The liberals' culture war
The woman who manned the register at the Blue Hill Food Co-op in Maine was a hugely pregnant hippie chick who did not shave under her arms. I knew this because she was wearing overalls... and nothing else. My wife, who is mildly allergic to bees, had just been stung, so we were asking her where we could find a nearby pharmacy.
She scowled for a moment, and then asked us (no kidding!) "Why do you need a pharmacy? You should just menstruate on a piece of tree bark, like I do." Well okay, she didn't really add that last sentence, but she might as well have. She mumbled some directions, we thanked her, and then drove for a few miles until we found a strip mall on the side of the highway, anchored by that pernicious blight of the suburban landscape -- Wal-Mart.
First of all, let me say that I personally tend to avoid Wal-Mart as much as possible. I find shopping there to be a profoundly unpleasant experience (except for the ICEEs, which are getting harder and harder to find these days.) Still, I would never presume to judge those who do shop at Wal-Mart, as many liberals (including the Co-op girl) clearly do.
Secondly, there's nothing wrong with the Food Co-op either. Sure, the staff and some of the clientele can be a bit nutty. It's one of those places where you could probably expect a 10% discount if you say "STOP BUSH'S ILLEGAL WAR IN IRAQ!" at the checkout. But they have a wide variety of stuff you can't find elsewhere. Much of it is good (fresh local produce, craft-brewed beer and exotic cheeses) and much of it awful (meatless meat, cage-free tofu and homeopathic snake oil) but all of the merchandise there has one thing in common -- it was exorbitantly expensive.
See, the Co-op is committed to social justice, paying a "living wage" to its hippies, buying coffee only from the Zapatistas and other such b.s. Still, their curried chicken salad (real chicken -- free range, of course) was quite good, and we shopped there often. With our New York salaries, we could afford to. Others, however, can't.
The pregnant hippie chick and other liberals would, no doubt, prefer that everyone shop at the Co-op -- or at the very least avoid shopping at Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, that's simply not realistic, and the liberals' animosity towards the nation's largest retail chain is further evidence that the liberal movement in America has lost touch with working families. The GOP's rise to power in America came about as the working class began to self-identify as Republicans. Liberals' obsession with Wal-Mart won't help them win the NASCAR set back, I'm afraid.
We've all heard the lefties' anti-Wal-Mart shtick before. We also know that it seldom (if ever) stops at criticizing Wal-Mart's labor practices. More often than not, it goes on to disparage the taste and class of Wal-Mart shoppers themselves. Remember the good old days, when Republicans were the party of the elite?
George Will has a great piece on the Democrats' bizarre fixation on this American institution, and notes some very interesting facts.
The median household income of Wal-Mart shoppers is under $40,000. Wal-Mart, the most prodigious job-creator in the history of the private sector in this galaxy, has almost as many employees (1.3 million) as the U.S. military has uniformed personnel. A McKinsey company study concluded that Wal-Mart accounted for 13 percent of the nation's productivity gains in the second half of the 1990s, which probably made Wal-Mart about as important as the Federal Reserve in holding down inflation.By lowering consumer prices, Wal-Mart costs about 50 retail jobs among competitors for every 100 jobs Wal-Mart creates . Wal-Mart and its effects save shoppers more than $200 billion a year, dwarfing such government programs as food stamps ($28.6 billion) and the earned-income tax credit ($34.6 billion).
People who buy their groceries from Wal-Mart -- it has one-fifth of the nation's grocery business -- save at least 17 percent. But because unions are strong in many grocery stores trying to compete with Wal-Mart, unions are yanking on the Democratic Party's leash, demanding laws to force Wal-Mart to pay wages and benefits higher than those that already are high enough to attract 77 times as many applicants than there were jobs at this store.
Whether you like Wal-Mart or not (and again, I don't) it sure doesn't sound like the unmitigated evil that John Kerry deemed it in 2004, when he called it "disgraceful" and symbolic of "what's wrong with America." So long, party of the working man. Hello, party of effete white liberals.
You need look no further than this absurd war against Wal-Mart to understand why the Democrats have repeatedly failed to gain traction in heartland America. It's another symptom of the same disease that Will summarizes brilliantly in the last paragraph of his column.
When liberals' presidential nominees consistently fail to carry Kansas, liberals do not rush to read a book titled "What's the Matter With Liberals' Nominees?" No, the book they turned into a bestseller is titled "What's the Matter With Kansas?" Notice a pattern here?Yes. I do.
Comments
Unlike elitist neocon Barry, I like shopping at Wal-Mart. I even buy my clothes there -- and I make over $100k in Michigan, which is equal to a quarter million in New York. So I'm sure I'm richer than Barry, I'm just not an elitist.
Not only is their stuff cheaper, but their selection is better than any other store.
Once we get the 20 million illegal Mexicans partially educated, they can move from backbreaking labor to running the Wal-Marts. Then we can import more illegals for the backbreaking stuff again. I don't see a labor problem here at all. The unions might as well disband now.
You know, I'm starting to come around to JMK's way of thinking. Sure, I had two six-month vacations on unemployment, but now I have a high paying job again and I get a dozen job offers a day.
Outsourcing has done its worse, but since I am so elite I survived, and it looks like clear sailing from this point forward. Young Americans and less skilled programmers bailed out of the field. Most of the outsourced projects failed (or at least failed to save money). Every country in the world competes for Indian progrmmers now. Here I sit, my talent clamored for by desperate businesses, as it should be.
I've got mine.
If you don't like competing with Mexicans, learn something useful.
Posted by: Bailey Hankins | September 15, 2006 03:44 PM
I guess $100K is okay... per month, har har har.
Posted by: BNJ | September 15, 2006 04:49 PM
Bailey, you are very weird.
Posted by: ortho | September 15, 2006 08:09 PM
Barely isn't "weird" ortho, he's emotionally disturbed.
He suffers from severe and acute BDS.
There's only one "open border" Party in America and that Party is the Democratic Party. The same Party that passed NAFTA in January of 1994, the same Party that expanded GATT in 1991 and created the H-1B Visa and grew it from under 50,000 in 1992 to over 900,000 by 2001.
The Republicans in the House just passed a Bill that will put up 700 miles of fencing along the most accessible parts of our Southern border. The Bill would also sock companies and individuals who hire illegals with huge fines, on the basis that without jobs, the illegals here will "self-deport."
A large majority of House Democrats opposed that Bill.
Some Republican SENATORS (John McCain among them) oppose this Bill. Their opposition, is on the grounds that "cheap labor is not only good, but necessary," makes a lot more sense than the naive Democrat's "Open borders for diversity's sake," does.
The porous southern border is about "cheap labor." the H-1B Visa is about addressing Structural unemployment.
The Tech Bubble Bust, caused by numerous improprieties at the Clinton era SEC, creating a "Bubble" that never should've exxisted in the first place, is what killed off so many U.S. Tech sector jobs over the past five years. That's why when Clinton signed the last increase in the limit of H-1B Visas (upping it to 195,000/year) that limit was NEVER reached in any of the years it was in existence.
H-1B Visa workers are very common in the accounting profession, in which my wife works. Today's major accounting firms "look like the UN," according to her.
These "foreign accountants" don't work for less and accounting salaries haven't gone down over the past ten years, they've gone up...and up...and up!
In fact Sarb-Ox is often jokingly called "The Full Employment for Accountants Bill" by people in that profession.
There is a huge amount of "structural unemployment" in America's accounting field.
A mid-sized firm where my wife used to worked couldnt hire enough accountants to take on many accounts that came their way.
Despite all the "foreign workers" accountants in America are still in very high demand and salaries are only going up.
Posted by: JMK | September 15, 2006 11:49 PM
It's not Walmart that's the enemy of today's Liberals, but business itself.
Hell, Costco's CEO, Jim Sinegal, takes a salary of just $350,000/year, pays decent wages ($12/hour to start, up through $25/hour), plus health benefits and they promote exclusively from within, and yet Costco is rarely if EVER lauded by the anti-business brigades, they focus exclusively on assailing Walmart for their lower wages, their use of per diem (non-benefits-earning ) workers, all of which enables Walmart to offer lower prices.
It's not that Walmart gets most of its goods from places like China!
Both Walmart and Costco get the bulk of their retail goods from China.
David Gardner: Let's start it off with the importance of China to your bottom line. Buy, sell, or hold?
Jim Sinegal: Buy.
David Gardner: Why?
Jim Sinegal: I think that we are going to continue to see vast improvement in the quality of products coming out of China and the number of products coming out of China, and I think that that is going to be an important element for our retail business, and we think also it is going to give us a great opportunity to sell goods over there.
http://articles.fool.com/coms2/summary_0268-webdata20050121X18_ITM
No, Walmart caters to consumers whose annual income is below $40,000, while Costco's retail demographic is over $60,000/year.
In the 1960s misguided Liberals championed Big Labor's "Pattern Bargaining," where smaller enterprises were forced to pay the "going rate" (the same salaries that larger companies paid) for truck drivers, factory workers, office staff, delivery workers, etc.
Pattern Bargaining put many, many smaller and mid-sized companies out of business, thus killing hundreds of thousands of jobs for working Americans.
Of course Liberals supported things like pattern bargaining back then and today they support such things as forcing Walmart to offer health benefits to per diems and to raise their wage rates in line with the Costco's and other more high end retailers, even if it ultimately means higher prices.
Yup, those "illiberal elites" never get tired of kicking the poor and lower paid workers in the nads.
WoW! Their cups really do over-run with compassion!
Apparently they'd rather see those who'd work for smaller businesses out of work and on welfare than see them earning lower wages than their counterparts at larger companies.
Ans apparently they'd rather see the "working poor" do without, rather than buy "inferior goods" at places like Walmart.
So, that's "Liberal compassion?"
Posted by: JMK | September 16, 2006 02:09 PM
You bored everyone to death JMK. Who even has time to address so many lies? Especially when it doesn't matter, you will just parrot the same crap again, because Rush is Right!
We are the only nation where CEO's make 500 times more than average workers. This is easily TEN TIMES what even other rich countries pay CEO's.
Are they worth it? Hmmm, no, doesn't look like it. Must be more of that "Compassionate Conservatism" at work.
A study done on "Trickle Down" economics found that rich people did NOT invest their windfall profits in new business, research, raises, or employing more people. They spent it on yachts, furs, and other luxury items, almost exclusively from foreign countries.
More "compassionate conservatism" ... LOL!
Posted by: Bailey Hankins | September 18, 2006 11:16 PM
The CEO salary differential in America pre-Reagan was 17X the average salary, it raised to 46X during Reagan and Bush Sr’s terms, it raised from that to 147X in Clinton’s first time and to over 320X by the end of his second term.
All that proves, of course, is that CEO salaries are NOT a function or responsibility of government.
During Clinton’s tenure, Congress passed a law that didn’t allow companies to write-off salaries above $1 million/year.
Stock options exploded.
Not a bad thing at all.
Why shouldn’t a CEO profit from the stock rise he helped precipitate. Surely when that stock loses money his stock options are hit with losses?
Exxon-Mobil’s CEO Lee Raymond earned only $3 million of his over $400 million in compensation from salary – almost all the rest was from stock options on Exxon-Mobil stock.
If someone could make an argument like, “Look, there’s only so much money in the economy at any given time (a fixed economic pie)...and so, those who glom so much are, in effect TAKING from the rest of us,” well that would certainly be pause for thought, but no one’s made that argument – and don’t try it now, you can’t use my argument to advance your own inane worldview.
OK, I wouldn’t have offered such an opinion if I couldn’t prove it invalid – the fact of the matter is that we don’t have a static economy, with a fixed amount of currency (a “fixed economic pie”), we have a very dynamic economy, with the amount of currency in circulation being very fluid.
The study you failed to cite is wrong, IF (1) it actually exists and (2) you somehow managed to translate its findings correctly, because “buying yachts,” and other luxury items is great for the economy...people who build boats need work too, just as furriers and high end home builders.
The fact is that despite record high investment, jobs creation is down due in large part to the very costly (thus job-killing), but necessary Sarbannes-Oxley legislation this administration passed in order to clean up the business scandals (Enron, Worldcom, Adelphia, Tyco, etc) that ran rampant during the previous administration.
Buying more goods and services spurs job creation, at least in those sectors, due to increased demand.
Posted by: Anonymous | September 20, 2006 11:31 AM
The CEO salary differential in America pre-Reagan was 17X the average salary, it raised to 46X during Reagan and Bush Sr’s terms, it raised from that to 147X in Clinton’s first time and to over 320X by the end of his second term.
All that proves, of course, is that CEO salaries are NOT a function or responsibility of government.
During Clinton’s tenure, Congress passed a law that didn’t allow companies to write-off salaries above $1 million/year.
Stock options exploded.
Not a bad thing at all.
Why shouldn’t a CEO profit from the stock rise he helped precipitate. Surely when that stock loses money his stock options are hit with losses?
Exxon-Mobil’s CEO Lee Raymond earned only $3 million of his over $400 million in compensation from salary – almost all the rest was from stock options on Exxon-Mobil stock.
If someone could make an argument like, “Look, there’s only so much money in the economy at any given time (a fixed economic pie)...and so, those who glom so much are, in effect TAKING from the rest of us,” well that would certainly be pause for thought, but no one’s made that argument – and don’t try it now, you can’t use my argument to advance your own inane worldview.
OK, I wouldn’t have offered such an opinion if I couldn’t prove it invalid – the fact of the matter is that we don’t have a static economy, with a fixed amount of currency (a “fixed economic pie”), we have a very dynamic economy, with the amount of currency in circulation being very fluid.
The study you failed to cite is wrong, IF (1) it actually exists and (2) you somehow managed to translate its findings correctly, because “buying yachts,” and other luxury items is great for the economy...people who build boats need work too, just as furriers and high end home builders.
The fact is that despite record high investment, jobs creation is down due in large part to the very costly (thus job-killing), but necessary Sarbannes-Oxley legislation this administration passed in order to clean up the business scandals (Enron, Worldcom, Adelphia, Tyco, etc) that ran rampant during the previous administration.
Buying more goods and services spurs job creation, at least in those sectors, due to increased demand.
Posted by: JMK | September 20, 2006 11:39 AM
JMK, apparently the only functions of government you recognize are spying on citizens, torturing anyone deemed an "enemy" in secret prisons, and enabling war profiteers.
Yes, Clinton tried to stop this "old boy" revolving door of robbery, but it was foiled. That is when CEO's like "Kenny Boy" Lay started manipulating stock to make obscene profits off his options, thereby bringing about a stock market collapse and robbing working Americans of their investments.
Glad to see you were all for it.
Posted by: Bailey Hankins | September 21, 2006 10:41 AM
The Enron shennigans occurred on Clinton's watch.
They were prosecuted on Bush's watch.
There was no stock market collapse related to Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, Arthur Anderson, etc.
The NASDAQ crashed when the Tech Bubble imploded in the spring of 2000...on Clinton's watch.
Sarb-Ox (Sarbannes-Oxley)was instituted by the current administration to address the scandals that flourished under the previous administration.
Try reading the WSJ every once in a while. It might help.
Posted by: JMK | September 21, 2006 10:48 PM
The WSJ is a neocon controlled publication, according to the sources you sent me looking for when you lied about William F. Buckly Jr. being a neocon.
WSJ is neocon -- established fact.
Neocons are liars.
Posted by: Bailey Hankins | September 22, 2006 02:58 PM
I'm determined to help you out of your dysfunction;
Here are the ONLY facts you need to know about the economies under both Bill Clinton and G W Bush:
(1) The Enron shenanigans occurred on Clinton's watch.
(2) They were prosecuted on Bush's watch.
(3) There was no stock market collapse related to Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, Arthur Anderson, etc.
(4) The NASDAQ crashed when the Tech Bubble imploded in the spring of 2000...on Clinton's watch.
(5) Sarb-Ox (Sarbannes-Oxley)was instituted by the current administration to address the scandals that flourished under the previous administration.
Posted by: JMK | September 22, 2006 07:17 PM
"WSJ is neocon -- established fact.
Neocons are liars." (BH)
(BH)
Your primary problem, Barely, is that you don't base your own opinions on facts.
You go the other way with that, you try and twist facts to fit your opinions.
That's why you post charts that show the H-1B Visas exploding under Clinton, with Clinton signing onto the two increases in the H-1B Visa cap when blaming Bush for the H-1B visa influx and rticles with lines like, "Thompson couldn’t hack into the system from the outside," to prove that "anyone could hack into a diebold machine.
I keep telling you, "Facts are your friends," but you just won't let them be friends.
Posted by: JMK | September 22, 2006 07:22 PM
I never once said that H1-B visas didn't increase under Clinton, my little broken record of lying.
I said that under Bush 1,000,000 foreign workers were stealing American jobs -- ESTABLISHED FACT, ESTABLISHED BY THE CHART I LINKED.
God damn, you dumb bastard, here's another link on the Diebold piece of shit:
http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/1954/15595.html
Satisfied now? Google is your friend, stupid.
Posted by: Bailey Hankins | September 22, 2006 09:27 PM
The H-1B Visa began in the early 1950s. The current cap is 65,000 DOWN from the 195,000 cap set in 2000 that expired in 2003.
The H-1B Visas address the probelm of structural unemployment which has long plagued the U.S. and other developped countries.
H-1B Visas employees now work in every sector of the economy.
My wife was an H-1B Visa holder from Jamaic.
She came here with a Chartered Accountancy (the English system's version of a CPA) she went back to school here (Baruch College) garnered an American Accounting Degree and passed the four part CPA exam.
As she notes, "Every accounting firm I've worked for (she's worked for two "Big Fours" and one small accounting firm) looks like the UN."
Call me crazy, but if there aren't enough American accountants to fill all those jobs, then I'm glad we can attract qualified foreign workers willing to work here.
My wife is now a proud naturalized citizen of this great country.
A severe shortage of workers in any given field doesn't merely raise wage rates, it puts many smaller and mid-sized firms out of business, as they generally don't have the assetts necessary to compete with the larger firms, with larger budgets.
H-1B Visas serve a very necessary purpose (addresing structural unemployment) and the cap SHOULD be raised, at least to 95,000/year, if not 125,000/year to address the nation's structural unemployment needs that exist in many areas,
Posted by: JMK | September 24, 2006 10:22 AM
You are anti-free market JMK. Sure, there is short-term pain, but if computer programmers made outrageous salaries everyone would jump into the field, colleges would be crowded with Computer Science students, and America would reap the benefits of having the best of the best pushing the technology curve.
Instead, your Nanny State Corporate Welfare solution damages America. H1-B visa exist for one reason only -- to artificially lower the salaries of Americans.
I thought you guys believed in the free market? You know, you let Big Oil rape you for a while, and then suppliers jump in because the market is so lucrative, and then the price goes back down.
Oh wait, that's right. You are really just a neocon Corporatist jackass who hates America, and especially working Americans.
Posted by: Bailey Hankins | September 28, 2006 04:19 PM
H-1B Visas successfully dealt with the problem of "structural unemployment" (not ewnough people trained for specific jobs).
We currently still have an accountant shortage in America, despite hordes of H-1B Visa accountants coming to work in major Accounting firms here.
Salaries for accountants haven't gone down, they've gone up!
Business doesn't want half the number of accountants at twice the price, they want enough accounatants to fill their needs right NOW.
Anyone who "loves America," realizes that we have...and we NEED the highly regulated market-driven economy we have now, and not the "free market," or Laissez Faire economy we had during the 19th Century.
The "boom and bust cycles of a completely free and unregulated market put workers at too much risk, not to mention business owners and investors - nothign worse than investing your life's savings into a "sure-fire idea," only to have a newer upstart company come along with an even better "sure-fire idea" that blows the one you invested in out of the water, before it even gets to take off.
We Americans have enjoyed a regulated market for almost a century now and are not going back.
Accountants making double their current salaries, would be devastating to accountants very shortly down the road, as smaller and mid-sized companies wouldn't be able to hire those workers at the salaries the largest firms could pay - this would eradicate many of these smaller and mid-sized companies and reduce the overall demand for accountants in short order.
Nah, it's better we fill the needs of business as they arrive.
The reason that accountant salaries have continued to go up despite an influx of H-1B Visas, while Computer Programmer jobs dried up was because the accounting field wasn't decimated by a "Tech Bubble Bust" that erqadicated mnore than half the jobs in the accounting field, in fact, Sarb-Ox (the Sarbannes-Oxley legislation) has only increased the demand for accountants!
Posted by: JMK | September 28, 2006 07:55 PM
Why not regulate oil prices? Isn't that far more important to keeping a stable economy? I thought you were supply and demand?
Are you for regulation or supply and demand?
Pick a side and stick with it.
Posted by: Bailey Hankins | October 3, 2006 12:03 PM