It turns out that the shooting that I posted yesterday was perhaps an example of sudden Jihadi Syndrome. It turns out the shooter’s name is …
Rigging the vote
Lawfare
The Democrats have weaponized the courts of the state of New York. First, the used them to attack the NRA.
Now they will be used to prevent Donald Trump from ever holding another Federal Office, which was the entire point of the impeachment.
Anyone who has a shot at changing anything will be indicted in New York.
Communism
Granting Authority
A Federal Judge says that the CDC doesn’t have the leagal authority to halt evictions, but since they have a good reason for doing so and landlords are minimally affected, the CDC can keep on doing it.
Power Grab
Trump to be arrested soon
The Democrats are preparing to arrest President Trump. My guess is that it will happen while he is in New Jersey this summer, to avoid sticky extradition issues.
economics
If Amazon can do it…
Amazon announced that they will increase their minimum wage to $15 an hour. The people pushing for such a wage are already using them as an example, saying if Amazon can do it, anyone can. Let me explain why that assumption is wrong, and how increased wages actually HELP Amazon.
First, the vast majority of the products sold by Amazon are produced by slaves, or people so close to being slaves that there is no real difference. Yep, most of the stuff sold by Amazon is made in China. Second, most of the things sold by Amazon that are NOT made in China are actually being sold by other companies and Amazon is the agent, not the seller. I know, I used to sell lots of stuff on there. Third, many Amazon warehouses are subcontracted out. A company owned by my brother provides services to some of those locations. Fourth, Amazon has more robots working in its facilities than it does employees. Lastly, Amazon doesn’t employ many workers for the amount of goods sold, compared to most retail sellers.
All of this adds up to $15 an hour hurting Amazon’s competitors more than it helps the workers at Amazon. In fact, Amazon’s purchase of robotics manufacturer Kiva Systems for $775 million is a bargain. When you divide that amount by the 200,000 robots they have, the cost works out to less than $4 thousand per robot.
Amazon sends about 7 billion packages a year with annual revenue of around $100 billion a year.
This warehouse near Orlando covers 59 football fields, has 800 human and several thousands of robotic workers. Every bit of it is controlled and optimized for efficiency by computers.
This is the future of the American worker. Just like Henry Ford’s invention of the assembly line made manufacturing more efficient, robotics will do the same for most other industries. Fifteen dollars an hour won’t matter when three quarters of the workforce has been replaced by machines.
Labor is pricing itself out of the market. Companies like WalMart can’t compete with Amazon unless they pay less than $15. This causes employees to say things like:
“They don’t care about the associates [entry-level employees such as cashiers] at all. They just want more money for themselves,”
Of course, Amazon has half as many employees. Their physical locations are in rural areas with lower costs. They have less employee theft. All of this means that, in order to compete and keep prices low, costs (including wages) must also be kept low.
If, as an employee, a person wants to make more money, you have to produce more value than any potential employee who could replace you. Why should you expect a raise just because you have been working for an employer for 20 years, if you are still the same employee they hired 20 years ago? What skills have you picked up in the past two decades? Have you gone to school? Learned new skills? Made yourself more valuable? If not, they why would your employer want to pay you more, when they could hire someone with the same skills and education for less?
Or replace you with a robot?
Police State
False arrests
A cop is fired and arrested for falsifying evidence. This is why I am opposed to the death penalty. Anyone who has been arrested by this cop needs to demand a new trial, or demand that his charges be dropped.
Just a few bad apples, though. Don’t think Federal cops would do any better. This is why the founders wanted government small and weak.
Economy
Employee trouble
My post of this afternoon centered around employees feeling like they are owed something, simply because they had been employees for a long time, even if those employees hadn’t done anything to improve themselves for (in some cases) decades. There is a reason for that post.
I was hired into a management position at a hospital. When I was hired, I got a lot of pushback. It seems that the employees of the department who had been there for a long time were upset that someone was brought in from the outside, and felt that the position should have gone to them, because they had been there for a long time. One employee told me that she felt like her 17 years there meant nothing and that I got that promotion simply because “I rode around in a truck for a few years.” I told her that it wasn’t just my time on an ambulance that mattered. It was my certifications, my four college degrees, my years of experience as a supervisor that landed me that position. I advised her that she should take advantage of our employer’s tuition reimbursement program, so she could be more qualified the next time a promotion became available. She quit a week later.
Other employees told me that they felt like our employer should pay more. I listened and went to management, who told me that they won’t pay more unless the employees gain a skill. I went back to my employees with a deal: I would help them learn the material to take an exam to earn a certification pertinent to our job, and if they passed the exam, our employer would give them a 20% raise. The cost of the exam is $200. I was willing to teach them on my own time.
The employees refused, saying that they would only take the class if they were on the clock, and refused to pay for the exam fees out of their own pocket. So to sum it up, they want a raise, more training, more certifications, and they want their employer to pay for it all. Why would any employer do all of that? It makes no economic sense. It would be cheaper to let you quit and hire more qualified employees.
If employees refuse to make themselves more valuable, how can they expect to make more money?
Communism
Know the enemy
Today, I watched a video from BLM/Antifa called “what to do instead of calling the police: building community empowerment” Why did I watch it? So you don’t have to, but can still benefit from the intel. If you still want to watch the video, I will put up a link to it at the end of this post. Let’s start with an intro:
First thing that jumps out at me: haven’t they been saying that “defund the police” doesn’t mean getting rid of the police? Anyhow, let’s look at some of the people on the “panel” narrating this video:
Eliza claims to have been a social worker for over 10 years, who just graduated college with degrees in women’s studies and history. Brinley is a writer and yoga instructor. Sandra’s experience is as an “organizer” of students while she was in college. Katie has degrees in education and gender studies. This intro just reinforces the stereotype that the people pushing this movement are doing so because they have no real job or life skills, and their time in college was wasted complaining and protesting instead of earning an actual, marketable degree.
The video starts by telling the viewer to NOT call support groups for things like domestic violence, because the support groups just turn around and call the police. They are claiming that punishment is not the way to go with a “crisis.”
The video then goes on to say that psychiatric hospitals, foster care, and homeless shelters don’t work, then they list the reasons why. So what is the solution? Community. Yes, the community should solve its own problems.
Then they advocate that each person set up safety plans where they will learn to handle and respond to triggering events. Part of this plan should be to “deescalate” and attempt to calm the person down, so they can navigate through their own crisis, the one that is making them want to be violent.
“Do you need to do anything about someone shoplifting from Target? No, it is none of your business,” the narrator says. What to do if it is YOUR stuff getting stolen, she doesn’t say.
The video then spends 30 minutes asking for donations.
Every one of the people in this video are displaying a complete lack of understanding of human nature and the evil that lives in some people. It is obvious that they have all led sheltered lives. They all think that everyone is good, rational, and will respond to a good talking to.
They believe that if we all just work together, that no one will ever try to take more than their share, and that everyone just wants to get along. This is the biggest flaw with communism- the people who advocate for it assume that everyone will always try their hardest, and no one will take advantage of anyone else.
This is pure wishful thinking and shows that none of these people has ever had to live in the real world. They have spent their entire lives living on campus or in Mom’s basement.
What they don’t realize is that, once police are gone, they can pass all of the rules they want, no one will listen to them. Outlaw machine guns? Nope. Tell me to pay taxes? Nope. Shoot women’s studies members in the face? No one to stop it.
Idiots.