Is Mitt so Wrong? - Videos

This debate is worth having.  Mitt was done a favor.

Quote of the Day - Jacqueline Jackson Edition

“We don’t believe a darn thing until we see it, you’re going to have to show us. We’re from Missouri. But young people also need to listen. They need to make themselves available to understand many of the illusions and the trinkets that are being dangled in front of their faces.”

Jacqueline Jackson, mother of Jesse Jackson Jr. talking about her son and his issues with a "mood disorder" due to his disappointments in life.  He was going to be a senator or Mayor of Chicago, and those didn't pan out.


Gee, it doesn't seem that she didn't teach that lesson to her son very well by the sound of this:

An IPad is not a human right.  To stand up on the floor of the house and spew this type of nonsense is exactly what gives people the "illusions" she is talking about.  You want an IPad, go out and work for it. 


As a side note, depression is a very serious illness that if left untreated can be fatal.  I wish him the best in his recovery.  

It's Such a Mystery to why the EU is Broke

The EU's Court of Justice ruled earlier this week that if you happen to become ill during your 'vacation" days, your employer must simply give you more vacation time.  Insert deep breath here.  This is not a typo, you will be given additional vacation time to make up for the fact that you were ill during your vacation.

“The purpose of entitlement to paid annual leave is to enable the worker to rest and enjoy a period of relaxation and leisure,” the Court of Justice of the European Union, based in Luxembourg, ruled in a case involving department store workers in Spain.  “The purpose of entitlement to sick leave is different, since it enables a worker to recover from an illness that has caused him to be unfit for work.”

So, the logical question becomes, what constitutes illness?  Say for instance you cut your foot on a rock while at the beach and spend part of your vacation time getting a doctor to take a look at it, you then can't go to the beach the next day because it hurts a little.  Do you get the entire week again, or maybe just that day or two?  I used to travel a great deal in my younger days.  Several of those trips were to Mexico.  Every time I was there I met people from the UK.  So, if they drink the water and get an upset tummy they will get another vacation.  

This policy is ripe for abuse and goes a long way in explaining why they have stagnant economies, higher unemployment, and just all around broke.  But hey, they get another vacation day if they get sniffles.   So all's good.

This is so backwards that even The New York Times is questioning the wisdom of this policy:

With much of Europe mired in recession, governments struggling to reduce budget deficits and officials trying to combat high unemployment, the ruling is a reminder of just how hard it is to shake up long-established and legally protected labor practices that make it hard to put more people to work and revive sinking economies.

Everyone once in a while NYT says something that makes sense.  The more the government interferes with the private sector the more the people suffer in the long run.  The Europeans are not interested in fixing their problems.  This case makes that painfully obvious.  While this policy seems good on the surface, what it has done is make employers less likely to hire.  The more the employee costs, the fewer the private sector will employ.  It is simple math people.

Quote of the Day - Condi Rice Edition

“If you are taught bitterness and anger, then you will believe you are a victim. You will feel aggrieved and the twin brother of aggrievment is entitlement. So now you think you are owed something and you don't have to work for it and now you're on a really bad road to nowhere because there are people who will play to that sense of victimhood, aggreivement and entitlement, and you still won't have a job.”

Condi Rice.  


I heart her.  I so wish she would run for office one day.   


Linked at Right Truth.  Thanks, Debbie

A Random Conversation with a Liberal

I have been under the weather as of late so I have not really posting all that much of late. Boy, much has happened over the past week or so; where to begin.

I have a part-time job. I work there for the insurance not really the paycheck. But obviously the paycheck pays the insurance costs. As many of you have heard JC Penney has made some major changes in the way it prices things. The branding they are doing is saying that the marked down the prices by about 40%. Which what they really did was price it the way things used to be priced before the public at large was brainwashed into believing that they were saving money when things said sale, or worse yet there was a coupon. For those who still don't get it, when a store has a coupon they use a lower mark down. You are pretty much paying the same cost with or without a coupon, it is all in your head that you are saving money in a department store setting.

The truth is that the business is very slow; at least at the store that I work at. So in order to not have the bad publicity of layoffs they have done several things. They have cut hours for entire departments and some have no full-time employees left. Which means the level of benefits change drastically. For others they offered them positions that they knew full well most would not take. The added benefit after the bad publicity is also the money that they will save on unemployment. My hours were cut so I no longer qualify for the part-time associate insurance. So it is pointless for me to keep the job as that is the only reason that I took it in the first place.

This of course has been the topic of discussion among employees as you can well imagine. Someone who works there has a close family that live in same complex and they are dependent upon each other for daycare of their kids and the like. Four out of the six adults work at the same place. Not something I would think is a good idea. But that is just me. One just started there less than a year ago after arriving in the U.S. from another country. He originally was going to take a position with another retailer, but then the job at Penney's opened up. It was a good set up for them as they could car pool. Well he works in the department that no longer has any full-time employees. His daughter who also works there has lost about half her hours and had her commission cut by quite a bit. Even had they not cut her hours, her paycheck basically would have dropped in half. She told anyone that would listen that she couldn't work for the lesser rate and had to find another job. Yet, she is upset that they cut her hours. Her boss knew that she said she would be looking for another job, so doesn't it make sense that she would be logical choice to cut the extra hours they needed? It makes perfect sense to me. She also feels that they owed her father a full-time position for at least year since he could have gone and worked somewhere else.

I was dumbfounded listening to this conversation. I told her if they had to guarantee him a certain amount of hours for certain period of time they never would have hired him. Did they pay him the wage he agreed to when he accepted the position? Did they treat him fairly in the work place? Did they put a gun to his head and force him to take that job over the other one? Was it anyone else's fault that you told anyone and everyone that you didn't want to work for a lower wage?

This throws a wrench into my life as well. But, oh well; that's life. Would I have prefered that they just laid me off so I could collect unemployment for a while and pay for Cobra while I look for something else. Sure would have, but they didn't They are going to cut my hours to force my hand into quitting. Is it nice? No. Is it legal? It sure is. Would I have made a different decision if I were the head of the company? No I would not. Retail has very small margins to make its profit. Most stores run in the black until very late into the fiscal year. We are in a recession right now. They have to spend a great deal of money to publicize and explain the new pricing to people who were used to seeing signs that said 50% off, the people who would come in and try to use 15 coupons on two items are not going to be happy that they can't use them anymore. They are planning on slower sales for a time I am sure. They are doing what they have to do to keep their board and stock holders happy. That is their corporate responsibility as a publicly traded company.

I then had to listen to "Only in America do they not help you get a job". In Europe they can't just fire you like that. True, they can't. But, the other side of that coin is the fact that on average when times are good they have higher unemployment and a more stagnant economy. It doesn't occur to them that finding a job in Europe is harder for that very reason. When it is so difficult to fire someone when times are lean, they don't hire when times are fat.

I ended the conversation by saying you live in a right to work state, if you don't like it move. You can go to one of those states that have all these laws designed to keep you employed and allow you sue to your heart's content if you get laid off. Just remember in those states, your taxes are generally much higher and so is the unemployment. If you don't like the capitalist system in America, then you should not have moved here. You are immigrants, you could have gone to many other places around the world when you decided to leave your country, but you chose to come here. We are a capitalist society. You want quasi-socialism move to Greece and ask them how that is working out for them.

Corporate Responsibility, Personal Responsibility, Nike, and Michael Jordan

We have all heard the stories of the near riots that occurred when Nike released a new version of Air Jordan sneakers several days before Christmas.  There were arrests, damage to stores, toddlers left in cars, and pepper spray all brought out while the frenzy to be one of the lucky ones who got a pair.  Sneakers that are now on sale on Ebay for almost double the original cost.

Activists in the Houston area have asked the Michael Jordan and Nike take responsibility for the violence that occurred when they went on sale and the violence that has occurred to those who have a pair.

“It is the responsibility of Michael Jordan and Nike to stand up and be part of the solution. Right now it’s a public safety issue with children wearing those sneakers,”
“The people that can least afford these shoes are buying them, and what happens as a result of that? Well there’s more crime,”

So, it is Nike and Michael Jordan who are responsible for the violence?

I have had pretty strong opinions on Micheal Jordan during his entire career.  As a lifelong long-suffering Knicks fan, Michael Jordan and his Bulls team was nothing but a source of disappointment for me.  But above and beyond the fact that the Knicks could never get past the Bulls and go onto to win a title one of the things that always did annoy about Michael Jordan was his insistence of saying nothing no matter what was going on.  When asked about endorsing a political candidate running against the sitting republican senator of his home state his response was:

"Republicans buy sneakers, too."

Jordan made millions and possibly billions from endorsements.  His life has always seemed to be about the conquest and the next thing.  Some call that arrogant, I have always preferred to look at as the "eye of the tiger" if you will.  He always maintained an edge that made him better and more competitive.  His juices for the next title, the next trophy, the next accomplishment kept him at the top of his game for the majority of his basketball career.  He made very few errors until the very end of career  and once he went to the management side of things.  He has every right to go out and make money.  I believe in capitalism so have at it.  But I, for one, have always been disappointed that they he didn't take some stands on important issues.  Such as child labor in China, the breakdown of the black family (while since it has come out that he had more than one affair while he was married, that could be part of the reason) as he had an image of a family man, who grew up in a close family, and many other issues.  But he always kept his mouth shut and picked up his next check.  The same was true of Tiger Woods.

I am not a believer in parents sitting back while their children idolize some sports or music star.  We should be showing our children the real heroes in our society, first responders who put their lives on the line to protect their communities, our volunteer military who willing go off to war to protect our rights, the people who work at shelters and food banks to help the neediest amongst us for little pay, and countless others who get up everyday and just try to do the right thing.  Parents should be living a life that their children will be proud to follow as they grow and mature.

But we have become a culture of entitlement.  One of the activists said himself that the people who can afford them the least are the ones buying them.  A Black Panther is saying that Nike is responsible for the thefts that are occurring to the people who lucky enough to get a pair of these sneakers.  Another said this:

“These shoes have always had a place of value in Black life,”

Maybe instead of going after Nike to lower the price to keep up with the demand (I will let go of that obvious ignorance of how economics work) they should be having the discussion with parents of the kids who were rioting.  They should be talking to the kids themselves about coveting a pair of sneakers instead of looking at what the Christmas season is really about.  Maybe we should be telling these kids that expecting your parents to spend almost $200 on a pair of sneakers when they don't have a great deal of money isn't such a great idea.  Take this moment to teach them about personal responsibility instead of what we want and when we want it.  Let this be a teachable moment about how if we really want something we need to go out and work for it.  No, instead they are saying that Nike should lower the price.  How low should the price be?  Should Nike also give some away at no charge for the neediest of people because after all these shoes are part of "black life".  What about the non blacks who want these shoes too and can't afford them?

While I would love to see Michael Jordan take a real stand for once, the truth is, this isn't his responsibility.  This is the responsibility of the care givers of these children and young adults who caused all the mayhem last week.  It is up to the individual to act in a responsible manner, not some athlete who hasn't been on the scene in more than decade.

American Girl and Entitlement

Today, I had to take a 10-year-old to a birthday party as mom was home with a sick toddler. The party was at the store American Girl. For those that are not aware of the American Girl, it is quite the store. There are nine stores around the country, six of which are considered boutique stores, while three are the larger flagship stores.


American Girl originally started by Pleasant Company was only mail order. Mattel purchased the company back in 98 and proceeded to grow the line and open the stores. The marketing at this store is brilliant. As a person who has a master's degree in Marketing I find it fascinating and awe-inspiring. Who ever came up with the concept deserves the many millions that they will make off of this venture. Simply stunning job in marketing the store. They sell clothes for your daughters that match the clothes for the dolls. Every imaginable type of accessory is available, diaper changing stations, eye glasses in a variety of colors so your daughter can find ones that match hers, hair brushes, and on and on it goes.

For those who are not aware the dolls are sold with an accompanying book and mostly depict a time in American history. The girl of the year for 11 is Kanani, a native of Hawaii. Molly is the only original doll that is still available through the stores or online. Molly is a young girl living through World War II, and waiting for her daddy to return home from war. There is also Kit (from Kit Kittredge fame) who is growing up during the depression and watched her family lose everything and learns to realize that money isn't everything. Many of the dolls have a very good theme and reading is heavily emphasized. I picked up a few of the books in the store and was happy to see that they had some very constructive advice for tweens who are online.

But there are many problems with these stores as well. The dolls are marketed to girls 8 and over. Now, I have not lived through watching a little girl grow up and so I don't know when little girls really stop playing with dolls. But, I do seem to remember that was about the age that I started losing interest in dolls, and I was a HUGE fan of dolls. I have so many good memories of playing my baby dolls and my Barbie's. I had the whole line of Barbie items; the townhouse, the corvette, the big Barbie head so you could play hairdresser, and so on. I loved my dolls and they were very well-worn out by the time I was done with them.

The party I attended today was for girls aged 9 - 11. Every girl was given a party hat, a doll, choice of one accessory item, and a party hat for the doll. The dolls were also treated to the hair salon (yes, you read that correctly there is a doll hair salon complete with little capes that are put around the dolls while they are getting their hair braided or curled). It was quite the day. The girls seemed to enjoy the store and enjoyed the party luncheon and cake that came with the party. They all had plenty of pictures taken. I was thinking that this party must have been quite expensive, so I looked around the store more closely. Every doll in the place costs at least $100. That does include the story of the doll as well. The accessories were sold separately and range from $8 to $24. The birthday girl got two dolls and a stroller to push her dolls around in. She turned 11 today. Maybe I am wrong, but I am thinking she won't be pushing that stroller around the mall anytime soon. This party was about entitlement.

The little girls felt important being at that store. Especially since it was made clear to them how lucky they were to live locally to one of the stores. That was mentioned while we were outside on the patio putting the dolls in the high chairs that the store provides for them. Like I said, it was quite the party. There were 12 girls at this party (two were the birthday girl's sisters). This party had to have cost three or four thousand dollars. Plus she then received gifts on top of this.

Did this mother ever stop and realize that the parents of the little girls that went to this party would never be able to afford to throw such a party themselves, which could become an issue when their birthday's coming rolling around over the next year? I realize that I live in area where money is not much of a problem for many. But, this was such a blatant display of it that it really shocked me.

Isn't this just one more display of how we are teaching our children to expect things? Now, the little girl that I took to the party is lucky that she was given a doll at the party, because I can guarantee you her mother won't be buying her one. It isn't about the money so much as it is the need for an 11-year-old to have a doll at that price. Maybe I am wrong, but to me going to the store and the prestige of having the doll is what the girls want more than the doll itself. It is purely an image thing. It is sort of like the Air Jordans were to my generation. It wasn't that the sneaker was all that much nicer than the ones that were half the price, you just wanted to "be like Mike".

Like I said there are many things about the store that I really like. It promotes reading, it promotes patriotism, and it gives out some sound advice to tweens about the dangers in the world that they face. But it is directly marketing to girls that are probably a little too old for playing with dolls and a little too young to understand the worth of the keeping the doll in pristine condition for collecting.

Much to my chagrin, my little friend chose Julie as her doll. Julie is from San Francisco in the early 70's. She works to save the environment and to promote women's lib. Looks like I have some work to do with that one!! But, I have never seen her play with a doll ever, so I relatively certain it will be an expensive dust collector that sits on her bed.

See the website for yourself and let me know what you think.

I personally believe that the mother who threw this party better be picking out the kind of car she wants her daughter to have, because she will be expecting it in the driveway five years from today. And she has no one else to blame than herself for her daughter thinking that way.