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Audacity of Truth
Big Government- Hot Air
- Michelle Malkin
- Wheeling & dealing: Snowe pow-wows with Obama; Landrieu, Schumer, Daschle behind the scenes
- Saturday in the Senate: Cash for Cloture; Reid gets 60; Update: 8:15pm Eastern cloture vote – 60-39; Voinovich absent; Dems invoke Teddy Kennedy; Reid: “Ted would be happy.”
- Another day, another Berkeley tantrum
- Jake Tapper
- Lynn Sweet
This is NOT what the holidays are all about
Got back from my after-TGiving shopping around 11 or so today (was at the new mall at 7). Did some decorating around the house for Christmas, and then took a nice nap and read a little.
Yesterday during Thanksgiving lunch, my sisters and mom and I were all talking about how we on one hand were looking fwd to the deals you get the day after Thanksgiving at the stores, but on the other hand were dreading the crowds and the madness. I was fortunate today in that I didn’t have too much of a problem with crowds – except at Sears, and at that point I had decided that that was my last stop of the morning before I got out of the Christmas spirit really quick thanks to the pushing and shoving and general rudeness of some people out to get the ‘deal of the century’ that so many stores promise them.
I just checked out Drudge’s site and was appalled at the some pictures he had up of after-Thanksgiving shoppers, one picture was of two people apparently FIGHTING over a sale item, and one of them was a 73 year-old woman who had apparently either been pushed down or fell as soon as the doors opened at one store (make sure to check out the disturbing photo).
I have never been one of those who will wait for a store to open the day after Thanksgiving, and I generally don’t go to the ones that offer the “deal of the century” on a DVD player, or other normally semi-to-high dollar items because if you look at the fine print in the sales papers, they are usually limited to having 75 *per store* – which is nuts, because you oftentimes see lines around stores before they even open that have way more than 75 people. It’s just too chaotic, and people end up getting hurt – just as they did today. I’m simply amazed that there are people out there who think getting that super duper deal is worth trampling a 73-year old woman to get to, or worth wrestling their fellow shoppers to the ground for.
These incidents, thankfully, are the exception to the rule but are still noteworthy nevertheless: people should never forget the reason for the season (more here) in their haste to get the deal of a lifetime. Life will go on if you don’t manage to get that DVD player in time. If you can, great, but if not, it’s much better to leave the store without that $20 DVD player in hand, rather than leaving dignity at the door once by walking over people to obtain it in the first place.
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I went to the auto parts store I part time at for 6 am. Turns out I didn’t get any better deal than my employee discount. IE. They did not combine offered discount and my employee discount.
Saw the nuts pushing and shoving to get in and out of ShopKo (A Green Bay, WI, based discount department store chain) and at Toys ‘R Us.
Disgusting.
Capitalism. You gotta love it. Peace
Sis,
I just trackbacked to this post. Wanted to know if you received it.
Nope. I did not go shopping today. I can wait for the deals. Besides, quality time with the sig.other is worth the wait for another shopping day.
I can’t understand why people go shopping today! Is there some kind of special sales I don’t know about? Why not do Christmas shopping on any other weekend in Nov or Dec?
There are only two days that I won’t shop. Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving. I’d really like to know what I’m missing, but not enough to go out there. I tried it once in 1998(?) and it ended with aggrivation and no shortening of the Christmas list.
Although I do have to agree with Steve. You gotta love Capitalism. I hope the islamofascists hear his call for ‘peace’ as well!
After thinking about this story on and off all day, and thanks to Steve’s comment, I finally pieced my thoughts together. I am amazed how people are people. Whether they have almost nothing and they loot, or if they have more than they need and they fight. I do believe that America is in need of a new spiritual awakening. Let’s face it, American’s are too inward. This Me, me, me society has become a joke. I think one of the funniest quotes I have ever heard is “When on the Titanic, you help fill the life boats not yell at the iceberg.” This is why it is foolishness to blame capitalism. It is also short sighted. Ok it is late and I am in need of sleep. – Lorica
I worked at Wal-Mart yesterday. No pushing or shoving, but way too many people. If you’re 73, and standing outside the doors in the wee hours of the morning, waiting to get into a store on ‘Black Friday’, you’re not smart enough to be on your own.
This has been going on for so long – decades at least – that it’s cliche. It happens every year. I just have no compassion for anybody dim-witted enough try and grab a great deal at 5:00 in the morning. It’s a “Darwin Award” moment waiting to happen.
benning, the fact that she showed up at 5:00 on BF is no excuse to push and shove anyone, nor is it reason to say she shouldn’t be on her own.
No reason at all to push and shove her or anybody else. Yet, it happens every year, doesn’t it? And the folks keep lining up to scramble in when the doors open.
Who, in their right mind, would put themselves in that situation for the sake of a ‘bargain’?
Capitalism sets up the conditions for awful behavior. Socialism eliminates conditioned response and hopefully, eliminates the awful behavior that capitalism requires for success. Capitalism would morph into Socialism if the Golden Rule were universally practiced. As religious as we all claim to be that minor adjustment should be easy to accomplish. Peace
Steve,
How exactly does socialism eliminate conditioned response? How is eliminating conditioned responses a good thing? How does Capitalism require awful behavior for success?
I guess I can kind of see that capitalism causes people to have excess money with which they want to get the best deals they can, but I can hardly call that a negative.
Socialist countries either have negative growth rates, or tiny positive ones. So socialism might remove the disposable cash from it’s citizens which lead to such black friday fiascos, but I can hardly call that a positive…
Steve by eliminating conditioned responses you are placing the people in jeopardy of being controlled, not what any society would want. Also your belief that the government can solve all of the ills of society are dumb at best, and again shows your only true desire is to control. Change is not going to come about by a change in type of economy that is practiced, but by a desire for a person to change from within. We all tsk tsk at this because it is sad, but it is not something that happened in every city on every day in America. You paint with way to broad a brush. Benning testifies that no one was beaten or shot or anything happened in the store they work at. So apparently it is not as bad as you would think it is. – Lorica
It’s times like these that I reflect with humor how quick Chrisitans are to point out to me how inferior atheists are in comparison to themselves; enlightened, humane, and unmaterialistic as they are. I am also grateful that I made a complete break with Christianity and all its hypocrisy. I have no problem with the teachings of Jesus, but I can’t stand his groupies.
How nice for you, IM. I take it, then, you are a member of no organized group, secular or otherwise (such as Democrats, Republicans, etc) because the only groups you’d be a part of would be ones where the people in it were absolutely perfect without a shred of hypocrisy in any of them – and quite honestly no such group exists because everyone is human and has faults. Right?
Humorous indeed.
Thank you for your anti-Christian rant.
At what point in time did Christianity enter into this discussion IM??
Modern advertising is based on the theory of conditioned response. Supply and demand is used as an enforcement mechanism. An example: “Tomorrow is Black Friday and we only have a limited supply so don’t miss out”. Capitalism requires bad behavior because it requires negative competition as a motivator. You must have a winner and a loser. Taxes are the only mechanism that the capitalist system has to drain off excess gain. Socialism has only one real rule and that is that the capitalist tax system be enforced so that excess profits cannot accrue. Peace
Ok Point taken Steve, but there will still be advertising in a socialist system. You will still have capitalism all the while you have socialism. Socialism is still not going to cure these ills. Unless you establish a food line system like the Soviets had during the horrid communist years, you are not going to get control of this unless, as I have said before, you have a spiritual reawakening. – Lorica
Heh. Supply and demand magically disappear in a Socialist economy? I agree that ’supply’ would…
Saying “capitalism requires a winner and a loser” is the same as saying “I have never been involved in a business deal where both parties profited”. If that’s the case, I feel sorry for you
It’s not a zero-sum game as you seem to believe.
“Taxes are the only mechanism that the capitalist system has to drain off excess gain.” Draining off excess gain (I assume you mean people’s paychecks) is a good thing!?!?!
Socialism in every attempt ever tried, is extremely destructive. It harms the producers, decreasing their desire and ability to produce. It’s worse for the recipients. They become part of the welfare state, locked in a system they cannot leave that slowly destroys the soul. If they have freedom (like in France) they will riot. If they don’t (like in N. Korea or Cuba), they flee or just die.
Socialism truly is a zero-sum economic system. If one man produces, another man gets the product without the need for him to produce anything in return. Socialism weakens countries and creates the very inhumanity it would ideally resolve.
So I still agree with what Steve first said, “Capitalism, you gotta love it.”
So you won’t share or sell your marbles? I’ll bet that if the price was right you’d sell your soul. “capitalism is not a zero sum game”, then how do you explain the large number of poor people and the very small number of rich people? Excess is defined as, like pigishness or greed. How much is enough for you, Kevin? End the war profiteering in Iraq and bring the troops home now. Peace
Steve – this is your final warning on off topic chatter. Do it again and you’ll find yourself on an ST-imposed break from posting here. PEACE. –ST
LINK
Thanks for the laugh Steve. – Lorica
Oh well, I can’t talk with you Steve
You sound like the commentor Steve Donahue over at the political teen. I could not hold a reasonable conversation with him either (not your fault, it’s probably mine).
Bring the troops home after they have finished creating… Peace
Bravo, Kevin! I feel the same.
Steve, I think you have a big gap in knowledge about what capitalism and socialism is. It’s fine to have an opinion but let me add some facts.
Capitalism is the economic system where the people choose who gets what resources.
Socialism is the economic system where the government chooses who gets what resources.
Obviously there is a mixture in the U.S. as well as the European nations. There are examples however where a part of New Jersey has privatized their water system and the residents enjoy cleaner water for cheaper and the employees are paid better than before. It was also necessary for Philadelphia to privatize the garbage collection at one time. What ends up happening in a situation where the government owns/operates/controls the business there is no reward for initiative and ideas and hard work. When you have a system where efficiency, ideas, hard work is rewarded because the “people” are choosing you start to see the nation prosper. This does NOT make other country’s citizens poorer at all.
You do NOT have a point Steve. In our nation, we are taxed pretty heavily. This is revenue to the government. Our government is very very very generous with this revenue spending on all sorts of things. Almost every state in the nation spends about 50% of it’s budget on education (yet liberals still have bumper stickers saying if you think education is expensive try ignorance). This nation is spending the smallest percentage on national defense than over 60-70 years. Most of the money is spent on duplicative assistance and entitlement type programs and liberals ACT like Republicans are cutting when nothing has been cut in over 6 decades.
In capitalism people choose who gets what resources via choosing:
what services they need to purchase
1) who they work for
2) who works for them
3) what product they want to buy
4) what they will sell for
5) how hard they will work
6) what capital they want to invest in
7) what services they want to provide
It’s important to understand that this nation is a nation of laws based on the constitution and the bill of rights and the amendments. The courts and laws offer protections. We are protected from our government as well as from others. What also offers protections for non-able bodied and elderly are safety net type programs.
Unfortunately these safety net type programs offer too many able-bodied people hammocks.
There isn’t a set amount of money in the world divided up to be 12% for Americans and 88% for all other countries even though we are 5% of the population of the world. That isn’t the way it works at all. Companies are entities that exist because someone or a “group” of people are allowed by governments to take a risk and provide goods and services. The reason why France has 10% unemployment rates is because companies aren’t willing to take risks and “employ” people in France because taking on ONE hire in France means that person is hired for almost life. Due to this “GOVERNMENT CONTROL” most companies will only take on “temp” workers and contract out if work needs to be done. Many of the youth in France are sick of this system as they have a 25% unemployment rate for the young French and can’t get employed like their parents were. In other nations where the government isn’t so coercive/burdensome/overbearing companies are willing to take on a many hires. And why? Because there is work that needs to be done. There is a product or service that needs to be provided to a consumer. If there is more demand from consumers the companies try to meet the demand with supply. In order to meet the supply they need to hire. When there is more hiring that means there is more consumers because people who are employed pay taxes and buy things. There are higher rates of economic activity like this in a freer nation that has capitalism as their system. There are lower rates of economic activity like this is a more restrictive nation that has socialism as their system. The poor are poorer in nations with more government control. In this nation the poor are relatively well off. See this explanation of the poor in this nation. In fact, according to this report the poor in America are better off the the AVERAGE European.
That isn’t because we are mean and they are nice or because we are lucky and they are unlucky