However, the Curmudgeon can't help but notice this McDonald's ad that shows a young man handing a piece of mail to his manager at Mickey D's. The manager opens the letter and reads it. It's an acceptance letter to a college. The young man's manager and colleagues celebrate this happy occasion with him, as the voice-over announcer makes note of the company's tuition reimbursement program, then finishes with the tagline: "McDonald's: America's Best First Job."
That's right, boys and girls - flipping burgers at McDonald's is, and always has been intended to be, a first job. Not a job that pays the kind of living wage that allows an adult with four kids to support his or her family. (Actually, if you work at McDonald's, what the heck are you doing having kids? Seems kind of irresponsible, and a grievous disservice to said kids, given that you knew going in what the pay was.)
No, McDonald's - and other employers who depend largely on entry-level, unskilled labor - never set out to offer all employees compensation that would sustain them as, say, an alternative to being an accountant or a lawyer, or even a bricklayer or an autoworker. They need orders taken and burgers flipped and fries fried, and folks, none of that is rocket science. In fact, some of it can be automated.
The snowflakes will cry that McDonald's et al should not be so callous. It should be their mission to provide a living wage to everyone they employ, to enable them to afford a nice apartment in San Francisco, or a house in Kansas City, and comfortably raise a family of four or six, maybe even taking the brood to Disney World every few years and buying a late model minivan.
Well, snowflakes, this is where your failure to take (or pay attention in) those freshman-level business courses comes back to bite you in your soft little arse: you don't get to pick what a company's mission is.
McDonald's wants to be America's first best job for its employees? That's its prerogative. Not yours. Lockheed Martin wants to make missiles, and you're anti-war? Tough cookies. Lockheed Martin can make whatever it wants, as long as it's legal. Smith & Wesson wants to make guns? Philip Morris wants to make cigarettes? They have every right to do so. That's free enterprise.
What if you snowflakes got your way, and you got to decide what companies' mission should be? Well, let's take that to its extreme. Let's say you're not only a snowflake, but a New York City taxi driver. Being driven by self-interest, as all snowflakes are, you'd probably be against Uber's mission, right? Yet you probably take Uber to Starbuck's every day to get your caramel macchiatta (which you won't give up, despite your six-figure student loan balance on that English Lit degree that you're trying to parlay into a high-paying tech job, but finding yourself having to settle for America's Best First Job instead - and bitching about the pay every minute).
Hey, I'm against abortion, but I don't get to decide what certain health care providers can and can't do.
Going back to the Uber example, free enterprise guarantees competition. If somebody can come up with a way to provide cheap burgers, fries and shakes to the masses while paying Wall Street salaries, they'd make a fortune off the liberals. But that's a business model that just won't work.
See, in places like Seattle - that bastion of liberal nuttiness - where they've forced the McDonald's of the world to pay an artificially (read: inconsistent with the immutable laws of supply and demand) high wage to unskilled workers, the employers have found a simple but elegant solution, and one that is highly appropriate in the home of Microsoft and Amazon:
Replace 'em with technology.
That's right, boys and girls. Kiosks can just as efficiently take your order as people (maybe more so - ever had a fast food order-taker screw up your order?). Now, I heard one gentleman make the argument that this is a bad business practice: "Those kiosks cost a lot of money, and they'd probably be better off just giving all their workers a raise rather than pay for those machines."
Except:
- The cost of technology tends to fall over time, whereas wages tend to rise.
- You pay for the kiosk once. You hire a person at $15/hour, and you pay that premium over the $10/hour their labor is actually worth every hour they work, ad infinitum.
- Kiosks don't call in sick, or quit when they find another job. They never have to pass a drug test, and they'll never steal from the till. And they don't make mistakes.
So, snowflakes, much to your chagrin, companies like McDonald's not only depend on cheap labor, but they're well within their rights to employ it, whether you like it or not. If that bothers you, don't eat there, and don't buy their stock.
After all, their primary obligation is to their shareholders, not you. Why? Those shareholders have skin in the game. They put up capital and expect a return. Business 101. (Yeah, I know, it wasn't required for your English Lit degree, but someday when you get a real job you'll have a 401k, and you'll become an indirect shareholder in companies like McDonald's yourself through the mutual funds your plan invests in - and you'll bitch to high heaven when you're losing money. So be glad when Mickey D's makes a profit - it will likely benefit you down the road.)
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So Hillary took the pity party tour to Yale for their commencement speech. Remember when commencement speeches were about the future, and how bright it was, how full of opportunity for the graduating class, how they could leave their imprimatur on the world? Now, they've devolved into political rants and rehashes of failed election bids. Might as well just save the speakers' fees and stream the Rachel Maddow Show.
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Trump: "Little Rocket Man, my button is bigger than your button."
Schumer, Pelosi, CNN and MSNBC: "Trump is a lunatic, a loose cannon. He's going to get us into nuclear war. Diplomacy is called for. We should sit down at the table with Kim."
Trump: "I'm sitting down at the table with Kim."
Schumer, Pelosi, CNN and MSNBC: "Trump is a lunatic. He's giving Kim the credibility of a legitimate world leader by being on the same stage with him. The meeting is a bad idea."
Kim: "I WILL NUKE YOU ALL TO KINGDOM COME!!!! WE ARE A SUPERPOWER!!!!"
Trump: "Sorry, we're not meeting with this nutbag until he cools his jets."
Schumer, Pelosi, CNN and MSNBC: "Trump is a lunatic. He should never have backed out of these talks. He's going to get us into nuclear war."
The sad truth of all this is that those who lap this crap up don't recognize it for what it is.
Also, remember how the left freaked out about Saddam Hussein's crack Republican Guard, and said that if Bush I went to war with them, they'd wipe us out in a long and protracted engagement? Then, those crack troops surrendered as soon as our boots hit the ground, and the war was over before it started. NK is the same story: it's an impoverished banana republic with a despotic leader who channels all the country's wealth into his and his cronies' pockets, leaving little to nothing for the people - or for any real offensive or defensive capabilities (remember the missile tests that turned out to be duds?).
Hey, Kim - bring it, dude. We'll send a SEAL team in to do a Saddam on you faster than you can find a viable alternative to that crappy 'do you're sporting. Maybe, if you're lucky, we'll send in a team from SportClips as well.
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Ah, the NFL national anthem "controversy." If we'd just ignore this crap it would go away. To wit: Colin Kaepernick couldn't make a name for himself with talent, so he did it by kneeling during the National Anthem. Yet he still can't get a job in the NFL.
His supporters claim it's all in the name of protest against police brutality.
Really? So, Colin, besides keeping your low-talent arse in the public spotlight, what has your little "protest" movement accomplished? Are incidents of police brutality down? What have you done in terms of working with police, with communities, with organizations that can actually further this cause for real change?
Nada.
Look, the incidence of abortion in this country is greater by far than the frequency of incidents of police brutality. Again, I'm anti-abortion. So let's say I decide to protest in my own way: every Sunday during football season, I'll go down to the county courthouse and take a crap on the steps, until Roe v. Wade is overturned.
How effective do you think that will be?
Right. These highly privileged NFL stars (who only have run-ins with the police when they beat their wives or kids, use drugs, get in bar fights, kill people, screw minors, or drive under the influence) could use their star power to far greater effect than just standing up during a song at the beginning of a game.
Here's an idea:
IGNORE THEM.
They're only in it for the attention. I mean, you don't really see any marquee players engaging in this form of "protest," do you? It's a way for a journeyman player to get his name on the evening news. So don't give him the satisfaction. Ignore the behavior, and it will go away.
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