Month: July 2013

You Want Fries With That Socialism?

Mark Noonan131 Comments

A lot of fast food workers went out on a wildcat strike today in several American cities.  Fox News’ Niel Cavuto interviewed one of the strikers (via Gateway Pundit):

Shenita Simon: “Those that think we’re making so much money and if we follow a particular type of budget, I can’t afford to pay rent. I can’t afford to feed my children. I can’t even afford the healthcare for my husband. Things that you guys see as everyday life is luxury to me and it’s not fair… I say, why are you the companies, you the franchisees getting raises. You’re making billions and millions of dollars per year. Why can’t we barely survive? Why is it we who are employees, who work, who put in hard sweat, why can’t we survive? Why do we have to go hungry at night? Why can’t we pay rent? Eight dollars, seven twenty-five, seven fifty is not enough.

Neil Cavuto: Is it a fast-food company’s purpose and responsibility to meet pay, to keep up with the living standards of a given city? Is it really up to that organization?

Shenita Simon: It’s their responsibility. Because when they’re cutting our checks, not giving us lunch breaks, you’re not giving us benefits. When you’re doing illegal actions against us. Yes, it’s your responsibility. Because when we’re making the bare minimum, and you’re stealing from us. Of course, we can’t survive…

Indeed, you can’t – an adult with family responsibilities can’t make ends meet while working at a fast food joint at minimum wage.  Thing is, such a job is never going to be a job which can support someone with family responsibilities.  Such a job is either for a young, entry level worker just getting started in life, or for an elderly person supplementing retirement pay.

It is true that the fast food companies are making quite a lot of money – and you can bet dollars to donuts that the senior executives are rolling in pay and benefits.  But if you have ten workers at a fast food joint making $7.50 and hour and “win” your fight to increase pay to $15.00 an hour, all you’ll get is five or less workers manning the store…the other five will be replaced by automation.  No matter how you want to slice it up, flipping burgers is just not that valuable an occupation.  It is useful work.  It is work which needs to be done.  It, like all honest work, has inherent dignity.  But it is work which just about anyone can do – supply and demand; when there is a very large pool of potential workers for a particular job then there is no rational reason for high wages being paid.

Ms. Simon’s problem is not that fast food work is low paid – her problem is that she’s working there when her skill level should have long ago moved her in to a more difficult and highly paid line of work.  There are two explanations for why she hasn’t – and I don’t know which is the more prominent part in her life, and it doesn’t really matter:

1.  She’s messed up in her own life to the point where she’s stuck in a dead end, entry level job.

2.  The people who run our government – and whom she probably voted for – don’t like having a lot of jobs around which would allow someone like Ms. Simon, if she applied herself, to rise step by step up the employment ladder until she reaches a point where her wages afford a comfortable, middle class life for an adult with family responsibilities.

If Ms. Simon wanted to do something useful, she’d lead a protest demanding Obama stop blocking the Keystone pipeline…and she’d move to those areas of the country which are booming and thus have bags of blue collar jobs available for anyone who is willing to work hard and slowly move up the ladder of success.  But, she’s not in to that – either not in to challenging her liberal leaders, or not that in to investing the sweat equity necessary to move from minimum wage to middle class wage work.  She wants a free ride – no development of her skills; no challenge to her work ethic, but double the pay she’s getting now.

That is the essential pull of socialism for the lower class – a promise of getting a lot more for doing no more (or even less) than they are now.  Of course, if Ms. Simon and those like her really get their way, there won’t be fries with that socialism…not much work would get done, at all…especially as we’d all be too busy lining up for our potato rations…

UPDATE:

Some really great points have been made in the comments and now I’ll step up and defend Ms. Simon a bit. She does, indeed, have a cockeyed view of the world and if she “wins”, then all she’ll do is lose…unless, of course, she becomes an apparatchik passing out the potato rations to the rest of us (socialist revolutionaries fall in to two categories – in the upper echelons, wanna-be Lenins; in the lower ranks those who essentially aspire to be bureaucrats or policemen). But, remember, the world she lives in has not been made by her – that she lives in a world where getting a decent education is becoming increasingly difficult and finding blue collar work with a future ever rarer is because of the design – conscious or not – of the Ruling Class. That this Ruling Class is largely made up of people whom Ms. Simon votes for – and which feeds her the terminology she uses in her battle – is neither here nor there; she is living in their world, and following their script.

In New York City rent control keeps rents high; a miserably bad education system is in the iron grip of the unions which entirely control the city government; high taxes discourage new business formation; various regulations and taxes make manufacturing within the city limits difficult to do at a profit; imported illegal labor ensures that a great deal of the entry-level jobs are priced genuinely too low for a legal American to live on (illegal immigrants are commonly – and illegally and unsafely – jammed very many in to each substandard housing unit); union control of the few genuinely productive areas left (especially the port) ensures that unless you’re juiced in with the union, you ain’t getting a job there. For someone like Ms. Simon, there isn’t much of a chance – she can’t get educated (even if she goes to school – even to college; they won’t teach her), she can’t start her own business, there aren’t any decent blue collar jobs for her to get…so, she’s working at McD’s and is frustrated – and then in the final, sick irony, she’s set out in to the streets by the rhetoric of the very Ruling Class which has set up a system where she is bound to fail, unless she becomes one of their little, Stalinist tools for continued control. Have pity on the poor lady – she knows not what she does.

We have to change this – we have to get in there and start “community organizing”…explaining to the Ms. Simons that her problem is, indeed, a rich, white oppressor…but it ain’t the redneck with his rebel flag painted on his truck…its the upper class liberal with his “equality” sticker on the back of his Prius.

The NSA and America’s Defensive Crouch

Mark Noonan78 Comments

The House narrowly defeated an amendment today which would have ended the NSA’s surveillance program on Americans.  Zero Hedge has the list of those who vote aye and nay, so you can see which side of this your own Congresscritter fell (mine, a liberal Democrat – and long-term political hack here in my State – voted to keep the NSA program…but don’t be fooled, this was bi-partisan both in voting to end and voting to keep). 

Its good to keep in mind why we have this massive intelligence system – because on December 7th, 1941, we were caught with our pants down.  From that day to this, the United States government has been determined not to be surprised – and so a gigantic intelligence bureaucracy has been built up, and like all government bureaucracies, it has become self-perpetuating – and the actual results of the bureaucracy are irrelevant.

Think about it – when you actually review the events leading up to December 7th, it is plain as a pikestaff that the Japanese were going to attack, and as they were going to attack, it is just a simple leap of logic to understand that they would attack the strongest military force the United States possessed in the Pacific – our fleet.  The proper response to all this would have been aggressive patrolling by the entire fleet…seeking out any approaching threat and dealing with it in conventional, naval battle once the aggressive intent was determined (in this case, when the enemy fleet was found a thousand miles away from Japanese waters and heading towards US waters).  But that entails risk – and the risk of failure; two things politicians and most senior military leaders shy away from (honestly, for the most part no one is more craven than a senior admiral or general…having risen to the top, their primary purpose in life is to remain at the top and eventually retire without any mishap…only a very few understand their actual job and are willing to put it all on the line for it).  And, so, we were “surprised” – and the response of our leaders, political and military, was not to change to using foresight and courage, but to crouch down and build up an intelligence system which would, allegedly, prevent a repeat.

It didn’t work, of course.  We still got 9/11 – heck, even earlier, back in 1950 we were caught flat-footed by hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops in Korea.  Think about that!  This was hordes of Chinese troops streaming in to the narrow peninsula of Korea and we missed it!  It didn’t work because intelligence information is only useful if you are determined to act upon it – there were indications of Chinese intervention (just as there were indications of a pending terrorist attack in 2001), but its not like intelligence will ever give you the time and date of the enemy attack, except in the rarest of instances.  In other words, unless you are a person determined to resolve the problem, no amount of intelligence will do you any good – no matter how reliable and comprehensive it is, if you’ve got no guts then you’re not going to do what is necessary to make having the intelligence worthwhile. 

Had we desired to prevent war with Japan, win the war in Korea or prevent the 9/11 terrorist attacks, then certain policies had to be enacted – risky policies which could go very wrong.  We’d have had to been willing to go after the problem – to solve the problem.  But, as I said, doing such risks defeat – and politicians and generals don’t like defeat.  To put it harshly, a politician or general would rather have people and troops massacred in a “surprise” attack than risk their careers by taking actions which might forestall an attack and solve the problem.  We’re in a defensive crouch with a massive, intrusive intelligence system because of this – and not only does it put our liberties at risk, it doesn’t even start to resolve the problems which face us. 

We have to get out of the defensive crouch.  Certainly, we need intelligence on enemy plans – but the intelligence is a means to an end, not an end in itself.  And even without intelligence of enemy plans, we still need to act when a threat is perceived – and act in a decisive manner which will solve the problem, even at the risk of defeat to ourselves.  Better, in the end, to be beaten in battle than to continue to have this continual erosion of our position as we sit crouched behind the NSA, hoping that we can just prevent a major attack until after the next election cycle. 

End the NSA program – end all government data collection attempts which are not specifically directed at enemies.  Build and maintain our military to a point where we can instantly apply American power anywhere in the world – and when a threat emerges, go after it.  Sure, try diplomacy, first, but let all the world know that a threat to the United States will either be completely and finally resolved at the negotiating table or it will be completely and finally resolved on the battlefield…and we won’t be squeamish about attacking first if we believe that diplomacy is getting us nowhere. 

The Noonan Plan to Fix Detroit

Mark Noonan41 Comments

Its pretty easy:

1.  Reduce taxes and fees on businesses and individuals by 50%.  Eliminate 25% of the city employee labor force not engaged in actual police, fire and first responder activity.

2.  Declare all abandoned real estate in the city to be public land and “homestead” it.  Any individual or married couple may stake a claim to any particular parcel of property and provided they build/refurbish a building on it within 5 years of staking the claim, the property becomes theirs.  No property taxes to be charged until the 5 years are up.

3.  A federal loan to the city of Detroit to hire police officers who will patrol, on foot or on bicycle, the streets of Detroit in sufficient numbers to keep the peace – the loan to be repaid by a lien against property tax revenues to be realized on the “homestead” property starting five years hence.

4.  Audit the city budget and determine how much is needed for basic services – if any money is left over after this amount is determined, it can be used to pay pensions and benefits to city employee retirees…if there isn’t enough, then such pensions and benefits are to be reduced or eliminated (I know, its harsh – but if the money isn’t there, then it isn’t there; the issue may be revisited at a later date if the city finances begin to have a surplus beyond basic service costs); if there isn’t enough money even for basic services, a federal loan which is, once again, to be paid back with property tax revenues starting 5 years hence.

5.  Sell off all assets of the city which are not required for basic services.

Done and done – within 10 years Detroit will be booming.

Sunday Open Thread

Cluster50 Comments

Just some politically conservative observations from a right wing extremist for us to discuss this weekend:

– I think Friday’s IRS revelations could potentially be very harmful to the White House. When this story broke, the administration was hoping to convince people that it was the result of just a couple of rogue agents in the Cincinnati office. Friday, it was revealed that this story now goes all the way to William Wilkins desk – an Obama political appointee and only one of two appointees in the IRS.

– I think the bankruptcy filing by Detroit should be a wake up call for all Americans regardless of your political stripe. Just 50 years ago, Detroit had the highest per capita income, the strongest manufacturing base and was arguably the model city for America, but now it is bankrupt and it is not the only municipality to file for bankruptcy, it just happens to be the largest so far. Detroit has over $18 billion in liabilities and when they began to lose some of their economic base, the model became unsustainable. Period. Now while the powers to be argue over the legality of the filing, the fact remains that Detroit is broke, aided by over promising, over spending, mismanagement and corruption all by the elected officials, and that is a sober fact that all citizens should be outraged over.

– I think the George Zimmerman case has exposed a very distasteful element in our culture and our media, and one that needs to be resolved if we are ever to “progress” as a society. I am not discounting the fact there are still some remnants of racism, but let’s not forget that those remnants are found on both sides of the political aisle, and both sides of the racial aisle. Interestingly enough, I think Booker T. Washington gave us all food for thought over 100 years ago when he said:

“There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs. There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don’t want the patient to get well.”

I think that “class of people” can also include many white people, who are forever trying to show their compassion by over looking so many “real” issues that plague the black community; namely out of wedlock births and the perpetual mindset of victimhood, of which Larry Elder had the courage to confront.

As a society, we have to confront some real hard truths if we are to move this nation forward in a positive direction and that will require all of us growing a thicker skin. We have to call out corrupt and incompetent politicians, we have to quit thinking in terms of who did what, and who said what, and start thinking in terms of identifying the problem and finding solutions, and when things aren’t going well, we have to lay down our political and economical biases, and  think of a new direction which is grounded in the Constitution. Unless and until we can stop the over emotional reaction to every thing that happens, and begin to approach the nations issues with clear eyes, we are destroying this great country that was given to us.

On a final note, while I didn’t care for her reporting or her politics, RIP Helen Thomas.

Obama, Zimmerman and Being Despicable

Mark Noonan15 Comments

I hadn’t been commenting much over the past week as I was up in the Reno area visiting with family – but I did catch Obama’s comments on the Zimmerman case and they finally sank Obama down to “despicable” in my view.

Think about this – logic and facts are all on Zimmerman’s side.  Polling shows a strong plurality of the American people believe the verdict was correct.  In the case, before a female judge, an all-woman jury determined that a Latino was innocent in the death of a black man – and yet for our liberals, this case is proof of white racism (and if you dig down deeper in liberal rhetoric, its about straight, white male racism, etc).  There are already people calling for violence.  Efforts are being made by the Justice Department to railroad Zimmerman on a civil rights charge.  And here comes our President – to calm the fires?  To appeal to reason?  To stoutly and without equivocation defend the jury verdict, upon which all our liberties actually depend?  No.  He comes along to put himself back on center stage and by claiming that he thinks Travyon is Obama 35 years ago, to fan the flames of race hatred.

I don’t know what really motivates Obama – and I don’t care.  He’s a despicable person in his ACTIONS (please note, I am not judging his soul, just what he says and does).  He is ruining this nation – he’s a political thug.  He’s a corrupt wheeler-dealer.  He’s an utter fool in foreign and defense affairs.  The only thing we can do is just endure this until January 20, 2017 and then attempt to undo as much of Obama as we can.

The Case for Health Care

Cluster13 Comments

The recent delay of the employer mandate is a just another indication that the legislative behemoth that is Obamacare, is overly cumbersome, not well thought out, and simply the wrong approach to what ails our health care system. A recent Examiner editorial properly pointed out the archaic approach that Obamacare really is – a heavily bureaucratic system in a digital age that will be, and already is, slow on implementation and ineffective in delivery. Even Obama’s biggest supporters, the unions, are finding this out and they are not happy. Unions are worried that the law will push employers to reduce many workers hours to part time, which is happening, and simply drop coverage for others who will then be subsidized by the new exchanges. And speaking of exchanges, the announcement of the delay of the employer mandate will now potentially expand the enrollment of the exchanges, which will explode expected costs, and of course all of this will be done on the honor system, since no verification will be required, which is a potential for enormous fraud. Add to this, the possible immigration reform which will exempt the newly minted citizens from the mandate, and add millions of low skilled workers to an already over supplied market and you have a recipe for huge unemployment in a category of wage earners who are in desperate need of relief.

I think we can also agree that health care insurance is not actually health care. For that you need a doctor, and a recent report paints a grim picture on the future of that practice. Why on earth would we turn a very highly skilled practice into essentially a minimum wage job? Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement rates are low, and with the lack of any tort reform in the bill, malpractice insurance continues to put the squeeze on doctors resulting in many of them leaving, or planning on retiring early. And remember death panels? Well, we’ve already seen that, haven’t we? Amazingly, this little girl had to go to court to receive her transplant. Let’s add to this rising premiums – my premium rose by 20% in June and included in the letter informing me of this was the possibility of “future rate adjustments”. I guarantee you those adjustments wont be reductions. Obamacare is a train wreck, but the good news is, we can stop it before it kills all of us, and we should.

What’s the answer? In my opinion, a blend of private and public healthcare, with the public option being administered at the state level. Start by block granting Medicaid to the states and allowing them to administer care and payment disbursements, so the program is administered to a smaller number of people resulting in more effective and humane treatment, and doctors realize their pay in a shorter period of time. Secondly, set up a program for “pre existing” conditions and “catastrophic care” plans. People in these two categories represent a minority of patients, and with state programs funded by additional taxes to private plans and possibly other fee based programs, these programs can be funded. Additionally, we need to means test, reduce some benefits and raise the eligibility age. Higher income people (the evil rich) should either not be eligible, or receive limited benefits, and this goes for Social Security in my opinion as well, which will make more funds available for those who truly need it. On the private side, allow insurance companies to compete for everyone’s business in every state, and drop the coverage requirements. Why am I paying for psychiatric care when I don’t need it, or want it? (Of course some would argue that). Free enterprise and competition is an amazing mechanism and has an uncanny ability to find a need in the marketplace and fill it, which will happen and at lower costs.

Sunday Morning Open Thread

Mark Noonan84 Comments

I was thinking about writing something on the Zimmerman trial, but there’s really not much to be said.  Low information people who actually fell for the narrative simply can’t be changed in their views – facts and logic are meaningless to them (which explains why they voted for Obama, twice).  Those of us who do pay attention to facts and logic are merely pleased that a gigantic miscarriage of justice was avoided – though we are disgusted with the government, from Obama on down, about how they tried to railroad an innocent man for partisan, political purposes.

Still, this is likely to be the topic of conversation for a few days, so this open thread will be the place to do it – after that, we can get back to the real issues of the NSA, IRS, Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the collapsing global economy, the messes in Egypt and Syria…you know, all the stuff the Zimmerman trial was supposed to distract us from.

The Bigotry of Low Expectations

Cluster43 Comments

I am still in a state of shock over the following report:

The Alabama Federation of Republican Women (AFRW) strongly opposes “race-based standards for student achievement” pushed by the Alabama Department of Education, as reported in The Tuscaloosa News on Sunday, June 30. Minority students will be held to a lower standard, and would be tracked at a lower standard throughout their academic career from K-12.

Beginning this fall, the liberal Department of Education in Alabama will take their racism and apply it to education – how wonderful. Obviously progressive liberals believe that those children, and adults for that matter, of a minority skin color are handicapped, and incapable living a life on their own without assistance from the government, or a helping hand from the altruistic agenda of the progressives. This is just beyond belief, and I feel so sorry for those kids in that school district who don’t stand a chance if progressive liberals continue to run this country. Instead of offering school choice, allowing parents the opportunity to send their children to better schools, with better teachers, and giving them a real opportunity at success, progressives have decided to dumb things down even more, effectively destroying any chance these kids might have. It’s outrageous.

 

Watergate II

Cluster12 Comments

The lawless regime of Barack Obama is becoming well documented. First we had the invocation of executive privilege with Fast & Furious when congressional inquiry got a little to close to the truth. We have the refusal to even question the eyewitness’s at Benghazi, or even conduct on honest review of the sequence of events. We have the attempt to blame underlings in the IRS Cincinnati office for the unethical, and possibly illegal targeting of conservative groups. We then have the unilateral decision of the President to delay law in regards to Obamacare, which is completely unconstitutional, and now we have this:

The offices of a Dallas law firm representing a high-profile State Department whistleblower were broken into last weekend. Burglars stole three computers and broke into the firm’s file cabinets. But silver bars, video equipment and other valuables were left untouched, according to local Fox affiliate KDFW, which aired security camera footage of the suspected burglars entering and leaving the offices around the time of the incident.

I can not recall a time in my life where an administration has been more brazen, more polarizing, and more incompetent. Richard Nixon didn’t even come close to the contempt and disregard for law that this current occupant of the White House has.  Our country has never been as morally and financially bankrupt as it is today, and 90% of the blame can be laid directly at the feet of Barack Hussein Obama. If this break in can be traced back to the White House, impeachment will follow. That is a given.

A Terrible, Horrible Anti-Choice Abortion Law

Mark Noonan35 Comments

Read it and weep, liberals:

Conditions: Between 12 and 18 weeks of gestation, the women must discuss the procedure with a social worker. After 18 weeks, permission must be obtained from the Board of Health and Welfare.

Abortions must be performed by a licensed medical practitioner and, except in cases of emergency, in a general hospital or other approved healthcare establishment…

Can you believe those knuckle-dragging, bitter-clingers of Texas trying to impose that kind of burden on a woman’s choice?  The nerve of those Christo-fascists!  Leave a woman’s vagina alone!  Keep your Rosaries off their ovaries!

Oh, wait…that is Sweden’s abortion law….

When our liberals claim that we’re engaging in a “war on women” because we want reasonable restrictions and regulations on abortion, all we’re doing is bringing American law in line with the rest of the civilized world.  Only a few Western nations ban abortion outright – Chile and Ireland being notable exceptions to the general run which allows abortion…but in almost all Western nations, only unrestricted in the first trimester.   In a very real sense, only in America can a child a day or two away from birth be murdered at the sole discretion of the mother – and that is the situation our liberals wish not only keep, but to make government-subsidized and available to minors without parental knowledge or consent.

As you all know, I’m pro-life – I’d like us to mirror Chile and just ban abortions outright.  We’re not, however, likely to get that any time soon – but we should at least be as cautious about abortion as the ultra-liberals of Europe, shouldn’t we?  Isn’t human life worth at least something?

Bottom line, anyone who does not get on board with laws like that proposed in Texas – which really does no more than put a few restrictions on late-term abortions and require abortuaries to maintain minimum health standards – is essentially coming down on the side of infanticide.