Take advantage of minorities

Facebook recently decided to buy outstanding invoices from businesses owned by women and minorities. The way it works is the business sells an outstanding invoice to Facebook, then Facebook has the debtor pay them what is owed. In return for this, the business pays Facebook 1% of the value of the invoice.

There is a catch– the invoices have to be “eligible.” Invoices must have a minimum value of $1,000 and the customers must have an investment-grade rating. In other words, the invoices ARE going to be paid, making this a no risk endeavor for FB.

Businesses eligible for this program must be certified by an approved partner organization as majority-owned, operated and controlled by racial or ethnic minorities, women, U.S. military veterans, LGBTQ+ people or individuals with disabilities. This makes FB look “woke,” but what is happening here is that they are taking advantage of gullible small business owners.

In other words, Facebook is making no risk loans at a rate that varies from 4% to 12% APR to gullible companies and making itself appear to be “woke.” I wonder how many people will think that FB is doing people a favor.

On watch

When I was in the Navy, we would periodically have women on board, usually reserve units. Back in those days, women were not normally present onboard combat ships. Whenever they were aboard, they were housed in a berthing compartment that had its own head, as well as having only one easily guarded entrance. A lucky petty officer was then posted at that entrance to make sure that no males entered. One of them was on this watch when a friend saw him just standing there in the middle of the passageway. The conversation that ensued was very much like this:

Passerby: “What are you doing, standing here in the way?”

Person on watch: “I am on the pussy watch.”

Well, one of the females housed in the aforementioned compartment overheard the exchange and filed a complaint for sexual harassment. The petty officer was brought to Captain’s Mast for punishment. It went like this:

Captain: “Why did you refer to your assignment like that?”

Petty Officer: “Well, when I am on duty caring for the ship’s generator, I am on Ship’s Generator watch. When I am caring for the steering gear, I am on steering watch. I was guarding the pussy, so I figured I was on the pussy watch.”

The Captain reduced him one full paygrade, took half of his pay for two months, and confined him to the ship on extra duty for 45 days. In other words, he got the maximum punishment permitted without a courts martial.

Can you imagine how that would go today?

I DARE YOU

As I read the below quote from this article:

consider New York, where the legislature favors restrictions on the Second Amendment. Could it outlaw firearms by deputizing any New Yorker to file million dollar lawsuits against gun owners in the state?

Let me explain why: Once this happens, the people who were sued to the point where their lives are being destroyed can just shoot you in the face. The courts aren’t the final arbiters of what is to be allowed. Try this and you will find out what happens when the consent of the governed is revoked.

A lesson in economics

A commenter to a recent post seems to be confused as to what the problem is. If a person tells me that they don’t understand a concept that I am putting forward, I will always take the time to fully explain my position.

Let’s start with my original statement:

CVS announces that they will no longer have education requirements for jobs that don’t require a government license. They will also be increasing wages by 36 percent for the uneducated morons they will be hiring. Those who DID get an education? Not so much.

Divemedic

Guy then replied (after a bit) with this:

I guess I’m lost on where this is bad. If they’re no longer requiring a degree where not required by law they’re allowing people with actual life skills who may not have gotten a useless degree (useless as in, not required for a job) to get employment they could be qualified for.

And not saying they’re heroes, or that I want minimum wage increases, but a company voluntarily giving more money to people in the low end of their payscales seems to be good, unless you’re assuming they’re all fat black shaniquas. Some might be just, ya know, people.

Guy

So to understand why I have a problem with this, you need to understand what is happening. The company has announced that they are going to pay people without skills $30,000 a year simply for showing up to work, where they used to pay $22,000 a year for the same skillset. That represents a 36% increase. For reasons that you should already understand, this policy is inflationary.

The people who already work there and who already have skills and experience will receive the same minimum. This is known as pay compression. It isn’t happening because of the free market, and CVS isn’t doing it out of the kindness of their heart. It is happening because of the nationwide push for a $15 minimum wage, and because the Federal government is demanding that anyone getting Federal dollars do so. Remember that Medicare and Medicaid rule the medical field in this country.

This completely removes incentive for anyone to gain in skills or experience.

In 2000, a new paramedic in the Orlando area was starting at $14 an hour. New medics now are starting at $13 an hour. As these minimum wages increase, it will soon be that there is no reason for a person to go to the two years of school that it takes to become a licensed paramedic. Why? To get the same money as a person who didn’t even finish high school?

Some would argue that, in a free market, paramedics would get more money. The problem is that it isn’t a free market. Ambulance companies are paid by Medicare and Medicaid. The reimbursement rates for ambulance rides haven’t increased to keep pace. There is no room for pay raises.

So to sum it up, increasing pay at the bottom end without a corresponding increase above that means higher prices, stagnating wages, and is overall bad economically. It also serves to remove incentive for an educated workforce. This is the reason why the Indians and the Chinese are kicking our asses when it comes to the STEM and medical fields.

Guy, your earlier attack on education by equating all education with gender studies tells me that you likely don’t have an education. (If I am mistaken, please accept my apologies, I am not trying to offend.) All education isn’t gender studies. There are plenty of STEM, medical, and other degrees that are needed and important. Not only those, but trades and skills are important if this nation is to not slide into third world shithole status. We can’t all be high school dropouts who only work at retail and service jobs, but that is exactly where policies like this one will take us.

Policies like this tear at that educational foundation and will see this nation slide into savage obscurity.

One more

My feed is full of 9-11 posts, as I am sure that yours is. The one I read that haunted me the most is this one from Legal Insurrection. That post includes a link to a video. The one thing that haunts me to this day is the sound of hunndreds of PASS alarms sounding at ground zero. A PASS device as an alarm worn be every firefighter that alerts those nearby that a firefighter has been motionless for 30 seconds. We jokingly refer to it as the “lazy man” alarm.

Listening to this as I read his post gives me chills while putting tears in my eyes. I weep for the number of Americans that will soon die in the war that we don’t want, but the left seems to be begging for.

Ghosts of the past, present, and future

Exactly twenty years ago. I still remember that morning in more detail than all but of a few of the mornings that have come since. The sky was a beautiful blue, the sun was warm, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. A typical Central Florida day. My shift, C shift, had just started our 24 hour workday.

I was driving Engine 2 that morning. Dennis was riding in the seat next to me as the Lieutenant, and Justin was the back seat firefighter. Our shift had begun at 7:30 that morning as it always did. We did our morning routine as we always do. At 8:30, we left the station to do annual flow testing of fire hydrants.

By 8:45, we were behind the Winn Dixie and just about to test our first hydrant. Our Battalion Chief called us and told us to return to the station and turn on the TV. I remember jokingly asking Dennis who the guy on the radio was and what they had done to the Chief, since he would never tell us to watch TV during the day.

We arrived back in the station just in time to see the second plane hit the south tower. I remember watching Fox news and seeing them switch to the DC bureau, where reporters said they could see a column of smoke. Things were happening so fast, I couldn’t figure out what that smoke was coming from. It was then that a fellow firefighter told me that the Pentagon had been hit.

The chief called us, and when I was on the phone with him, the first tower fell. The chief said to me, “Oh my God. 30,000 people just died.” I remember being stunned that so many people could be in a building.

By noon, we had an armed SWAT officer with an MP-5 riding along with us on all of our calls “for security.”

For weeks, we firefighters were stunned at the loss of 343 firefighters. I felt a sense of awe that the guys who went into that second tower after watching the first one fall went into that building, in awe of the guys who were in the second tower when that first one fell, all the while knowing that they would never come out of the second tower. What was going through their minds? I asked myself if I could make the same choice, if I *knew* that I would not come out?

We all wanted to be able to say yes. It isn’t the same thing when you go into an ordinary fire. Firefighters are a cocky, professional bunch. When we run into a burning building, we tell ourselves that we are trained and experienced enough that it will not happen to us. Not so those guys in the towers. They went in KNOWING that they wouldn’t come out. That is a time that you don’t know what you would do until the moment of truth comes.

I just hoped that I would have the fortitude to make the choice that needed to be made, to have the courage to choose duty and honor over self preservation, and the fortune to never be placed in that position. I hoped that I would never have to make that choice.

I spent the majority of my adult life in one uniform or another, dedicated to the protection of American lives and values. I spent six years in the Navy, doing two combat tours in the Persian gulf. I wasn’t a big hero or anything. I, like millions of others did my job. After that, I spent two decades in a firefighter’s uniform. I that time, I ran into hundreds of burning buildings, jumped into a dozen lakes, thousands of medical scenes, and 22 natural disasters. I was injured three times in the line of duty. I saw a couple of thousand dead bodies, dozens of shootings and stabbings, and saved more than a few lives.

In 2011, I retired. I had seen enough death, misery, and blood for one lifetime. I thought that the time of risking life and limb for the good of this nation and its people was over. I had given enough. I deserved to be left alone to grow old and enjoy the rest of my life in as much peace as I could manage.

All I want is to be left alone to grow old in peace. The events of the past 18 months make me believe that this won’t happen. I fear that I may have to make that choice after all.

Gloating

Politico did a story about Biden’s vax mandate, and some Democrats are absolutely giddy about their team having power. Here are a few quotes:

“He’s going as far as he can in calling out the true enemy. The true enemy is one wing of his opposition,” said Paul Maslin (emphasis added)

You get that? Anyone who disagrees with the President is the enemy.

“We can’t allow a radicalized minority that is anti-science and anti-reason to drive policymaking, or no issue of national importance will ever be effectively addressed,” said Ben LaBolt

So anyone who disagrees with them is also anti-science and anti-reason. This is big talk from the party that claims men can get pregnant.

Then they went on to quote Biden himself:

And he offered stern words for rowdy travelers who’ve been captured on video railing against mask requirements: “And by the way,” Biden admonished. “Show some respect!”

Hey, Biden: GO FUCK YOURSELF, YOU SENILE DOUCHEBAG.

We are on our own

The list of those who are exempt from the vaccine mandate grows:

Meanwhile, OSHA doesn’t have enough inspectors to enforce this. Not by a long shot. So what this will become is another weapon to allow businesses to be targeted for political reasons. I am sure that OSHA will be all over Mypillow.com.

The fix is already in. So called “legal and Constitutional experts” are already lining up to say that the courts are going to let this stand. Once it does, the precedent will allow the President to enact almost any mandate he decides to.

Al Qaeda won

If someone had told you 20 years ago, as you watched the towers fall, that our military would flee from Afghanistan, leaving their weapons and Americans civilians behind, and there would be a Muslim woman on television, telling our nation’s teachers to teach children that the 9-11 attackers were not terrorists, and avoid promoting American exceptionalism, would you have believed it?