that have so effectively taken control of our pay checks, how much of the lawmakers' salaries should be donated to charity? I mean, they probably average, ummm, ZERO! What if we required, say 15%? Not 7%, not 10%, fifteen percentoids! Something tells moi that they would scream like schoolgirls at a midnight "Carrie" screening.
I've done the numbers, my friends. A bump in min-wage from $8 to $15 an hour would cost the average MickeyD's about $150,000 a year. The average MickeyD's franchisee makes about $150,000 a year. Plus, such an increase would necessarily force a price increase so that $5.99 value meals would become $8.99 no-value meals. A 20% reduction in sales could therefore be predicted. And therefore a loss of somewhere around $250,000 a year. So, this wealth redistribution exercise would remove all the motivation a guy would have to have to both open a franchise (roughly $700,000!), and then work his arse off to run it. And it would likely put Mickey out of business, and Jack, and Wendy. Get it? I thought you would...
Example of this monumental failure? Sure. St. Louis City adopted a $13.00 an hour starting on July 1st. That rate was increased from last year's $9.00, and the $11.00 rate that became effective on January 1st. When they learned that employees' hours worked were going down precipitously as a result, they immediately pushed through a quick re-do, rescinding their previous increase post-haste. Smart, right?
Smarter than the City of Seattle, which bumped up the min-wage back in 2014 from the already high $9.47 an hour, to $11.00 in 2015, and boosted it up again to a stratospheric $13.00 in 2016. Seattle was interested in finding out what their rash actions might do to, you know, peoples' incomes (wouldn't you think they would have done that first?), that they commissioned a study by the University of Washington. Their results indicated that these disruptive and anti-business actions caused hours worked by low-skilled workers to fall by 9.4% during the three quarters when the minimum wage was $13, resulting in a loss of 3.5 million hours worked per calendar quarter. Those lost hours cost the average min-wage employee $179.00 pr month, while the wage increase would recoup only $54.00 of this loss, leaving a net loss of $125.00 per month (6.6%)!
If only workers were getting hurt it would be bad enough. But businesses were getting hammered, as one would expect. Results from the study also indicated that business operating profits were down more than 25% and closures had skyrocketed more than 9%! Not good, my friends. And businesses started leaving Seattle in droves, relocating to the suburbs so as to avoid getting screwed by their Leftist overlords in the City Council.
I mean, what do these bozos expect? Do they really believe that business owners will just bend over and take it up the kazoo when law makers make dumb laws? Obviously not...
And so, dear readers, remember that those who attempt to use threats, coercion and the heavy hand of governmental intrusion to reorder economic realities in an effort to feather their own nests are the enemies of freedom! And they should be treated as such.
Oh yeah, by the way, I am a graduate economist and actually know in this one, rare instance what the Hell about which I'm actually talking (with apologies to Yoda). So if you are usually persuaded to disregard the pronunciamentos spewing forth from The Chuckmeister's gargantuan intellect, choose to wrap your collective brains around this one. It's actually rooted in reality...
Of course, the otherwise-unemployable dimbulb politicians in Sacramento, and other Deep Blue state capitols, can sleep well knowing that the havoc they wreck, if successful, will likely result in hundreds of thousands of bankruptcies and a huge bump in unemployment, and quite possibly a full-blown recession. But that's okay. They're probably too damn dumb to notice. And the people to put them there, and keep sending them back, are as well...
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