Phony Democrats Exploit Minimum Wage Hike for Cheap Political Gain

The Democrats and particularly President Barack Obama have been politicking over raising the minimum wage in a transparent attempt to attract low-income voters. While it is understood that it is difficult to exist on the meager sum provided by jobs such as Wal-Mart greeters and Whopper floppers, the opposite side of the argument is that government forced wage hikes will only result in higher prices that will be passed on to the customers. Not to appear insensitive but if working at one of America's fast food chains or an emporium of made in China products does not provide a sufficient income then find another job or join the military. Not that there are many decent jobs anymore in America since the day that rapacious corporate bosses discovered offshoring which has been like crack cocaine to them ever since. The U.S. manufacturing base has been sent packing and the only businesses that truly thrive in the USA! USA! USA! are in financial chicanery, surveillance and the police state. 

Having found a winning issue look for more Democrat demagoguery over the minimum wage. It is a nice mix along with their bogus identity politics issues, the sudden interest in domestic violence now that two big name NFL players have been outed as wife and child beaters. There have already been strikes by fast food workers in several U.S. cities to demand higher wages but it is just more of the same false hope and chump change that Obama has been peddling to the suckers since he slithered into office on a carpet of lies. It isn't like the Democrats have actually done one damned thing to address the major problems of offshoring jobs and allowing Wall Street banksters to loot with impunity and as the late George Carlin so eloquently put it in his classic rant "The American Dream":

The table is tilted folks.  The game is rigged.  And nobody seems to notice.  Nobody seems to care.  Good, honest, hard working people. Blue collar, white collar, doesn't matter what color shirt you have on.  Good honest hard working people continue... these are people of modest means... continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don't give a fuck about them.  They don't give a fuck about you.  They don't give a fuck about you.  They don't care about you.  At all.  At all.  At all.  And nobody seems to notice.  And nobody seems to care

Now the backlash is beginning as it inevitably would. Fast food and chain restaurants are beginning the process of going to automated systems which will eventually render the concept of a $15 per hour burger flipper obsolete and silly. Per a story that appeared in the Washington Post entitled "McDonald’s fresh hope to turn around slumping sales: Ordering burgers from a machine":

Battling the worst sales slump in a decade and competition from build-your-own upstarts like Chipotle and Smashburger, McDonald’s is expanding a test concept built around ordering via tablet. Just tap on a screen and watch as your burger’s toppings (and calories) pile on, then wait for an employee to bring it over. No human interaction necessary.

McDonald’s move towards dehumanization, launched as a pilot last winter and expanded across San Diego last week, is part of a larger trend of chain eateries turning tablets into your full-time restaurant buddy: equal parts menu, server and paycheck. Applebee’s, Panera Bread and even airport bars have installed tablets to allow diners to order food or booze without a wait.

Chili’s became the U.S. king of human-less ordering this summer when it installed more than 45,000 tabletop tablets nationwide. Marketing executives said the tablets can speed up service and operate like table-side billboards, encouraging impulse orders of appetizers and desserts. A spokesperson for Ziosk, which made the tablets, said guests who used them spent more money, finished quicker and paid better tips.  (The future, as one professor predicts: “Robot baristas, robot Realtors and robot sales agents.”)

While the WAPO story specifically speaks of customers being able to place their own orders (no more getting the wrong food at the drive-thru) a more seismic shift is coming. Michael Krieger of the Liberty Blitzkrieg blog recently wrote of the next iteration of the dehumanizing of fast food jobs. The piece which is entitled “360 Burgers per Hour” – Meet the Burger Flipping Robot that Could Change Fast Food Forever":

The main reason is that if employers are forced to pay these employee more, the employers in this industry are likely to move as quickly as possibly to fast-food preparing robots. This isn’t just some pie in the sky fantasy either, there’s a company called Momentum Machines that has already assembled a product that can make a burger in 10 seconds, or 360 burgers per hour.

Equally important, the entire argument of raising the minimum wage cannot be had without discussing the impact of technology. As I and many others have highlighted over the past several years, one of the most troubled segments of the U.S. economy consists of fast food workers. They simply cannot survive on the wages being paid to them by employers and need food stamps, disability and second jobs merely to make ends meet. In theory, raising the minimum wage will help these folks the most, but will it really? I think not.

As the saying goes, "be careful of what you ask for, you just may get it" and Democrat's sudden concern for a working class that they shanked in the back decades ago is nothing more than political pandering. Big businesses are rapidly adapting to implement new technology in order to eliminate the positions altogether. There are self-service checkout stands appearing in stores across the nation now. My local Wal-Mart neighborhood grocery store has them and they are great. It saves time and the upside to having to bag your own groceries is that no dumb ass is putting the potatoes in the same bag with the bread. The Wal-Mart greeters will likely be the next to be jettisoned, they are annoying and only are really needed on Black Friday to hold back the amped-up mobs of shoppers looking to score the door buster items.

Once again another great Obama idea goes up like a flaming bag of dog shit and the ones who get screwed in the end are the suckers who bought into it. But there will be plenty of jobs soon enough with the brilliant idea of funneling more arms to the Syrian rebels which will quickly end up in the hands of ISIS. The future of America is war and as such there is no greater big government employment program than bringing back the draft to provide those displaced fast food workers with new gigs.

Polishing the Brass on the Titanic

You think I am a fool but you are a greater fool than I am.


- Sitting Bull


Helicopter Ben Bernanke spoke Wednesday at the first press conference in history conducted by the high priest of the temple of moneychangers formally known as the Federal Reserve. Mr. Green Shoots as usual was dapper with his costly suit and professorial clipped beard, the lighting reflecting off of his bald head and shooting off in waves of positivity porn thanks to well rehearsed talking points sprinkled with focus group tested terms such as "headwinds", designed to put a sunny side up sheen on the former Time Man of the Year's message. Bernanke's wondrous Quantitative Easing 2 (QE2) program as is not obvious to anyone except idiots, cynical politicians and top level finance industry scoundrels has been an abject disaster when it comes to anything other than destroying the value of the dollar, driving a huge spike in gas and food prices and igniting waves of global unrest.

I don't know just where I'm going

But I'm goin' to try for the kingdom if I can

'Cause it makes me feel like I'm a man

When I put a spike into my vein

Then I tell you things aren't quite the same

When I'm rushing on my run

And I feel just like Jesus' son

And I guess I just don't know

And I guess that I just don't know


- Lou Reed, Heroin

Zombie Banks, Zombie Jesus - In the aftermath of Easter, the Fed and King Ben have administered the kiss of the sweet, sweet spike into the vein of the banking monstrosity with dog whistle language that QE3 will soon be coming. After the afternoon's regurgitation of balderdash that was so lame as to make a George W. Bush presser seem as a gem like fountain of rare and exalted truths the markets did what any junkie does when the next fix arrives. Stocks and the winner's circle that is the DJIA (Dick Jammed In Ass) hit a multi-year high while the dollar continues to collapse showing the complete erosion of reality based economics as compared to the crack ho economy for which Chairman Ben is both pusher and pimp. The finance oligarchy mugwump Bernanke was lobbed softballs repeatedly and one gets the feeling that the entire charade was scripted from the get go. For an example of the utterly incomprehensible nature of Bernanke's answers get a load of this one:

“While it’s very, very important for us to try to help the economy create jobs and to support the recovery, I think every central banker understands that keeping inflation low and stable is absolutely essential to a successful economy”

Keeping inflation low? It is obvious that he hasn't been to the fucking grocery store lately or for that matter a gas station. The very fact that energy and food costs are omitted from core inflation stats would in any sort of educated society trigger the bullshit detectors immediately, unfortunately we here in America don't live in one. That the Fed press conference is being hailed as indicative of a new era of openness speaks of both the dire state of idiocy, willful blindness and ineptitude that has taken hold over the past thirty years and gradually grown into a voracious and incurable form of crotch rot fungus. Bernanke, like Atlas shrugged, downplaying the rotten future for jobseekers, such a shameful and woebegone situation that there were reportedly around 938,000 applicants turned away from McJobs during the trumpeted hiring spring spree for Mickey D's. What Dear Chairman in his innate arrogance and maniacal certitude did was dance around and run  out the clock, leave the heavy lifting about the rancid state of the American economy to a guy like Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke who dared to utter the unthinkable and that the shoppers at his florescent discount emporiums for ever more expensive Chinese goods are GASP - running out of money!    

Scumbaggers Lament Release of Obama Birth Certificate

 OK, So Now Fucking Prove It's Real Goddammit!: In a stunning, beautifully timed and theretofore unannounced move on Wednesday morning the White House released the official version of Barack Obama's birth certificate. That giant sucking sound that was heard in the aftermath was the asshole of the Donald doing an extended puckering. Of course though it will never be enough for the low grade half-wits that are the birthers, the teabaggers and the cynical assholes seeking to profit off of their idiocy. Rather than just let the entire fucking circus die, the corporate media of course spins reality on its head in order to suck in ratings, hey this is Murka. MSNBC led with the story of the ridiculous ass clown publisher of the borderline retard gazette otherwise known as World Net Daily claiming that Obama was not born in the USA, Farrah, who sports a nifty dirty sanchez mustache in his bio pic justifiably has his panties in a wad because of the obvious hit on sales for his upcoming slimefest book. Farrah, like Trump is obviously in it all for the money and I guess that Glenn Beck got out while the getting was good having extracted millions of dollars from morons to fund his phony populist schtick as well as his plush digs in tony New Canaan, Connecticut. This being America, a land where P.T. Barnum once famously observed "there's a sucker born every minuet", H.L. Mencken nailed as "nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people" and W.C. Fields chipped in with his words of advice to the Farrahs, Becks and Trumps to "never wisen up a chump". So while Obushma presented the paper the Republicans and neocon schemers were already well into their next step, LIE. The Adolf Hitler maxim of the big lie continues to be the gift that keeps on giving to right-wing scum like Frank Luntz and the rest of the degenerate pigfuckers who sure as shit didn't need fucking experiments on lab rats to determine that the pea brain of the average scumbagger is as pliable as a wad of play doh shaped into a pocket pussy just waiting to be impregnated with the seeds of the next whopper.

Let's get one thing straight though, I am no defender of Obama but rather than invent silly fantasies to peddle to pathological bigots, brokedick losers and retrogressive bible whackers there are more than enough REAL legitimate beefs with the man and his fascist lite agenda. Obama has not met one serious Bush criminal policy that his administration hasn't defended, tinkered with an made it worse or condoned by refusing to overturn. A series of campaign promises quickly became nullified when the parties were over and the majority of voters went back into their four year cycle of hibernation. The rottenness of the Obama administration began with the appointment of the ill-mannered, borderline psychotic and crooked little pit viper Rahm Emanuel and went from there into dragging back Clinton era ghouls and Robert Rubin Wall Street scam artists, retaining Bush Secretary of War Robert Gates and reappointing the deranged Bernanke. He had the pustulent anti-gay pig Rick Warren give the invocation at the inaugural, played kissy face with arch war criminal Bibi Netanyahu, reneged on closing Gitmo, I do however live in the reality based world and am not a racist, read books and am possessed of a deep sense of skepticism so I am not susceptible to the routine dog and pony shows that the fascist Republicans have trafficked in ever since Nixon's Southern Strategy.

Hawaii Five - Ohhhhh Fuck No....

Horses-assus Interruptus: Donald Trump's Hawaii Pakololo patrol was scooped on the million dollar paper chase for Barry O's birth certificate. The Donald, whose presidential hopes sustained a devastating hit amidships when his keystone issue was blown out of the water best call back his ace investigators who had descended upon the Hawaiian Islands like a swarm of maggots over a piece of rotting meat, why continue to pour money into an obviously failed venture. Not that politics is anything like the man with the hairdo that looks like a skin graft from the ass of a baboon can equate to his gig as a real estate mogul but one would think that a man with a history of bankruptcies an failed ventures would appreciate the concept of cutting his losses. Despite the dead-enders who wouldn't be satisfied of the proof of Obama's birth were they to have a fucking video of the event the release of the certificate pretty much relegates this to the fringes once the initial corrupt media followup is swallowed whole by the coming royal wedding saturation coverage.

It is going to be interesting in seeing the evolution of the birth certificate issue, so much time, money and effort has been spent in this obvious smear campaign (a good amount of it coming from our special friends over in Israel I suspect) to slyly capitalize on traditional American 'nigger hating' racism. From the get to the entire operation has been constructed to foment suspicion against Obama and to paint him as some sort of an alien, an Islamic terrorist supporting plant, a cunning Kenyan anti-colonialist, a Manchurian style deep cover Commie bent on destroying the American capitalist system (Lloyd Blankfein and the boys over at Goldman Sachs must have really pissed themselves laughing over that one) and the entire narrative pandered to those who are the dumbest among us, the peckerwood trailer trash who just can't accept a black man as being elected to the presidency. An early diversion for the birther bullshit is being embarked upon by journalist Wayne Madsen, a man whose work I have extreme reservations about who has been slumming around on the Alex Jones show and talking about how he is having to leave the country under a vague and secretive death threat by the Obama government. Madsen is pushing that there is a CIA connection to Obama and his parents now that the birth certificate issue has been debunked once and for all to anyone with a smidgen of sanity. Not that Madsen isn't totally full of horseshit but I could buy the CIA angle, especially with the CIA being nothing more than Wall Street's Gestapo and Obama by his actions has done nothing but serve the interests of Wall Street. This is something that Barry O. has been quite adept at and let's face it, the CIA has had a hand in the destiny of the presidency ever since they colluded with other criminal capitalist elements to blow John F. Kennedy's head off in Dealey Plaza back in 63. For a synopsis of CIA malevolence check out this post from my old buddy Len Hart over at The Existentialist Cowboy on How the CIA created a Ruling Corporate Overclass In America.

GOD SUCKS!

It would be too easy and flippant to say that the last few days worth of biblical devastation of the American south, notably the asshole of civilization Alabama is God's punishment on peckerwood nation for their sins against mankind as a result of their stupidity, bigotry and raw hatred ... but why the fuck not? Hey you chicken fried motherfuckers, just how many of you are going to turn down that big gubmint disaster relief money from dat dere Kenyan Nigga in the WHITE House tomorrow?

Just my two cents

EE