Tag: capitalism

In the Meme Time

The useful idiots of the Left are an endless source of Leftist memes to tear apart and debunk. I follow them on social media so I can get these gems.

This is today’s installment and it’s a beauty.

Like many Leftist memes, this one contains a hint of truth to trap the unwary and deceive them into Leftist thinking (if such a thing exists.) Don’t be fooled by it.

Let’s start with the hint of truth. Medicare is bad. That’s about all the truth it contains. Medicare is bad because it is socialized healthcare funded by taxes and government ran. The percentage of taxes is irrelevant. The government has no business providing or administering healthcare services.

Remember that the Boston Tea Party happened because of a half-cent tax. It’s the tax funding and government control that makes it bad. In reality it makes it evil and wicked. But going down that rabbit hole is beyond the scope of this article.

Yes it’s too expensive because it is forced through taxation and theft.

The top part of this meme is completely off the mark. Paying my so-called health insurance through my employer at any is neither good, capitalist, or affordable.

Capitalism believes in the free market. Health insurance is not in the free market place at all. It is restricted by the states. If this was a free market insurance system, all plans would be available in all areas without the state imposed burdens and red tape. Additionally, health care providers would have to publish their fees for all procedures before you have any. That would enable the consumer to shop around.

Or even better, eliminate health insurance all together and have the consumer negotiate with their provider directly instead of going through a middleman that might deny the charge and claim. That would be the most capitalist way of handling healthcare.

And finally, the last bit is somewhat true. The Left does propagandize that more government, more taxes, and less freedoms and rights are the better way to go. From the ads we see on TV, all of social media, the garbage out of Hollywood, and what is being taught in the government ran schools is nothing but propaganda that demonizes the United States, a Republican form of government, and capitalism.

Leftism vs Liberalism – They are different

[I have posted this before. And I wish that I would have originally written it but alas I didn’t. This masterpiece was originally written by Dennis Prager in September of 2017. It is reprinted/paraphrased here without permission.]

Leftists and Liberals have nothing in common. Liberals have more in common with Conservatives that they have in common with the Left. Unfortunately, the common Leftist tactic is to control language. Thus they change the definitions of words to control thinking. And this is what has happened with the term Liberal. And why I don’t use that term and always use Leftist.

These are hallmarks of true Liberalism.

Race: This is perhaps the most obvious of the many moral differences between liberalism and leftism. The essence of the liberal position on race was that the color of one’s skin is insignificant. To liberals of a generation ago, only racists believed that race was intrinsically significant. However, to the left, the notion that race is insignificant is itself racist.

Thus, the University of California officially regards the statement, “There is only one race, the human race,” as racist.

For that reason, liberals were passionately committed to racial integration. Liberals should be sickened by the existence of black dormitories and separate black graduations on university campuses.

Capitalism: Liberals have always been pro-capitalism, recognizing it for what it is: the only economic means of lifting great numbers out of poverty. Liberals did often view government as able to play a bigger role in lifting people out of poverty than conservatives, but they were never opposed to capitalism, and they were never for socialism. Opposition to capitalism and advocacy of socialism are leftist values.

Nationalism: Liberals deeply believed in the nation-state, whether their nation was the United States, Great Britain, or France. The Left has always opposed nationalism because leftism is rooted in class solidarity, not national solidarity. The Left has contempt for nationalism, seeing in it intellectual and moral primitivism at best, and the road to fascism (another Leftist ideology) at worst.

Liberals always wanted to protect American sovereignty and borders. The notion of open borders would have struck a liberal as just as objectionable as it does a conservative.

It is emblematic of our time that the left-wing writers of Superman comics had Superman announce a few years ago, “I intend to speak before the United Nations tomorrow and inform them that I am renouncing my American citizenship.”

When the writers of Superman were liberal, Superman was not only an American but one who fought for “truth, justice, and the American way.” But in his announcement, he explained that motto is “not enough anymore.”

View of America: Liberals venerated America.

Watch American films from the 1930s through the 1950s and you will be watching overtly patriotic, American-celebrating films — virtually all produced, directed, and acted in by liberals.

Liberals well understand that America is imperfect, but they agree with a liberal icon named Abraham Lincoln that America is “the last best hope of earth.”

To the Left, America is essentially a racist, sexist, violent, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, and Islamophobic country. The Left around the world loathe America, and it is hard to imagine why the American Left would differ in this one way from fellow Leftists around the world.

Leftists often take offense at having their love for America doubted. But those left-wing descriptions of America are not the only reason to assume that the left has more contempt than love for America.

The Left’s view of America was encapsulated in then-presidential candidate Barak Obama’s statement in 2008. “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America,” he said.

Now, if you were to meet a man who said that he wanted to fundamentally transform his wife, or a woman who said that about her husband, would you assume that either loved their spouse? Of course not.

Free speech: The difference between Left and liberals regarding free speech is as dramatic as the difference regarding race. No one was more committed than American liberals to the famous statement, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Liberals still are. But the Left is leading the first nationwide suppression of free speech in American history — from the universities to Google and social media to almost every other institution and place of work. It claims to only oppose hate speech. But protecting the right of person A to say what person B deems objectionable is the entire point of free speech.

Western Civilization: Liberals have a deep love of Western Civilization. They taught it at virtually every university and community college and celebrated its unique moral, ethical, philosophical, artistic, musical, and literary achievements. No liberal would have joined the Leftist Rev. Jessie Jackson in chanting at Stanford University: “Hey, hey. Ho, ho. Western civ has got to go.”

The most revered liberal in American history is probably former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who frequently cited the need to protect not just Western civilization but Christian civilization.

Yet Leftists unanimously denounced President Donald Trump for his speech in Warsaw, Poland, in which he spoke of protecting Western civilization. They argued not only that Western civilization is not superior to any other civilization but also that is in no more than a euphemism for white supermacy.

Judaism and Christianity: Liberals knew and appreciated the Judeo-Christian roots of American civilization. They themselves went to church or synagogue, or at the very least appreciated that more of their fellow Americans did.

The contempt that the Left has — and has always had — for religion (except for Islam today) is not something with which a liberal would ever have identified.

If the Left is not defeated, American and Western civilization will not survive. But the Left will not be defeated until good liberals understand this and join the fight.

Dear Liberals: Conservatives are not your enemy. The Left is. And they have taken over your name and replaced your beliefs with theirs. It is time to take back your name and beliefs.

Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week

By the time you read this, Puddin’ Head Joe will have given his latest State of the Union Address where he will say we’re doing great under Bidenomics while calling out one of the biggest issues we face in America today.

Shrinkflation.

Not illegal immigration. Not the national debt ballooning to Rosie-O’Donnell-and-Michael-Moore-at-an-all-you-can-eat-buffet levels. Not fentanyl addiction, the price of goods and services, or our involvement in two wars. Getting less for the same price we paid for the same item previously.

At least Puddin’ Head Joe has his thumb firmly up his own ass or else he might be tempted to do something. In the meantime, we can talk about shrinkflation in terms even Puddin’ Head Joe can understand.

shrinkflation

What the Left thinks it means – when greedy companies charge the same price, but give consumers less

What it really means – when companies try to balance customer demand and production costs

I will warn you this is some economics talk, so if it’s not your bag, you may not want to continue. Unless you want to see me use the word “fuck” a lot. I bear no responsibility for any boredom or drowsiness you feel reading this week’s Lexicon.

With that out of the way, fuck.

When costs go up due to…oh I don’t know…a fucking idiot using our budget like the ATM at a strip club for compulsive people, companies have to figure out a way to continue doing business. Since most companies are run by people who have even a fleeting understanding of the laws of supply and demand, this sets into motion a series of decisions. Raise prices to compensate for the cost of doing business, offer less and try to keep prices lower, or do a combination of the two?

Shrinkflation is the combination of the two. Instead of charging the actual price of a good or service (which may negatively impact demand), companies will keep the price at the same level as before the cost hike, but they have to find a way to balance the cost with the price point. That usually means giving people less or taking a loss.

The other option on the shrinkflation table is to reduce the size of the packaging, thus reducing the amount you get. Granted, it’s usually a little bit here and there, but it can make all the difference if you get to the end of your package of Oreos and you’re missing one or two. And since we’re dealing with milk’s favorite cookie, that’s a sin against Man and Nature.

Now, for the people who don’t even have a Cliff’s Notes idea of the law of supply and demand (i.e. Leftists), the obvious solution is for the company to take a loss. After all, it’s just money and these companies make tons of it. The issue at hand for them is greed. In their hivemind, greed is immoral (except when it’s done to advance Leftist causes), so there is a moral obligation for companies to not make any more money than necessary.

Sound familiar? If not, let me give you a clue: it’s the entire fucking idea behind Puddin’ Head Joe’s push to deal with shrinkflation.

But wait, there’s more! Puddin’ Head Joe announced he was launching a task force to combat…“unfair and illegal pricing.” Yep, government has to get involved to help consumers. And I’m sure nothing could possibly go wrong with that. Look at the success of Obamacare!

On second thought, let’s not.

The thing is government can’t fight greed. Greed is a human trait, so combating it means fighting human nature. Of course, the government has been fighting wars on drugs and poverty for decades, so maybe the powers that be stupid think following the same script will work this time. It just needs time and money…no, wait, that’s Ukraine.

Regardless, it’s a fundamentally stupid idea that doesn’t attack the real issue. It’s not necessarily the greed of the companies that needs to be addressed, but the greed of the consumers. Whether you clip coupons like a rabbi performing brises on straight commission or look for sales and deals on items you want or need, we are all trying to get our dollars to stretch as much as we can. Especially these days when inflation is higher than Hunter Biden on any day ending in, well, “day.” That puts the producer and the buyer at an impasse, as the producer is trying to make as much money as possible without pricing themselves into oblivion.

But here’s the part the Left doesn’t understand: that’s a part of the law of supply and demand. It’s not like if a company makes one penny more than it “should” the buyer is fucked. It just means in that particular transaction, the producer (i.e. the one accepting all the risk) made a penny. Having some no-name, no-brain bureaucrat with a shiny new office and a meaningless title take that penny away isn’t going to fix the problem, but it may start a whole new problem: government taking more than just that one penny.

One of my immutable truths is “The sole purpose of any bureaucracy is to grow itself to the point it becomes irremovable.” If Puddin’ Head Joe’s task force can take away one penny of profit in the name of unfair business practices, what’s to stop it from taking another penny and another and another and so on using the same rationale? As long as there are people who believe businesses are fucking them over, there will always be a line outside the door of people willing to “stick it to The Man.”

But there comes a point where “sticking it to The Man” results in negative consequences. Just ask Walgreens and CVS, who have been plagued by continuous shoplifting in California and are pulling out of some areas only to get shamed by community leaders for trying to cut the company’s losses and closing stores in these areas. Of course, if these same community leaders gave two shits about the shoplifting and tried fixing that problem instead of bitching to Walgreens and CVS, maybe those locations wouldn’t be trying to get out in the first place.

Nahhhhh. That’s too simple. Has to be racism because…fuck you racists!

As consumers, we have to understand as prices go up for the things we buy and use, those same prices are going up to get us these things. The way Puddin’ Head Joe wants us to think ignores that reality and creates a straw man that would put Ray Bolger to shame. And, yes, if there is a company that charges the same price before Inflationpalooza but delivers only 1/100 of the product, that company should get the shit kicked out of them. But not through violence or government interference. In the place where it really matters, the free market.

And that’s where any shrinkflation should be addressed, to be honest. Money talks, bullshit walks, and Leftists balk, and it’s the best way to balance the needs and wants of all parties directly involved. And it will piss off people who don’t like the free market, so win-win!

Seriously, shrinkflation is only a problem for those who don’t get how free market capitalism works. Which means Puddin’ Head Joe is going to make it a problem, and we’re all going to feel the impact of his attempts to “fix” it.

Oh joy.