Recently, McDonald’s employees have been going on strike to try to get paid $15 an hour. Associated Press reports:
Shaniqua Davis, 20, lives in the Bronx with her boyfriend, who is unemployed, and their 1-year-old daughter. Davis has worked at a McDonald’s a few blocks from her apartment for the past three months, earning $7.25 an hour. Her schedule varies, but she never gets close to 40 hours a week. “Forty? Never. They refuse to let you get to that (many) hours.”
Her weekly paycheck is $150 or much lower. “One of my paychecks, I only got $71 on there. So I wasn’t able to do much with that. My daughter needs stuff, I need to get stuff for my apartment,” said Davis, who plans to take part in the strike Thursday.
She pays the rent with public assistance but struggles to afford food, diapers, subway and taxi fares, cable TV and other expenses with her paycheck.
“It’s really hard,” she said. “If I didn’t have public assistance to help me out, I think I would have been out on the street already with the money I make at McDonald’s.”
So, Shaniqua Davis says that it’s “really hard” to take care of a baby on what McDonald’s pays.
She’s right.
So why did she try to do such a thing in the first place?
Why did she choose to become an unmarried teenage mother?
Whatever her reasons were, it’s not McDonald’s fault.
Of course you can’t raise a family on what McDonald’s pays its cashiers. But that kind of job was never intended to be for people who are trying to raise a family. Instead, that kind of job is supposed to be for a teenager trying to get money to pay for the prom, or for a student who is working their way through college.
And what is this nonsense of having a baby out of wedlock, and then being surprised as how hard it is? Of course it’s hard. That’s why the institution of marriage has existed, in every society, all over the world, for thousands of years.
The article also says that Ms. Davis “struggles” to pay for her cable TV. This just shows how much things have changed in this country. In the past, being poor meant that you couldn’t get 2,000 calories per day, or that you didn’t have indoor plumbing, or that your roof leaked. But now, being poor means that you have difficulty paying for cable TV. My, how things have changed.
Ms. Davis and the other strikers want to get paid $15 an hour, but they don’t want to acquire the education and job skills that would justify such a salary. McDonald’s already pays some of its employees more than $15 an hour, such as its accountants, lawyers, and computer programmers. Those employees didn’t get those higher wages by going on strike. Instead, they got those higher wages by putting in the time and effort to acquire the education and job skills that justify those higher wages. Ms. Davis and the other strikers want higher wages, but they don’t want to provide anything in exchange for the extra pay.
What would happen if the government did require McDonald’s to pay all of its employees $15 an hour? One possibility is that McDonald’s would only hire people who had a college degree. If that were to be the case, Ms. Davis would end up getting paid nothing. Another possibility is that McDonald’s would replace its human workers with robots and self-serve checkouts. And again, if that were to be the case, Ms. Davis would end up getting paid nothing.
Note from Daniel Alman: If you like this blog post that I wrote, you can buy my books from amazon, and/or donate to me via PayPal, using the links below:
I’m not going to give away any plot spoilers in this post, although I will approve spoiler comments for the comment section.
What I will say in this post is that this move is very cerebral and highly thought provoking. It’s slow paced, calm, and quiet. There is plenty of breathing room for contemplation. The character development is exceptionally well done, and some of the scenes are genuinely heartbreaking and moving. And then when I watched it a second time, I loved it even more.
You can watch the movie in its entirely at this link. I use the Firefox browser, and did not have any problems when I watched it as this link. I did get a few pop ups before the movie started, which I was easily able to close without any problems. Do not click on anything that has the words “play” or “download” because those buttons are not what they claim to be – they are actually links to ads. However, the arrow that’s on the middle of the film image, and the arrow that’s directly at the bottom left of the film image, do work, and will make the movie play.
As a child in the 1970s, I always enjoyed watching “Land of the Lost” on Saturday morning. As an adult, I like the show even more. This is an intelligent science fiction program that makes you think, and is never dumbed down (except for season 3, which is so horrible that it never should have been made).
Here is my favorite episode – “Elsewhen” from season 1.
This is from the season 4 episode of “Roseanne” called “Stressed to Kill.” The relevant part starts at 14:28.
Roaseanne: “Can I help you?”
Customer: “Which is better – the tuna salad or the egg salad?”
Roaseanne: “Tuna salad, egg salad, chicken salad, turkey salad, shrimp salad – what difference does it make? It’s all just different words for mayonnaise.”
As the author of this blog post, I grant the following permission: Anyone may freely copy it in any part or in its entirely, without asking my permission, and without paying any money. I do ask that you please cite a link to https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/obama-252/
I ask you to please show this list to as many people as possible – and especially, to please show it to as many Obama supporters as possible. Sunshine really is the best disinfectant. I can’t stop Obama from doing any of these horrible things, but I can tell people about what he is doing. So please share this list with others on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Thank you. The short link for this is http://tinyurl.com/ku9vxug
The paperback version is a companion to the Kindle version. Only the Kindle version includes citations to references and sources. The paperback version does not include these citations. All of the citations in the Kindle version are internet links to online sources. Since the number of these links is so large, it would not be practical to include them in the paperback version.
If you want, you can donate to me. Thanks to everyone who donates to me using this PayPal button:
Introduction to the list
Every President, every politician, and every human being tells lies and engages in acts of hypocrisy. But Barack Obama did these things to a far greater degree than anyone else that I have ever known of. His campaign promises were so much better sounding than anyone else’s – no lobbyists in his administration, waiting five days before signing all non-emergency bills so people would have time to read them, putting health care negotiations on C-SPAN, reading every bill line by line to make sure money isn’t being wasted, prosecution of Wall St. criminals, ending raids against medical marijuana in states where it’s legal, high levels of transparency. Obama’s promises of these wonderful things sounded inspiring and sincere. They sounded so much better than the promises of any other President. So when Obama broke these promises, it felt so much worse than when other Presidents broke their promises. (more…)
1) Lied about putting health care negotiations on C-SPAN
Although Obama had made a campaign promise to have all of the health care reform negotiations broadcast on C-SPAN, he broke that promise after he was elected.
The secrecy of these negotiations was so strong that U.S. Congresswoman and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California) said, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” (more…)
Elysium has too many loud, noisy action scenes, and not enough calm, quiet, reflective scenes of thoughtful contemplation. It didn’t have any lines of dialogue that I can see myself wanting to quote in the future. None of the characters were particularly interesting. And if I was a child, I couldn’t see myself wanting to buy any of the action figures that might be based on this movie.
The machine that instantly cures cancer seems perfectly plausible. However, in the entire movie, we never find out the name of the corporation that manufactures this machine. And apparently, there is no team of trained salespeople traveling all over the world trying to sell this machine to hospitals in big cities. And that brings up the most unrealistic thing about this movie: Since when has there ever been a medical device manufacturer that did not employ any salespeople?
In this movie, there is no Bill Gates-type character who donates huge amounts of his own money to help the poor get medical care. In this movie, there are no rich people who massage their supersized egos by having entire hospital wings named in honor of their massive donations.
While it’s easy for me to imagine that a bunch of rich people would want to live in their own private space station, there’s no way that every rich person would want to live there – there would always be some holdouts who preferred to remain on earth. But in this movie, there are no holdouts.
If they wanted to make a point about poor people not being able to afford health care, the following would have been a lot more realistic: a poor person gets cancer. They go to the hospital, where one of these machines instantly cures their cancer. Then they get a ridiculously large bill that they could never possibly afford to pay. They lose their house. Their life savings is wiped out. They declare bankruptcy. That would be realistic.
But the idea that on the entire earth, there wouldn’t be even one hospital that had one of these machines, is completely ridiculous.
In the 2008 United States election, I wrote in Ron Paul for President. In the 2012 election, I voted for Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson. Those who are of a more leftist persuasion than myself might want to consider voting for the Green Party in future elections. (more…)
1) Lied about putting health care negotiations on C-SPAN
Although Obama had made a campaign promise to have all of the health care reform negotiations broadcast on C-SPAN, he broke that promise after he was elected.
The secrecy of these negotiations was so strong that U.S. Congresswoman and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California) said, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” (more…)
But when a cereal maker tells the truth, Obama tells it to stop telling the truth.
For quite some time, advertisements for the breakfast cereal Cheerios made the true and accurate claim that eating Cheerios lowers a person’s cholesterol.
However, even though this claim is true and accurate, the Obama administration ordered General Mills, the maker of Cheerios, to stop making this claim in its commercials.
In 2010, Obamacare was passed by the House and Senate, and signed by President Obama.
Three years later, members of Congress and their staff complained that Obamacare was going to cost them a lot of money, and said that this would likely cause a brain drain among their staff. In response to this, Obama made changes to Obamacare so that these things would not happen.
Obama’s actions here are illegal, because he made these changes without Congress voting on them first.
In addition, it shows that the members of Congress are hypocrites. Three years ago, they were all gung ho about passing Obamacare. But now that its negative effects on them are about to come into play, they all of a sudden decide that they don’t like it, and want it changed.
Furthermore, it shows that they did not actually read Obamacare before they voted on it.
1) Lied about putting health care negotiations on C-SPAN
Although Obama had made a campaign promise to have all of the health care reform negotiations broadcast on C-SPAN, he broke that promise after he was elected.
The secrecy of these negotiations was so strong that U.S. Congresswoman and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California) said, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” (more…)
Massachusetts, one of the bluest states in the country, has requested an Obamacare waiver. And Obama has granted their request.
This waiver is illegal for two reasons. First, the waiver was not approved by the U.S. Congress. Second, the U.S. Constitution requires that the federal government treat all states the same.
Previous examples of hypocrisy from the supporters of Obamacare include:
Obama gave some organizations an exemption from some of the requirements of Obamacare. Many of these organizations were unions that had supported the passage of Obamacare, but now wanted exemptions from the very same law that they wanted to force everyone else to obey. This reveals an extreme level of hypocrisy among many of the supporters of Obamacare. In addition, these exemptions are illegal, because the Constitution requires the law to treat everyone the same. The Washington Times wrote of this:
“Selective enforcement of the law is the first sign of tyranny. A government empowered to determine arbitrarily who may operate outside the rule of law invariably embraces favoritism as friends, allies and those with the best-funded lobbyists are rewarded. Favoritism inevitably leads to corruption, and corruption invites extortion. Ultimately, the rule of law ceases to exist in any recognizable form, and what is left is tyranny.”
“The now-familiar monthly trickling down of new waivers is, at best, a tacit admission that Obamacare is a failure. So far, seven entire states and 1,372 businesses, unions and other institutions have received waivers from the law. The list includes the administration’s friends and allies and, of course, those who have the best lobbyists.”
“More than 50 percent of the Obamacare waiver beneficiaries are union members, which is striking because union members account for less than 12 percent of the American work force. The same unions that provided more than $120 million to Democrats in the last two elections and, in many cases, openly campaigned in favor of the government takeover of your health care, now celebrate that Obamacare is not their problem.”
In December 2012, Al Franken, Elizabeth Warren, John Kerry, and 15 other Democrats who supported the passage of Obamacare wrote a letter to Harry Reid, asking him to delay the tax on medical devices, claiming that the tax would hurt job creation in their districts.
As the Obamacare law was written, the employer mandate was to begin in January 2014. This is what the law said when it was passed by the House and Senate, and signed by President Obama in 2010. However, in July 2013, Obama delayed the employer mandate part of Obamacare until January 2015. Obama did this without approval from Congress. For Obama to change a law that was passed by Congress, without first getting approval from Congress, is a violation of the Presidential oath that Obama took to uphold and defend the Constitution. What Obama did here is an action of a dictator, not an action of a President whose power is limited by a written constitution. If Obama can get away with this, then it sets a horribly dangerous precedent, and means that the President can arbitrarily make any change to any law that has been passed by Congress, without first getting approval from Congress.
After Obamacare was passed, 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East announced that it would drop health insurance for the children of more than 30,000 low-wage home attendants. Mitra Behroozi, executive director of benefit and pension funds for 1199SEIU stated
“… new federal health-care reform legislation requires plans with dependent coverage to expand that coverage up to age 26… meeting this new requirement would be financially impossible.”
Three years after Obama signed Obamacare, the New York Times reported that Obama would miss his own deadline for creating some of the insurance exchanges for small businesses.
U.S. Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana), one of the authors of Obamacare, said of it, “I just see a huge train wreck coming down.”
U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia), another author of the law, said it was “beyond comprehension.”
Obama hired 16,500 new IRS agents to run Obamacare. But Obamacare is so awful that even the IRS agents who run it don’t want to participate in it. In July 2013, the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents the IRS employees who will be running Obamacare, provided a form letter to its members to send to their Congressmen. The letter stated:
“I am very concerned about legislation that has been introduced by Congressman Dave Camp to push federal employees out of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and into the insurance exchanges established under the Affordable Care Act.”
When asked about this, IRS chief Daniel Werfel responded by saying:
“I don’t want to speak for the NTEU, but I’ll offer a perspective as a federal employee myself and a federal employee at the IRS. And that is, we have right now as employees of the government, of the IRS, affordable health care coverage. I think the ACA was designed to provide an option or an alternative for individuals that do not. And all else being equal, I think if you’re an individual who is satisfied with your health care coverage, you’re probably in a better position to stick with that coverage than go through the change of moving into a different environment and going through that process. So I think for a federal employee, I think more likely, and I would — can speak for myself, I would prefer to stay with the current policy that I’m pleased with rather than go through a change if I don’t need to go through that change.”
In January 2013, the Wall Street Journal reported:
Some Unions Grow Wary of Health Law They Backed
Labor unions enthusiastically backed the Obama administration’s health-care overhaul when it was up for debate. Now that the law is rolling out, some are turning sour.
Union leaders say many of the law’s requirements will drive up the costs for their health-care plans and make unionized workers less competitive. Among other things, the law eliminates the caps on medical benefits and prescription drugs used as cost-containment measures in many health-care plans. It also allows children to stay on their parents’ plans until they turn 26.
Some 20 million Americans are covered by the health-care plans at issue
Top officers at the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the AFL-CIO and other large labor groups plan to keep pressing the Obama administration to expand the federal subsidies to these jointly run plans, warning that unionized employers may otherwise drop coverage. A handful of unions say they already have examined whether it makes sense to shift workers off their current plans
“We are going back to the administration to say that this is not acceptable,” said Ken Hall, general secretary-treasurer for the Teamsters, which has 1.6 million members and dependents in health-care plans. Other unions involved in the push include the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and Unite Here
Sheet Metal Workers Local 85 in Atlanta, which has about 1,900 members. Next year it must lift the $250,000 annual cap on the amount it will pay for medical claims. The law’s requirements will add between 50 cents to $1 an hour to the cost of members’ compensation package
In July 2013, three unions that supported the passage of Obamacare in 2010 (Teamsters, UFCW, and UNITE-HERE) sent a letter to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi which is very heavily critical of Obamacare. Among other things, the letter states:
“The ACA will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.”
“The law creates an incentive for employers to keep employees’ work hours below 30 hours a week. Numerous employers have begun to cut workers’ hours to avoid this obligation, and many of them are doing so openly. The impact is two-fold: fewer hours means less pay while also losing our current health benefits.”
“Our health plans have been built over decades by working men and women. Under the ACA as interpreted by the Administration, our employees will treated differently and not be eligible for subsidies afforded other citizens. As such, many employees will be relegated to second-class status and shut out of the help the law offers to for-profit insurance plans.”
“These restrictions will make non-profit plans like ours unsustainable.”
“We can no longer stand silent in the face of elements of the Affordable Care Act that will destroy the very health and wellbeing of our members along with millions of other hardworking Americans.”
For some really hilarious displays of shock and outrage by supporters of Obamacare at how it’s harming low wage workers, check out these threads at Democratic Underground: one, two, three, four, and five.
Pittsburgh employers who voted for Obama are now refusing to pay for Obamacare. I’ve lived in Pittsburgh for 42 years. Everywhere I go, I always see a huge number of pro-Obama bumper stickers. The overwhelmingly vast majority of people in this city are Democrats. They love Obama. They adore him. They voted for him in both elections.
Obamacare requires all employers with 50 or more full time employees to purchase health insurance for those employees, or pay a substantial fine. Obamacare defines full time employment as 30 or more hours per week. Community College of Allegheny County has switched 200 of its adjunct professors and 200 of its other employees from full time to part time in order to avoid paying for health insurance for those 400 employees. This decision was made by high level administrators and executives. I’m certain that the vast majority of these higher ups voted for Obama in both elections. These high level employees have chosen to use a loophole to avoid paying for the very same insurance that they expect other employers to pay for. They voted for Obama. They supported Obamacare. But now they are exempting their own organization from paying for it. The stench of hypocrisy fills the air.
The Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh has done the same thing. I’m certain that most of its higher ups voted for Obama. But now these very same higher ups have reduced the hours of 48 of their own employees in order to avoid paying for Obamacare. Again, this shows a tremendous amount of hypocrisy.
Recently, Huffington Post published an article about how easy it would supposedly be for McDonald’s to pay its’ employees $15 an hour. Soon afterward, they took the original article down, and replaced it with this article, which admits that the original article had been wrong.
But I knew they were wrong before they admitted it. Having read the original article, one thing I noticed was that it wrongly assumed that the demand for McDonald’s food would not go down, even though the article did say that there would have been an increase in the prices that customers paid. In the real world, people respond to incentives. When the price of something goes up, the demand for that something does down.
If it were possible for McDonald’s to pay $15 an hour, I would think that some liberal somewhere would have already purchased a franchise and paid the workers $15 an hour.
Critics of McDonald’s complain that you can’t raise a family on what McDonald’s pays. They cite various examples of people trying to raise children on what McDonald’s pays.
But this misses the point. I have always viewed a McDonald’s job as something for a young person who is till in school, and still living with their parents. A high school student who wants to earn money for the prom, for example. I was raised to believe that you are not supposed to have your first child until after you have obtained a good education, gotten a decent paying job, and gotten married.
The fact that unmarried high school dropouts are having trouble raising their children on a McDonald’s salary is not the fault of McDonald’s. Instead, it is the fault of the two people who chose to drop out of high school and make a baby out of wedlock.
Apparently, McDonald’s critics don’t seem to understand why McDonald’s pays much higher wages to its accountants, computer programmers, and lawyers, than it does to its burger flippers and cashiers. What these critics don’t seem to understand is that these people who receive higher wages get those higher wages because they chose to put in the time and effort to acquire better education and better job skills.
If these critics want McDonald’s burger flippers and cashiers to earn more money, then instead of suggesting the totally unrealistic idea of McDonald’s paying them $15 an hour, I suggest that these critics do more to teach people about the concepts of long term planning and delayed gratification.
Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog 