Posted on 07/30/2013 5:34:32 AM PDT by Kaslin
This column really is a bad idea. I should have counted to 100, had a drink, hit the treadmill for 45 minutes... something before I sat down and started writing after a segment yesterday on Neil Cavutos show. But I didnt cool down. I headed straight for the computer and clicked twice on the Word icon and here we go. Intemperate thoughts, sure to be considered offensive by some (like I care), are about to come your way.
Our Republic has survived a great deal. Weve managed to get through a war with states determined to secede from the union (misnamed the Civil War). We survived two World Wars and a Cold War. None of those events have threatened this country nearly so much as the combined affect of millions of abysmally ignorant Americans, products of 100 years of a hideous government education and are now walking around with voter registration cards. More Americans can name Kim Kardashians new tricycle motor than can name our vice-president. More Americans could write a paragraph on last seasons American Idol competition than could write a single sentence on the IRS campaign against the Tea Parties. If you were offered one penny for every American who makes it a habit to watch Entertainment Tonight or a dollar for every person who reads the front section of their local newspaper, you would be an idiot to go for the newspaper readers. There are simply not enough newspaper readers to pay your next power bill, let alone wisely shepherd our country through perilous times. Bloody wars are easier to survive than idiots with ballots.
The issue on Cavuto yesterday was a few select members of the Dumb Masses protesting in New York City for something they call a living wage. Apparently these stupefyingly ignorant protestors thought that McDonalds should be paying burger flippers and French fry cookers $15.00 an hour, whether theyre worth it or not.
Where DO mindless people like this come from? Oh yeah. Government schools. Almost forgot.
Two of the people who showed up on Cavuto yesterday caught my jaundiced eye: a guy standing next to a young woman carrying a baby in some sort of a sling. The young woman was a McDonalds worker and she just wasnt making enough to provide for her family of two, I presume. The guy standing next to her was (a) apparently one of the organizers of this demonstration, and (b) had met this young woman during repeated and I do mean repeated trips to McDonalds for a bag full of Big Macs and fries, plus milk shakes .. probably every day. Maybe twice a day. Dude loved to eat.
As for the organizer --- or activist as the media likes to call people like this --- he just spouted on and on about corporations and what they owe the pore beleaguered workers. How I would have loved to ask this rocket surgeon to give me a one-sentence definition of a corporation. I love watching brainy people vapor lock. But in retrospect, that might not have been a good idea. You dont want to see a head explode on TV.
Mr. Activist guy had the idea that if McDonalds would just pay these workers $15.00 an hour plus health insurance and all of the other benefits then the world would be a better place and the workers would not have to rely on the government for all of these welfare services and everyone would be better off. Nobody asked him how much a Big Meal would cost if the people preparing that culinary delight were paid $15.00 an hour plus benefits. Right now you can get a Big Meal for about $7.25 The person preparing that meal is probably making minimum wage. Boost the wage by about $6.00 per hour and what is the new cost for a Big Meal? $8.50? $10.00? More? Can all of the McDonalds customers afford this price increase? Or do they go to other, cheaper fast food restaurants? Can McDonalds maintain their profit margin and employment level with lost sales? If not, how many $15 an hour workers do they lay off? Perhaps they would just close some stores in low-income areas altogether.
How about this question for the organizer: Hey, sport. Tell me something. What obligation does McDonalds have to pay a worker more than that worker is worth? Are you telling me that an employer should hire someone just to pay them more than the wealth they can produce for the company out of some sense of social obligation? How long do you stay in business doing that? Organizer dude probably would have come across with some statement about social responsibility. Well, guess what? If employers start to determine wages on what the employee wants instead of what that employee produces we will see a lot of boarded businesses and many more unemployed government-educated functionally illiterate Democrat voters. Wait! What?
And Ms. Baby-in-a-Sling protestor, you told Cavuto all about McDonalds responsibility to pay you your living wage. You made a point of saying that McDonalds should pay you enough to support your family. Fine. Then answer MY question. What about YOUR responsibilities? Did you not understand that you lacked the skills, job history and education necessary to make more than a minimum wage and that; therefore, you might not be in a position to shoulder the cost of an additional member of your household? Or is it your belief that all you have to do is download a child and it automatically becomes someone elses responsibility to cover the costs? I think a valid case can be made for the proposition that one of the greatest social wrongs a person can commit is to have a baby they simply cannot afford to raise.
Personal accountability and responsibility is dying. Long live the Democrat welfare state.
The bigger tragedy here, of course, is that this Cavuto segment exposed the viewers to the citizen and voter mentality that can lead to someone like Obama in the White House leading our nation
.. from behind, of course.
perhaps now we can have true fast food robots.
If they can make a french frie machine at mcdonalds that takes who potatos and outputs the final product, who needs these liabilites?
Self serve soda, and bottomless refills came about as a way to eliminate labor costs.
Define "should."
Like Walmart in DC. . .
Two things I have learned:
1) Nobody owes you anything (you're entitled to nothing you haven't earned)...
2)No matter what you believe, there is someone out that that believes the exact opposite and is willing to fight you over it.
Hence the tensions of today...
It lets me know that this same nonsense is going on everywhere, and the number, amazingly, is the same...$15/hr.
Locally there are a couple unions and "community organizations" behind it.
A coincidence, you think?
agreed - with both
stupid screen blackouts and popup ads. EF um if I will wade through that crap to read an article. Tried to complain and their idiotic anti cyborg screen is broken.
Flaming incompetence.
Thank you Kaslin for posting it so I could read it.
“Should a McDonalds employee in NYC make the same as a McD employee in El Paso, TX? Quite a stark difference in cost of living between the two places. But currently, beginning employees make the same in both places.”
Doesn’t matter! The business has a model that works with the pricing of it’s products and its cost structure. They probably charge more for product in NYC simply as a result of real estate expense, but it’s not their business to provide a “living wage,” these are supposed to be non-permanent types of jobs. Don’t like what they pay, hey, try someone else for a job!
That’s a good point. But what about cost of living?
I’m a graphic designer. Pay scale for my profession varies by location. SF or NYC pays a heck of a lot more than the D/FW area. Same job, different cost of living.
Agreed. Like I said before ... just playing devil’s advocate here.
This is pure street organizer economics...the man has lots of money ...it just isn’t in your pocket or a variation on Marxist economics that all profit is made from exploiting the workers. These idiots have no clue where this money to pay them $15 per hour comes from just that they want it. Of course Obama himself believed that reducing the Social Security tax would cause businesses to hire more people. This entire administration hasn’t the business sense to profitably run a hot dog stand.
Yep. I've spoiled myself and my family for the best that the fast food burger experience has to offer.
And, as Martha Stewart says, "That's a good thing."
Last year, “you forgot what it tasted like so you went and ordered a” Big Mac.
$5.65!!!!!! Last time, and no, it did not taste anything near which I would wish to recall ever tasting, again.
Should I really wish to taste ‘an expensive burger’, it will come from a Red Robin-type place.
Burger flippers have always been, in my old mind, the job that you get part-time, while in high school, to learn what the ambition of getting a better paying job is all about.
As to going on strike, for a ridiculous raise of a starter wage, I think that they have missed for days, their daily issued suppositories!!
“...ain’t no green peppers in McDonald’s....”
From Eddie Murphy “Raw” (Warning Language)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yG5i-vPDDY
Man, times have changed, my friend... was $3.35/hour when I left he states .. and it’s NOT looking promising...
go to steak and shake,the burgers are great and they come as a meal with fries for less than 4.00
Thanks for the suggestion.
You missed out, they’re good burgers. You pay for quality in this world, and that exists in fastfood too. There are layers in the business, Five Guys is near the high end of the fastfood chart, competing in the same space as Carls Jr and sometimes Jack-in-the-Box (who often have a hard time deciding if they’re high end fastfood or late night dope fiend grub). Yeah they cost a lot more than McDonalds, and taste a lot better and don’t bring shame upon the household. And the picking your condiments is part of what makes them good, total customization, no extra cost, design your burger your way. They’re trying not to be a burger factory, they’re aiming more for “almost a restaurant”.
When a manager keeps his/her restaurant humming, workers in fast food really have to move. At the end of a shift, they know they’ve been at work. That is generally the case, because district and regional managers pay close attention to the bottom line. Are their crappy fast food restaurants? Sure. But most serve quickly and serve well. I worked it while in college decades ago, and I know it isn’t a piece of cake when it’s done right.
That said, I think wages in the US have been suppressed by the decision of the powers that be to flood the market with workers. The most recent example is the illegal immigrant population, many of who were legalized in Reagan’s amnesty. These low skill workers have made it so that there are sometimes hundreds in line for one job when in a real market it would be far fewer.
Wherever illegals work, they establish the baseline pay that employers consider. Are they rampant in industries like construction, agriculture, and etc. where workers come and go quickly and where minimal ID is required? You bet. Do they distort the wage scale because they are often paid under the table? It’s proven, and not just a theory.
So, can they have get false social security numbers, fake id’s, etc.? Yes.
And they flood the food industry, again where there is quick turnover and minimal requirement to prove identity, and a real possibility of being paid under the table.
So, do I think wages are artificially low? Yes. I think illegal and legal immigrants make them that way. Do I think that even in tech fields, that bringing in Indian, Chinese, etc. geeks drives down the wages in that sector for Americans? Yes, I do. The scarcer a thing is, the more it costs. Having a surplus of a thing makes it cheaper.
Wages in America are low, kept that way by flooding our job markets with both legal and illegal immigrants. That is the plan of the neo-aristocrats in both the Republican and Democrat parties who are partners in turning the US in a nation of serfs with the barest minimum of a middle class.
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