Attention CNN! It’s not McDonald’s fault that Safiyyah Cotton chose to have a baby out of wedlock. Plus, here’s a rare news article that actually mentions the concept of personal responsibility.
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
April 28, 2016
In this seven minute video, CNN talks about a single mother who is struggling to raise her child on the small salary that she earns at McDonald’s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SCB1t28nDU
As is always the case with news articles from the mainstream media about struggling single mothers trying to raise their children, the article says absolutely nothing about the baby’s father.
The article doesn’t say that the father has a responsibility to provide for the baby that he chose to create.
The article doesn’t say that the mother has a responsibility to choose a responsible mate to make her baby with.
The article doesn’t say that if they got married, they would only have to pay rent for one apartment instead of two, and so things would be a lot easier.
The article doesn’t say anything about the mother ever having made any attempt to acquire better education and job skills as a way to get a bigger salary.
By comparison, this news article by Inside Edition fully understands the concept of personal responsibility. The article is called “Mom Cries On Dock As Cruise Ship Leaves With Her Kids Still On Board,” and includes the following brilliant quote, the kind of quote that is completely missing in the CNN article about the McDonald’s worker:
Travel expert Mark Murphy told IE: “It is the woman’s fault for not getting back on time. It is not the cruise ship’s fault. It is not the captain’s fault. It is not the cruise line’s fault. Everybody knows the posted time to get back and that ship is on a schedule, it is going to go.”
I absolutely love that quote. I praise Mr. Murphy for saying it. And I praise Inside Edition for including it in the article.
CNN, and all the other mainstream news organizations that write about struggling single mothers without ever mentioning the children’s fathers, should learn a lesson from Inside Edition about how to write a proper news story.
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:
Social justice warriors harass fast food employee who is just trying to do her job
This one fast food employee has more work ethic, integrity, and respect, than all of these social justice warriors combined:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9trsPlvLnQ
‘Fight for 15′ Protesters Invade Fast Food Restaurant, Invite Worker to Go on ‘Strike’ — Just Watch How She Responds
April 15, 2016
A group of “Fight for 15” protesters invaded a Taco Bell restaurant in Austin, Texas, on Thursday and invited a worker to go on “strike” to demand more money and better working conditions.
The protesters’ message wasn’t well received by the employee, who said she just wanted to do her job.
After one protester informed her it was a “day of action,” the employee responded sharply, “This is also a job that I am trying to do.”
“Y’all are hindering my work, you may leave the building,” she added.
The apparent leader of the protest still finished his speech and invited her to go on “strike” and join the protest — but she didn’t seem interested in the least.
Bernie Sanders supports $15 minimum wage, but only pays his interns $12 an hour
Bernie Sanders wants to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
But he only pays his interns $12 an hour.
I am curious to hear his explanation for this.
Los Angeles unions that support $15 minimum wage want an exemption for themselves
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-los-angeles-minimum-wage-unions-20150526-story.html
L.A. labor leaders seek minimum wage exemption for firms with union workers
May 27, 2015
Labor leaders, who were among the strongest supporters of the citywide minimum wage increase approved last week by the Los Angeles City Council, are advocating last-minute changes to the law that could create an exemption for companies with unionized workforces.
The push to include an exception to the mandated wage increase for companies that let their employees collectively bargain was the latest unexpected detour as the city nears approval of its landmark legislation to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020.
The City Council voted last week to gradually increase the hourly minimum wage to $15 over the next five years.
Last fall, the council approved an ordinance increasing the minimum wage at large hotels to $15.37 per hour. That law says that provisions of the hotel wage hike may be waived in workplaces that have collective bargaining agreements.
Bernie Sanders’ war on women
Bernie Sanders wants Nike to stop doing business in Vietnam. He recently accused Nike of
“exploiting low-wage workers”
in Vietnam.
Unfortunately, Sanders did not actually talk to any of those Vietnamese workers to get their opinion on this issue.
Fortunately, a guy named Johan Norberg did talk to Vietnamese workers who work in a Nike factory. He then wrote the following:
But when I talk to a young Vietnamese woman, Tsi-Chi, at the factory, it is not the wages she is most happy about. Sure, she makes five times more than she did, she earns more than her husband, and she can now afford to build an extension to her house. But the most important thing, she says, is that she doesn’t have to work outdoors on a farm any more… 10 to 14 hours a day in the burning sun or the intensive rain, in rice fields with water up to your ankles and insects in your face.
Bernie Sanders wants to reduce the income of Vietnamese women by 80%.
Bernie Sanders want to force Vietnamese women to work outside in the burning sun and intense rain, with water up to their ankles, and insects in their face.
Bernie Sanders wants Vietnamese women to earn less than their husbands.
Bernie Sanders wants to prevent Vietnamese women from being able to afford adequate housing.
And above all else, Bernie Sanders believes that Vietnamese women are too stupid to make their own decisions regarding employment, and he wants to make those decisions for them.
Would liberals please explain why union workplaces are exempt from SeaTac’s $15 minimum wage law?
The Washington Post recently published this article on the new $15 minimum wage law in SeaTac, Washington. The article states:
“… union workplaces are exempt…”
This exemption is wrong because the law is supposed to treat everyone equally.
But also, it is an extreme example of hypocrisy. It was unions who got the ball rolling on this $15 minimum wage. It was unions who said that all workers should be paid at least $15 an hour.
But now, these very same unions are getting an exemption from the very same law that they so strongly supported.
Would liberals please explain why union workshops got an exemption from SeaTac’s $15 minimum wage law that was initiated and supported by these very same unions?
Fracking in Williston, North Dakota, drives unemployment rate to less than 1%, so Wal-Mart offers $17.40 an hour
A Wal-Mart in Williston, North Dakota is offering starting salaries of $17.40 per hour.
The reason that this particular Wal-Mart is offering $17.40 an hour has nothing to do with unions, social justice, compassion, or any other such thing.
Instead, it’s simple supply and demand.
In particular, the article says that fracking has made it possible to access oil which had previously been unobtainable. This has driven the unemployment rate to less than 1% in the city where this Wal-Mart is located.
This presents an interesting situation for anyone who favors higher wages while simultaneously opposing fracking, i.e, a large percentage of people on the political left. Tradeoffs are a common part of life, and I am interested in hearing what other people think of this situation.
The Daily Signal reports:
Why One Walmart in North Dakota Is Paying $17.40 an Hour
A Walmart store in Williston, N.D., is offering to pay entry-level workers as much as $17.40 per hour…
… the historic oil boom in North Dakota has provided real, sustained growth in wages and lowered unemployment in North Dakota to 2.6 percent—the lowest statewide rate in the nation—and to less than 1 percent in Williston, which is near the oil fields in the western part of the state.
Those jobs are safe for the foreseeable future, too. Last year, a study conducted by the United States Geological Service estimated conservatively that 7.4 billion barrels of recoverable oil sit beneath North Dakota. Scientists have long known about these oil reserves, but two miles of solid rock precluded development. Recent advances in hydraulic fracturing and smart drilling technology have made production possible and triggered the present economic boom.
I dare liberals to buy a McDonald’s franchise, and pay the workers $15 an hour
Liberals are always talking about how easy it would be for McDonald’s to pay its workers $15 an hour.
However, so far, no liberal has actually bought a McDonald’s franchise and paid those wages.
So, I dare liberals to prove that it’s as easy as they claim it is. I dare liberals to buy a McDonald’s franchise, and pay the workers $15 an hour.
Shaniqua Davis, it’s not McDonald’s fault that you chose to become an unmarried, teenage mother
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
August 29, 2013
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:
In the real world, no liberal has ever bought a McDonald’s franchise and paid the workers $15 an hour
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 