Absent For A Week

I will be unable to post until the start of the next month. Don't give up on me, I just had to deal with some family stuff. Have a good week everyone.

Is More Money Really More Money?

Attempting to ease the pressure on the poor by increasing the minimum wage is a fallacy. Raising the minimum wage makes poor people poorer. On the surface, this seems incorrect. After all, they have more money. Or do they? One must recall that one dollar today is worth far less than one dollar was worth a hundred years ago.

But, but, you’re talking inflation! This would be immediate!

I know, I know. Let me break down for you why you have less money if companies are forced to pay you more. Companies are not going to eat the cost of paying their minimum wage employees more. They are going to pass that extra cost into their product’s purchase price.

AHHA! I got you now! The price would just go up by the same amount they are paying out! You’re dumb!

Nice try, my imaginary alter ego. Unfortunately, business doesn’t run this way. Every business functions within the rules of their business projection, which is edited every year. These projections do not state that the business must make $x.xx in profit. Instead, they say that the business must make x% in profit. This number is typically somewhere between 3% and 8% depending on the business. I’m going to use very small numbers to illustrate my point. What would happen is exactly the same, only the numbers are typically in the millions or billions.

Let’s say that a company spends $92 to produce their product and pay their employees. From this expense, they generate $100. Their profit goal is 8%. Have they made their goal in this situation? The profit is $8. 8/100 = .08. Move the decimal and you have 8%. They are dead on their profit margin.

Now, Congress just initiated a minimum wage increase that resulted in this company’s expense being $92.10. Logic would say they just need to increase the price by ten cents and generate $100.10 to make up the difference. Let’s do the math. We still have an $8 profit, so it should work out the same, right? Wrong. 8/100.10 = .0799. Move the decimal and you have a 7.99% profit, which means the company did not meet its goal and somebody is likely getting fired. Management, who would like to stay employed, will instead increase the price by a number that will still result in an 8% profit. This means that the overall price will have to increase. Another penny will do the trick, which will increase profit to $8.01. 8.01/100.10 = .8.

So what does all of this mean? It means that you overall have less money. You gained 10 cents in wages but now pay 11 cents more than previously. You have a bigger number of dollars in the bank, but you have less monetary value. The poor get poorer.

Instant Replay

I’m a sports fan. During every playoff series of every sport, a bad call is made and people start demanding the use of instant replay. The average baseball game already lasts three hours. I can only imagine how much longer they would be if questionable calls of a strike or a ball were reviewed. Every close play at first base would result in a review. Watching football, I dread the red flag. It stalls the game. It can kill momentum. So I’m proposing the out and out banning of instant replay as an officiating tool.

Next, I’ll push my opinion to the edge and make you all roll your eyes. I personally enjoy sports because I feel that a game/series/season parallels life. First, you are not going to win all of your battles. Sometimes you lose. This doesn’t mean your life is over. You have to get back up and keep fighting another day. It also teaches you never to underestimate anyone. How many times during any season does the worst team in the league beat the best team?

Now, all of this leads to why I hate Instant Replay. In life, many of our advancements or victories are determined by other people. Usually these people are supervisors, management, and owners. How many of us have done something that was misinterpreted by said individual? If your boss thinks you’ve messed up, do you just quit? If a co-worker cheats and gets credit where it isn’t due, do you just quit? Hopefully your answer is “Hell no!” What is sweeter in life than ultimately coming out on top over an opponent that was succeeding because of cheating or dishonesty? Using Instant Replay takes this away. It turns athletes into cry-babies rather than giants that overcame something that wasn’t fair.

Embrace officiating errors. They create drama. Sports are nothing without drama.

420: The Question Behind The Day

Should marijuana be legal? Before I answer that question, I’d like to examine the argument for legalization. The main reason given for why the US should legalize marijuana is that it has medical properties.

Yawn. I have one word for this argument: Pretense. 95% of people that make this argument do not really give a crap about marijuana for medical use. They use this in the hopes that if it becomes legal for medical purposes, it will eventually just get legalized because they like to get high. Drop the pretension and be honest about it. You like to get high and would like to do so without the threat of arrest.

Now, I do not use drugs. I do not like drugs. However, I do not care if other people want to do drugs. If you want to destroy your brain, and hopefully eventually remove yourself from the gene pool, feel free! The government should legalize it. Any person in prison for a drug related crime should stay right where they are. It is illegal now and they broke the law. However, it will free up police to patrol for crimes that have direct, obvious victims. Eventually the prison population will decrease. Less money on enforcement and holding plus more money in taxes is an overall good thing.

Finally, all drugs should be regulated just as alcohol is regulated. If you get high and then drive, you have a DUI. Loss of license and fines. Multiple violations would result in greater punishments. Drugs are not going away. Control it and regulate it. Just drop the pretension that you give a crap about cancer victims.

The Lesson In Death

As most are probably aware, an ungodly long list of contaminated dog food can be found all over the internet. It has become theorized that this was most likely an intentional contamination by some sick individual. Before I move on to my point, I would like to say that I find no humor in this situation. Anything said that may come across that way is unintentional.

There is a major lesson to be learned from this. How many of you are even aware of what is in the dog food you feed your dogs? Alternatively, replace the word "dog" with "cat" or any other pet. When you decide to take on the responsibility of a pet, you are promising a living creature that you are going to take care of that animal. If you do not research what you are feeding them, you have violated that promise and their trust. Many moons ago, I found a book called Food Pets Die For by Ann Martin that showed some shocking practices of the pet food industry. I discovered a diet known as the Raw Diet that follows a more natural diet for my dogs and is actually cheaper than dog food.

There is always a threat that this could be done to our food. Do you know where your food comes from? I'm not proclaiming that you need to turn into a hippie that goes "all natural". Sometimes "all natural" can actually be more harmful to the environment. I'm just saying you need to be careful. Doing something to yourself is your business. Being willie-nillie with your pets or, god forbid, your children can lead to terrible situations. Research is your friend and doesn't take that much time.

The Scientific Method Is Not Welcome Here!

Oh sweet environmental science. When did scientists stop using the scientific method to determine scientific facts?

Sadly, the answer lies with Congress. When did they stop? They stopped when Congress started handing out money for scientists to study the impending catastrophic collapse of Earth’s environment. They didn’t offer money for scientists to create ways to help us reduce our effects on polluting the environment. They didn’t offer money for scientific development. They offered money to prove that there is a problem.

The scientific method does not allow for this. It does not state that one is supposed to draw a conclusion and prove it. You are supposed to test it. Test it some more. Test it again. If it seems to hold true, call it a theory. Let others test it. Test it some more. Look for other possible reasons. Test it again. Retest it. Hesitantly claim it is a fact, but requires more testing. Keep testing it until there is almost no reasonable doubt as to its accuracy. For a refresher on scientific method, visit this website: http://physics.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics7/Notes_www/node6.html#SECTION02121000000000000000.

Historically, Congress and science do not mix well. Need I remind everyone of the debacle where scientists “proved” that there were four shots fired at Kennedy’s assassination? They took audio that obviously indicated four shots. Except it didn’t. Science needs to be kept out of politics. Government funding is fine, but must come without strings. Otherwise, it needs to remain exclusively the science of the free market.

But Al Gore says the Earth is crumbling and we’re all gonna die! I know. I know. We also have to avoid stray killer asteroids and the ever present danger of bird flu. Or we can keep our wits about us. The temperatures of other planets are experiencing similar fluctuations without the assistance of humanity. Couldn’t it just be that there is a less dramatic reason for “global warming”? Study it. Come up with reasonable solution that would not lead to the total collapse of every major economic power in the world. If you believe that this is impossible, then go live like a hippie in the woods while scientists with some tenacity create solutions that function within the confines of reality.

Virginia Tech As Iraq

Consider how you feel about the Virginia Tech massacre. Just ponder it for a minute. As a country we are deeply affected by these events. We want to get to know the victims. We want to understand why someone would do this monstrous deed. We slowly heal, accepting that these things happen and we need to appreciate what we have. In other words, we take a negative situation and learn something positive from it through a grieving process.

Now, put that image of the massacre back in your mind. Image it happens at least once a week, on a good week. Sadly, 150 Iraqis were killed in a series of four bombings recently. That is five times the number of deaths in the Virginia Tech tragedy. There is little to no time between tragedies. No healing.

So what is my point?

Many feel that we went into Iraq unjustly. Did Bush lie? The answer is obvious. No. But! But! We never found weapons of mass destruction!

Exactly. If Bush did not believe that Saddam had WMDs, we would have found them. Allow me to explain. When you lie, you act to cover that lie. Had Bush been knowingly wrong about WMDs, the military would have brought WMDs with them into Iraq. They would have buried them in the sand and a month later “discovered” them. No WMDs means that Bush is still honest.

We did the right thing to invade.

However, there is a huge problem. Iraq has turned into something unhealthy and dangerous. If we want to stabilize Iraq, we need to do something extreme. The last thing we need to do is leave. We need to up the ante. We need to leave the green zone and control the violence. This will lead to troop loss. This will lead to increased attacks. This will ultimately lead to victory.

We need to stop abandoning reason out of fear of sounding unsympathetic. Iraq celebrated when the invasion was over. We dropped the ball. It is time to pick the ball back up and take the country back for the Iraqis.