February, 2018, Part 6, Political Class Insanity: Pelosi Still Living In A Different Reality and FEMA and DHS Incompetence Shining Through Again

It is the beginning of another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Let's get started:

1) We have not reported on a good old fashioned government wasteful spending project so let’s review a doozy today. The Freedom Outpost website reported a recent FEMA screw up as reported by the New York Times:

• The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) contracted with a company owned by Dr. Tiffany Brown to provide 30 million meals to Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.
• The cost to taxpayers was $156 million.
• Unfortunately, Brown’s company, Tribute Contracting LLC, ended up delivering only 50,000 meals.
• By the way, Brown was the only employee of her company that had just received a $156 million government contract.
• Brown also runs three other companies including Tiffany Brown Designs (women’s clothing line), Tiffany Brown Holdings Inc. (a consulting firm that has five divisions: entertainment, vending, radio, food, nonprofit management and book publishing, and Luxe Fuel (a beverage delivery software app), leading one to believe that she may have not been the best, most experienced business person to deliver life saving meals to Puerto Rico.
• Not only did Brown have no experience in large scale disaster food relief but she had at least five canceled Federal government contracts in her past.
• She ended up hiring an Atlanta wedding caterer which had a staff of only 11 people in order to deliver the millions of meals she had been contracted to provide.
• By the time that 18.5 million meals were due for delivery Brown had only delivered 50,000, at which point her contract was terminated.
• To add to the insanity of the situation, Brown is now suing FEMA and the American taxpayer for $70 million for breach of contract.
• The New York Times summarized some of her past shenanigans: “The government has also canceled Tribute contracts on at least five occasions. Four cancellations involved the Federal Prison System, which found that Tribute failed to deliver meat, bakery, cereal and other food products to various correctional institutions. A fifth termination involved the Government Publishing Office, which terminated a contract for 3,000 tote bags after Tribute failed to print the Marine Corps logo on both sides of the bags. An investigation by the office’s inspector general found that Tribute “altered and submitted a false shipping document and subcontracted the predominant production function on two contracts without proper authorization,” according to a 2015 report submitted to Congress.”

And despite this pathetic history of wasting taxpayer money, FEMA STILL went ahead and granted her another big contract that, surprise, surprise, was another failure.

2) But as we all already know, FEMA is not the only inept Federal organization:

• According to Mark Swanson, writing for the NewsMax website on February 5, 2018, somehow a set of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) anti-terrorism documents were found by a CNN employee in a seat back pocket on a commercial airline flight.
• The documents were marked "for official use only" and "important for national security." 
• They contained strategies for after action government responses to a simulated biological attack.
• The documents apparently belonged to DHS microbiologist Michael Walter since his boarding pass and travel itinerary were attached to the secret government documents.
• A former DHS official, Juliette Kayyem, who is now employed by CNN, stated the obvious, that leaving the documents behind on a plane was a "really stupid thing:" "Who knows who else could have picked this up. The biggest consequence of this mistake may have less to do with terrorists knowing our vulnerabilities and more to do with confidence in the Department of Homeland Security. In the end, confidence in the federal government at a time of crisis is what the American public deserves."
• CNN reported that the documents showed shortcomings in local state, and Federal agencies responses to a potential attack in Minneapolis, the recent site of the Super Bowl.

So FEMA is stupid and wasteful when it comes to resolving a problem and DHS cannot keep secrets secret. Insanity.

3) We have discussed the many real benefits that the Trump tax cut has had on millions and millions of Americans:

• Hundreds, if not thousands, of American companies have given millions of Americans bonus checks of upwards of $3,000 as a result of the tax cut.
• Many companies have raised the minimum wage they pay their workers (e.g. Walmart, CVS, etc.) as a result of the tax cut.
• Over a hundred million taxpayers will see a reduction in their 2018 tax bills as a result of the tax cut.
• Companies have promised to increase their domestic spending on capital improvements, employee training, and donations to charities as a result of the tax cut.

Some of these benefits can be viewed in more detail by accessing the following post:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald.html

Americans get to keep more of their hard earned money, great! Employees are getting higher wages, bonuses and more job training, great! Companies are bringing up home overseas earnings to invest in the domestic economy, great! Charities are seeing greater contributions from companies, great! 

Well not so great if you are Nancy Pelosi. According to a recent article by Caleeb Hull, writing for the Independent Journal Review on February 1, 2018, Pelosi characterized these benefits to the American worker and American economy as “crumbs”: “In terms of the bonus that corporate America receives versus the crumbs they are giving to workers to put the schmooze on is so pathetic.”

So, employees getting $1,00, $2,000, or possibly up to $3,000 in bonuses is crumbs? Families getting a doubling of the child care credit is crumbs? Employees saving on their taxes on every paycheck for at least eight years is crumbs? 

This idiotic response to the tax cuts raises two questions Ms. Pelosi:

1. Isn’t giving Americans “crumbs,” crumbs that were basically theirs to begin with before the government confiscated their “crumbs” via high taxes, better than nothing, which was the position of you and every other Democrat who voted against giving American back some of their hard earned wealth or crumbs?
2. Second, how is a tax cut and thousand dollar bonuses crumbs when back in 2012 you hailed the $40 tax cut you engineered several years ago as the best thing in the world: “160 million Americans will continue to receive their payroll tax cut — nearly $40 per paycheck in the pockets of the average family. I salute the work of the unified House Democratic caucus on behalf of the American people.” 

So the Trump tax cuts and the reduction in taxes every paycheck AND millions of Americans getting thousands dollar bonuses is crumbs but in your world $40 is worth saluting? I still wonder what the color of the sky is in Pelosi’s world because she is certainly not living in this world.

That will do it for today’s insanity: Pelosi is still living in another reality, FEMA is still inept when it comes to managing taxpayer wealth, and the DHS cannot keep a secret. More insanity to follow.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

February, 2018, Part 5, Political Class Insanity: Stupid Comment From A Stupid Senator, John Kerry Goes Treasonous and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Let's get started:

1) If you have been following any of the latest angst and b.s. from Washington you know that the latest blow up has been about the so-call “FISA memo.” We will talk about this Obama scandal at a later date but suffice it to say that the memo from the House Intelligence Committee purports to show that Democrats, up to and including Obama, misused the FBI and Justice Department to submit a bogus request to the super secret FISA court to spy on the Trump Presidential campaign. 

We know from many sources, including now public FBI internal text messages and emails, that the criteria used to get the warrant to spy on the Trump campaign was bogus and fraudulent. The “FISA memo” highlighted and summarized, in four pages, a year’s worth of research and investigations by Congressional staffs. It shows how far reaching, and possibly illegal and certainly unethical, the FBI, Justice Department and Washington Democrats were in usurping the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.

Of course, Democrats did not want the memo released, given it would show how illegal, unethical, and how counter to the Fourth Amendment the actions were of the FBI, Justice Department, and Democrats. The Tea Party USA website discussed this type of reaction from a current Democrat in the Senate, Senator John Warner, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Quoting an article by Ryan Saavedra of the Daily Wire, Warner went public with his view of the FISA memo, claiming it was filled with errors, which is certainly his right to have that opinion. The problem arises when he was then asked if he had actually read the four page memo, certainly not an onerous deed to read. To his credit, the Senator honestly answered that he had not read the memo. And yet he said the memo he had NOT read was filled with errors. Insanity, making a claim about nothing you know nothing about. You cannot make up this type of idiocy.

2) John Kerry was a long time US Senator and then was the Secretary of State under Obama. Obama is no longer President. Thus, Kerry is no longer Secretary of State. As a result he has no legal authority to represent the country in any foreign affairs. In fact, if he did try to represent the country in foreign affairs he would be in violation of Federal law.

Which is what he appear to have done, according to an article on the Constitution website by Andrew West on January 15, 2018:

• Apparently Kerry told high ranking Palestinian officials that they should ignore Trump because he would not be President much longer.
• This undermines the legal and proper strategies of a legally elected President and his administration and sows disrespect for the entire country around the world, I think it borders on treason.
• The Israeli news outlet, Maariv reported on a meeting between Kerry and Hussein Agha in London: “Former Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly tried to meddle in Middle East peace talks, allegedly telling a close associate of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas not to ‘yield to President Trump’s demands.’... in the conversation, Kerry reportedly told Agha to share a message with Abbas – urging him to ‘hold on and be strong’ during talks with the Trump administration and ‘play for time … [and] not yield to President Trump’s demands.’
• In addition: “Kerry, who served as former President Barack Obama’s secretary of state during his second term, also reportedly told Agha that Trump would not be in office for long, suggesting he could be out in a year.”

Keep in mind that the Obama administration was probably the most hateful Presidential administration when it came to Israel’s safety and survival. Trump has reversed that policy and apparently that does not sit well with John Kerry, who is a diplomatic nobody right now but who is still disrespecting our country, the Constitution, and if life was fair, would be investigated for treason under the Federal Logan Act.

3) Over the past year or so it has become clear that men in powerful positions have abused that power and authority from a sexual harassment and predator perspective. From Hollywood and Harvey Weinstein to Washington and Al Franken to members of the mainstream media, the abuse has been wide and disgusting. Fortunately, many of those caught being a predator have lost their prominence and power.

But it was not just the famous and lofty that were guilty. Consider reporting by the League Of Power website:

• Last spring, Michael Horowitz, the inspector general for the Justice Department, published the result of his investigation that identified rampant sexual misconduct inside the Justice Department.
• From 2012 thru 2016, the report alleged there was “systemic” sexual harassment and misconduct and there was a lack of follow up when the misconduct occurred.
• The misconduct apparently was wide ranging from the Civil Division to the FBI to the Attorneys’ Office to ATF to other Justice departments.
• Not only was the misconduct across the entire spectrum of Justice Department organizations but it ranged from low level employees to high ranking officials.
• And the problem seemed to be trending worse over the 2012-2016 timeframe.
• The two biggest findings from the investigation “were the sheer magnitude of misconduct issues and the complete negligence in handling the issues...Large numbers of employees at every level were literally caught in acts of sexual harassment, misconduct and often times sexual crimes.”
• And yet, according to the inspector general report, virtually no employee at any level suffered any criminal or employment consequences.
• In one case, a Justice attorney actually admitted to stalking a female employee, actions that included breaking into her private personnel files and used that private information to create an online scam to trick her.
• In another case, another attorney sexually assaulted two women.
• A third Justice attorney was caught peeping on a breastfeeding woman at his office, peeping that included illegal surveillance.
• All three attorneys received any negative consequences, their crimes were never reported, and they still received performance financial awards AFTER they were caught.

One of the problems of the inspector general’s report is that they were no official tallies of the vast sexual harassment and abuses. That is not the fault of the inspector general office but the Obama administration, especially in the Justice Department, ignored and shunned the problem, often on taxpayer money and time. Pathetic.

That will do it for today. An ignorant statement by a member of the Senate, a former Secretary of State violates the Logan act, an almost treasonous action, and Obama’s administration not only ignored rampant sexual harassment if went ahead and protected and rewarded those that were sexual predators. More insanity to come.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

February, 2018, Political Class Insanity, Part 4: The Continued Failures of the Obama Presidency

It is the beginning of another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Let's get started:

1) We are not fans of very many politicians and one of the worst of all time in our opinion was Barack Obama. We have made the case that he came into the office as a community organizer and left the office eight years later as a ...community organizer, showing no growth in leadership or effectiveness in those eight years. 

He almost doubled the national debt by adding almost ten TRILLION to the national debt and provided no strategic plans at any time to fix a whole slew of issue facing Americans from failing public schools to a failed foreign policy to fiscally distressed government programs like Social Security.

But he was also one of the most lawless President of all time. We documented his lawlessness in the following blog post:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2016/10/part-2-obama-presidency-end-of-error.html

This post laid out dozens of situations where his Presidency broke current laws, broke international treaties, violated the Constitution and deprived ordinary Americans of their rights. And although he has been out of office for over a year, it appears that his law breaking ways may have included previously unknown violations including:

• According to a Daily Wire article by Ryan Saavedra on January 11, 2018, a former Obama administration official has implied that the Obama administration had warned a known, identified Iranian terrorist that the Israelis were about to assassinate him.
• The article summarizes the findings of an article that appeared in a Kuwaiti newspaper.
• A reporter for the New York Times, Bret Stephens, tweeted out the article that showed the newspaper claiming that the Obama administration had warned the Iranian government that Israel was going to kill Iranian general Qassem Soleimani who is the leader of the Quds Force, an officially designated sponsor of terrorism.
• The Daily Wire asserts that this general was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers killed while fighting in Iraq.
• Stephens then got into a Twitter war with a former member of Obama’s national security staff, Tommy Vietor, who more or less denied that the incident happened.
• However, as a result of the back and forth Twitter exchanges Stephens seemed to get Vietor in a corner that makes it appear that the Obama administration MAY have actually warned the Iranians in order to keep relations good with this terroristic country.

We may never find out if the Obama administration sold out the Israelis and this country when it came to eliminating a terrorist leader. But given Obama’s history of lying and the fact that he would have done anything to get a nuclear arms deal with the Iranians, no matter how bad the deal turned out to be, my betting would be that he did sell out the Israelis attempt to eliminate a known terrorist leader. Insanity.

2) But the above piece of political class/Obama insanity takes on a more realistic possibility when you consider this next piece of insanity. It appears that Obama may have unethically or criminally disrupted an important investigation by his own administration, an investigation that may have disrupted his obsessive need to reach a deal, any deal with the Iranians on their nuclear arms program. 

Let’s allow Cris Erickson, writing for the Opslens website tell us what may have happened, “Five Facts You Need to Know About ‘Project Cassandra’”:

• The general accusation is that: “The Obama administration allowed Hezbollah terrorists to freely traffic drugs and launder money in order to broker the Iranian Nuclear Deal.”
• The terrorists were being investigated under the codename Project Cassandra which was led by the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency and whose purpose was to reduce the amount of money the Iranian-supported Hezbollah terrorists were raising via drug trafficking and money laundering.
• These efforts were estimated to give the terrorist organization $1 billion a year.
• Hezbollah has long been classified by the State Department as a terrorist organization.
• Hezbollah was formed in 1982 and is an arm of the Iranian government's armed forces to carry out terrorist and Iranian backed military efforts throughout the Middle East.
• Congressional testimony showed that Hezbollah had extensive connections with South American drug cartels.
• Former DEA operations chief Michael Braun called the Hezbollah drug running operation “the most sophisticated money laundering scheme or schemes that we have ever witnessed.”
• According to those involved in the Project Cassandra efforts, the Obama administration constantly blocked the DEA’s efforts to arrest and prosecute Hezbollah operatives or impose financial sanctions to cut back Hezbollah’s drug running operations.
• In addition, “In order to protect the nuclear deal, the Obama administration went so far as to allow a senior member of Hezbollah to return back to Lebanon, rather than pressuring the Czech government to have him extradited to the US after he was indicted for planning the murders of US government employees. Ali Fayed is reportedly back in the arms dealing business, supplying fighters in Syria with heavy weapons.”
• But all of this effort was for naught since a Politico article by Josh Meyers cites former Obama Treasury official, Katherine Bauer stating: “under the Obama administration … these [Hezbollah-related] investigations were tamped down for fear of rocking the boat with Iran and jeopardizing the nuclear deal.” The success of Project Cassandra in targeting and eliminating Hezbollah operations became “problematic” for the negotiations leading up to the nuclear deal; out of fear of the deal being sabotaged by DEA operations, the Obama White House took on a policy that would result in a deal, regardless of cost.”
• Once the incredibly bad, one sided Iranian nuclear arms deal was signed, the Project Cassandra leaders were immediately moved to other assignments.

As we all know, the final nuclear deal with Iran, while it may have slightly delayed the Iranian development of nuclear arms, was on the whole an utter failure. Which should surprise no one since all of Obama’s agreements were horribly one sided and not in the favor of America. 

And for this poor agreement, we have allowed a known terrorist organization continue to spread illegal drugs in exchange for billions of dollars and to continue to kill innocent people around the world. Insanity.

3) If Obama did not do any of the above treasonous acts, we do know something atrocious that he really did do. We have previously discussed the stupidity and grossness relative to the fact that Obama was aiming to spend $1.5 BILLION to build his Presidential library. I always thought that George Bush was obscene for spending half a billion dollars on his library but Obama has tripled my disgust with his plans.

But in a small sense of satisfaction, the preliminary view of the Obama library was not well received:

• According to Joe Crowe, writing for NewsMax on January 10, 2018, reviewed some of the earliest reviews of Obama’s library plans.
• Alex Griswold of the Washington Free Beacon newspaper called the plans a “giant toenail.”
• A group of University of Chicago professors also gave a bad review: "This is a socially regressive plan . . . We also note that the Obama Center has abandoned its original plans to be a presidential library. It will be a private entity with no official connection to the National Archives." 
• Ron Grossman of the Chicago Tribune said: "To me, it evokes a soft-boiled egg in a teacup."

Either in office or at out of office, the Obama Presidency still stinks. And is still lawless and expensive with no noticeable value in return. More insanity to follow.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

February, 2018, Part 3, Political Class Insanity: More Voter Fraud and More Economic Stupidity From Economically Ignorant Politicians

It is the beginning of another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Let's get started:

1) We once did an extensive set of posts on how corrupted and open to fraud our current voting processes are. The first post in that series can be accessed at:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2017/10/voter-fraud-review-part-1.html

New results from a research study again magnify how bad our voting processes are:

• According to Jim Holt, writing for the Gateway Pundit in 2016, Pew Research recently completed a disturbing voter fraud study and analysis. 
• The study found that over 1.8 million people currently on the nation’s voting rolls are in reality, dead.
• More than 2.75 million people are registered to vote in more than one state.

As we have said previously, if citizens even think that their voting processes are corrupted or tainted than the very basis of our democracy is endanger.

2) We have often discussed the incredibly stupid economic actions and strategies of our economically ignorant politicians. Almost always their ventures into the world of economics results in the exact opposite of what is intended which is never good.

And that maxim certainly holds when politicians try to force an unrealistic minimum wage level on the marketplace. In an attempt to improve the plight of lower paid workers, politicians often falsely believe that raising the minimum wage will improve the lives of those making below the higher proposed minimum wage. Usually what happens is that businesses react to the paying of higher wages by reducing the workforce, forcing people to have no job at a higher wage rather than having a job at the old minimum wage.

Reason magazine recently discussed another instance of politicians meddling in the wage sector of the economy and the bad results that occurred:

• Eric Boehm, writing for Reason on January 10, 2018, discussed a bad consequence of Seattle’s minimum wage increase.
• The Subway restaurant chain often runs a sales promotion where they have an ad campaign that advertises their Subway foot long sub sandwiches for just $4.99.
• But that ad campaign was not honored by a Subway owner in Seattle, a town that has raised the minimum wage dramatically in recent years.
• David Jones posted a sign explaining why his store was opting out of the national ad campaign and promotion: "Dear Seattle Subway Patrons: Unfortunately, we are not participating in the $4.99 Footlong Promotion. The cost of doing business in Seattle is very expensive. We are balancing the highest minimum wage in the nation, paid sick leave, ACA, Secure scheduling, soda tax and much more.”
• Thus, even though some workers are now making more in the Seattle area, the cost of buying a sub sandwich is also relatively higher wiping out some of the benefit of having higher wages.
• Which assumes you still have a job as a result of a higher minimum wage since according to researchers “at the University of Washington's School of Public Policy and Governance, the number of hours worked in low-wage jobs has declined by around 9 percent since the start of 2016 "while hourly wages in such jobs increased by around 3 percent." The net outcome: In 2016, the "higher" minimum wage actually lowered low-wage workers' earnings by an average of $125 a month...And now those same employees will have to pay more for sandwiches from Subway—and everything else too.”

We have stated the following many times in this blog when politicians screw with economics in the marketplace: The good news is that your current job now pays a higher wage. The bad news is that because your job now pays a higher wage you no longer have a job.

3) But the economic insanity of Seattle politicians does not stop with higher than reasonable minimum wage levels, according to that same Reason article. The city has imposed a tax on sodas sold in the city, a tax rate of 1.75 cents per ounce. This raised the cost of a can of Coke sold at retail in Seattle by 20 cents. It raised the cost of a 36 can case by $7.56. 

Ed Murray who was mayor when the tax was imposed, inanely claimed that the soda tax “could subsidize trips to the farmers market, pay for free community college, and roll back "white-privileged, institutional racism."” How a soda tax could end white privileged institutional racism is a mystery to me but that is a story for another day.

So what happened when the tax went into effect? The same thing that happened when the city of Philadelphia did the same stupid thing: people did their shopping outside of the city limits where they could avoid the soda tax. Seattle Costco locations in fact gave out directions to other Costco locations in the area outside of the Seattle city limits where the tax would not apply.

And not only did soda sales go down in the city, harming businesses and workers of those city businesses, sales of other groceries went down since when people went outside of the city limits to buy the less taxed soda, they did their other grocery shopping outside of the city also.

Thus, in two steps, Seattle politicians made life worse for the very people they claimed they were helping: raising taxes and raising the minimum wage resulted in less economic opportunity for those in the lower end of the economic spectrum. Insane.

4) Red Robin restaurants are a national restaurant chain which has a heavy concentration of its stores in the western part of the United States according to a recent article by Hank Berrien. However, it is in some of those western states where politicians are pushing the hardest to raise the local minimum wage. 

As a result, the chain has had to make some significant changes to its personnel policies in order to stay profitable and in business when faced with politician induced increased wage expenses:

• Red Robin was forced to eliminate the busboy position in all of its restaurants to cope with the increased wages it is being forced to pay. 
• Thus, as always, when politicians force an increase in the wage expense for businesses, businesses have to compensate by reducing costs somewhere else in their business, usually resulting in fewer jobs.
• Eliminating the busboy positions will save the company about $8 million a year allowing it to apply the $8 million in savings to others that still have a job to comply with the higher minimum wage levels being imposed.
• This change comes on the heels of another change, the elimination of expediters, employees that take the food from the cooks and place it on plates for the servers, a move that saved the company almost $10 million last year.
• The company’s chief financial officer, Guy Constant, told a conference recently why the changes were made: “We need to do that [eliminate job titles and jobs] to address the labor increases we’ve seen.”
• Michael Saltsman, director of the Employment Policies Institute (EPI), reacted to that statement: “I read that as minimum wage. Somebody like Red Robin, which has a lot of exposure in western states [where the minimum wage is rising faster] … this is sort of a burger and beer chain. If they can’t pass those increases off in higher prices … they have to find a way to do more with less.”
• 851Franchise.com editor-in-chief Nick Powills also commented: “From a business standpoint, [Red Robin made a] very smart move. From an employee standpoint, you just cut out $8 million worth of labor. The interesting thing about the minimum wage hike is that those that made the decisions to do it, did it on behalf of the employee … when intentions are good, and you can’t please everybody, someone is going to eventually be on the short [end of the] stick.”

As we stated above: The good news is your job will now be paid at a higher level. The bad news is you no longer have a job because it was being paid at a higher level. Consider a recent report by Fox Business news: “Earlier this year, a study conducted by EPI, which analyzed employment trends from 1990 through 2017, found that each 10% increase in the minimum wage in California has resulted in a corresponding 2% decline in employment for affected employees. The impact was larger, 5%, for lower-paid workers."

Some things never change: politicians never fix our broken voting processes and politicians continue to be economic idiots, making the economic plight of lower paid Americans even worse. More insanity to follow.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w