California’s $15 Dollar Hammer…

En Garde In The Bunker

En Garde In The Bunker

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”  ~ C.S. Lewis

Saul Alinsky once said the quickest and easiest way to bring down a country is to first destroy its economy. Need I say more? I’ve said for a long time that any person who intends to run for high public office should be required to pass a reasonably rigorous economics test in order to qualify. And that includes members of Congress and the presidency. My guess is that Obama’s score would be pretty close to Kim Jong Un. Don’t even get me started on Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Number 2 pencils would need to be replaced with Crayons.

Helping workers? Okay, let us begin.

  • Close the borders so wages will rise due to a decrease in the labor force.
  • Teach capitalism in high school.
  • Spend less money in government.
  • Obey the Constitution as it was originally written.
  • Decrease the national debt so future generations will not be “debt slaves.”
  • Teach entrepreneurship, accounting, and small business ownership in high school.
  • Make all levels of government cost-efficient and cost-effective.
  • Stop counterfeiting our currency.
  • Limit legal immigration.
  • Implement term-limits for all politicians.
  • Make the first two years of college a two-year business degree instead of general education.
  • Outlaw all public unions.
  • Outlaw pensions for public employees.
  • Deport all illegals.
  • Teach Constitutional law in high school.
  • Make all public schools pro-American, pro-wealth, pro-business, and pro-profit.
  • Mandate school choice for all school districts.
  • Deport all Muslims who come from another nation.
  • Make English the only language allowed in government.
  • Make it the official language of the United States.
  • Teach the tenets of the Founding Fathers in all public schools and demand that all teachers understand Constitutional government.
  • Destroy the domination and control of OUR public schools from the Liberal-Progressive-Marxists.

That pretty much sums up the nanny state predicament we’re in today and how to get rid of it. Between “omnipotent moral busybodies”, government regulators and bloated bureaucracies who claim to know what’s best for us, We The People are being increasingly controlled through every facet of our daily lives to the detriment of our freedom and liberty.

Have I left anything out? See, anyone with half a brain can run a country – Even someone like Limbaugh with it tied behind his back.

“To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannicalI … I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

On to Earick Ward and his story of doom and gloom in American Thinker over the California minimum wage raise …

284px-American_Thinker_logoI work for a 48-store specialty retailer, with 45 of our stores located in California.

To say that the past year or so has been difficult is an understatement. Management has squeezed labor to the point that we are now running a 38,000-square-foot storefront with two shifts of 4-6 people per shift. With one manager, and one to one and half cashiers, this leaves 3-4 staff members to provide customer service throughout the balance of the operation.

Around one year ago, the company purged about half of its full-time employees, as its expenses outweighed their value. (Thank you, ObamaCare)

We have instituted a scheduling system that imposes labor (read: cost) efficiencies, down to the Nth degree.

Today, the $15 minimum wage hammer hit another half of our already depleted full-time staff. You see, full-time employees require Insurance and a lunch break. The mandatory 30-minute lunch break impedes the scheduling system’s ability to maximize Labor efficiency.

I am angry and saddened. We lost good people today. Young people mostly, but some older (higher wages, you see). Some with families, or single parents raising a child. These are friends that I’d spend much of my week with. Pulling together to provide customer service, replenish Inventory, set displays, and handle the demands of Retail.

I am not angry with my employer so much, although I think they haven’t completely thought through the impact on top-line sales at the expense of bottom-line expenses.

I am angry at the continued (seeming) acceptance of the new normal of Obamanomics. The economy sucks! … Continues…

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 See also: Beware Obama the Benevolent