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Monday, October 26, 2015

Miscellany: 10/26/15

Quote of the Day
No tool is more beneficial than intelligence. No enemy is more harmful than ignorance.
Al-Shaykh Al-Mufid

Chart of the Day: Busting Progressive Myths 
Re: Sanders' clueless romanticizing the Scandinavian economies

Courtesty of Mises.org
Tweet of the Day
Image of the Day

Hillary Clinton's World Wide Web of Lies in the Benghazi Coverup



Lord, It's Hard to be Humble





The Ideological Corruption of American Universities



Facebook Corner

(Libertarian Catholic). See socialism meme in Images of the Day.

What? These people were communists not socialists. Stop conflating the two.


FDR is a fascist; the basic difference is that the private sector is controlled for the benefit of the State.
(separate comment)
As for the fascist OP's meme that FDR "saved" the country from the Great Depression, most credible economists believe that he exacerbated it by around 8 years.
(separate comment)
 Most of the discussion of socialism vs. communism in this thread is completely off-base. Socialism is an economic system, while communism is more of a political system. We can think of communism as more of a special case of socialism; there are some nuances on private property, local control, distribution and compensation. Socialists generally are more liberal on these issues, with the exception that the application of any property is regulated to prevent alleged exploitation of others. We can think of mixed economies (with both private and public ownership of production) as fascist/quasi-socialist. It should be noted that the Nazis had a well-defined welfare state and considered themselves more authentically socialist than the Bolsheviks. 

 The meme is correct that the authoritarian States listed can be classified as socialist (or fascist); Sanders is more of a fascist, where you can own property, but the State regulates how you can use it.

(FEE). The minimum wage doesn't help poor and low-skilled workers. In fact, it actually harms them.
Most unions support hikes in the minimum wage because their contracts include a provision that their salaries go up whenever the minimum wage is raised. If the minimum wage goes up a $1 per hour, every union member also gets a $1 per hour raise.
Well, you ignored a recent headline from Los Angeles where unions were requesting exemption from the local minimum wage. But unions basically want to back anti-competitive labor policies, designed to limit the labor force to support artificially higher wages. Of course, the original national minimum wage was motivated to protect New England textile mills from their more competitive Southern competition, where wages were about 40% less. The Southern mills employed a number of blacks, so the legislation had racially disparate effects.

(Liberty.me). "McDonald’s is a prime example of how the market has overcome a fundamental human problem…" - Jeffrey A. Tucker
I find it unusual that Tucker would write a piece on McDonald's without discussing the recent dangerous NLRB ruling which largely undermines the traditional franchise (some 90% of American outlets) by allowing unionization as if employees were employees of McDonald's vs. independent franchise.

 I have long had an interest in McDonald's since my group of 4 in a capstone MBA business strategies case project. (For me, it had to do with childhood nostalgia; we were on a limited military family budget, McDonald's often sponsored local television childrens' programming, and my folks took us there on special occasions, like a First Communion or Confirmation. For my project co-lead (we did 90% of the work), he and his wife during courtship lived in cities about 150 miles apart, and they woulld often meet at a McDonald's about midway between cities.) I won't go into the details of our report, but one of our key critiques was at the time McDonald's was opening stores at a slow, controlled pace. (Their strategy has significantly changed; for example, two of my most recent Wal-Marts have McDonald's in them. At the time there was a lot of Ray Krocisms. Some of the beliefs made me cringe; there was a lot of Taylor management efficiency stuff, e.g., KISS (limited menu items led to faster, reliable customer service, easier training and operations); I had to fight off our Asian colleagues who wanted to repeat during our group presentation Ray Kroc's rationale for not selling hot dogs (too many ways to cook them--steam, grill, boil, etc.; only one way to cook a hamburger--fry it. Yeah, right: tell that to food cart vendors or major league ballparks, other chains which sell tons of hot dogs). Another criticism I had was that McDonald's never really did anything different with its dinnertime menu. If I was working late at a client site (I'm a former IT professor, now consultant), I wanted something more substantial. During the brief period they owned Boston Chicken/Market, I had visions of how they could sell a ton of rotisserie chicken family dinner packs for a parent coming home from work. Nope.

 Jeffrey doesn't cite a couple of the big reasons for McDonald's success--its high consistent food preparation across restaurants and its generally spotlessly clean restaurants and resthooms. During 1995 I worked on site for a client in Sao Paulo, Brazil. I loved Brazilian food, but the consistency of restaurants was questionable as better chefs often migrated between restaurants. For a chance of pace, I would occasionally visit the nearest McDonald's  with lines often spilling out into the local street.

 Another thing Jeffrey doesn't discuss is a flexible menu across national markets (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_availability_of_McDonald%27s_products...). For example, Indian restaurants don't offer beef or pork items, and ironically in Argentina and Israel, they grill hamburgers over charcoal vs. fry them (see above).

 I have had my differences with McDonald's practices over time. The worst cup of coffee I've ever had was at an outlet in Orlando (before my MBA). It was an undrinkable, inky-black brew that must have been on a back burner far too long. I also remember one time I took my 3-year-old nephew to McDonald's to treat him to some French fries and found out they were still serving breakfast menu... No fries, did I want to buy hash browns instead? Hell no. I find it ironic they are now trying an all-day breakfast menu which many franchise owners hate for logistics reasons (I'm sure Ray Kroc is turning over in his grave.) Plus, my favorite burger over the years had been the Big & Tasty, but the problem is they don't sell a large volume, so I typically have had to wait a long time (like up to 15 minutes or longer) to be served, often after a dozen or more later customers. I've known people who like their McRib sandwich, which has only been available on a seasonal basis in the past.

 McDonald's has not-invented-here syndrome; as a one-time shareholder I once sent them a multi-page letter of suggestions, and they responded with some legal response saying no one at McDonald's had read it, they don't take unsolicited feedback, etc. (Maybe there was some paranoia that I might try to sue them if they offered something like my suggestions.) But there's been a hostility to varying menu items to accommodating a healthier lifestyle. During my road warrior days, I wanted to have alternatives like bottled water or iced tea to drink, the option of whole-grain buns, baked vs. fried/breaded meat, I wanted virgin olive oil for a salad dressing, etc. (It's possible some things have changed since then.) The response has always been, our customers come here for the products we currently serve, even if it clogs your arteries; me, I can only buy what's on the menu. It's almost an accident when they revolutionized their salad offerings, sales went through the roof, as many professional women had a rationale for eating there.

Choose Life: Daddy's Face Becomes Baby's Favorite Teething Toy







Political Cartoon

Courtesy of the original artist via IPI
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Aretha Franklin, "A Natural Woman". Aretha had an incredible streak of 9 Top 10 hits in 1967-1968.  I would say this serves, along with "Respect",  as a signature tune, pop standard, and among my favorites of her hits.

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