Being a misanthrope makes feeling lonely particularly difficult.
And this brings us to the main point. The claim that if wages go up, jobs go down isn’t a description of reality at all. Nor, in my opinion, does it reflect legitimate economics. It is a negotiating strategy. It is a scam, a con job, a threat — more precisely, it is an intimidation tactic masquerading as a legitimate economic theory. I believe this is where being a businessperson and not an economist leads to greater clarity. Very few economists have ever run a business or negotiated wages. But the first rule in the businessman’s handbook on wage negotiation and suppression is always, always when they ask for a raise, threaten their jobs. It works like a charm and has since the invention of capitalism. You see, the claim if wages go up, employment goes down isn’t made because it is true. It’s made because if people like me can get people like you to believe it is true, I’m going to get richer, and you are going to get poorer. The lower your wages are the higher my profits will be. It’s that simple.
The lower your wages are the higher my profits will be.
And that, too, is also a fallacy. There’s a point at which employers are shooting themselves in the foot if they keep dicking their employees around. Walmart is a classic example. Hire only part timers so you don’t have to give benefits. Lowest wages in the industry. Cut the costs associated with its employees as much as you can in service of this idea that lower wages leads to higher profits. This is what drives me nuts about amateur, arm-chair economists. They keep thinking in simple 1 to 1 relationships about complex human behavior. But the way it works out is that if you don’t invest anything in your employees? Guess what? They don’t invest anything in you either.
Toni: Can we end this, Sam? Please. Ms. Watt: Are you really going to make me do this?
Abuser 101: “Your failure to immediately acquiesce to my unreasonable demands compels me to coerce you into compliance; all blame for my actions falls on you.”
Toni:
There hasn’t been a monster-related death in Britain since 1965, because we are good at our job. I wonder what happened in ‘65? But more important, who’s ‘we’? Our Miss Toni wasn’t alive in ‘65, and it doesn’t look like she routinely gets her own hands dirty now. By her account, her organization is coasting on systems instituted at least a generation before. She’s confused the continued efficacy of her predecessors’ methods with personal competence. And what we’ve seen of her own work isn’t competent: that sad, sorry excuse for a family tree, the arrogant stupidity of kidnapping Sam Winchester with intent to torture. She’s basically George W. Bush, but with some gumption.
Toni:
I need you to give me names, and locations, and everything else. Dead drops. Meeting places. An organizational hierarchy, because maybe, with all of us working together we can do what you never could. Make America safe. She has no imagination at all, does she? She’s an authoritarian working in a hierarchical organization, so everyone is an authoritarian working in a hierarchical organization, and she will cling to that belief no matter what facts get tossed her way. Sam could tell her the precise truth – that US hunters barely have a phone tree, much less an organized hierarchy, and that the last guy to try running dispatch is out of the game d/t werewolfism – and she’d probably discount it as Sam making shit up to get the torture to stop. Of course Sam isn’t going to put her on to his drinking buddies or his favorite craft stores. She’d just go trample them in search of her non-existent hierarchy.
It’s that arrogant, authoritarian stupidity that has her imagining that she can impose British MoL-style “safety” on North America. I don’t think she understands the logistical challenge she’s proposing.
It is interesting, though, that Supernatural’s most prominent only-good-monster-is-a-dead-monster bigot was Gordon Walker, a black man. Now they bring us arrogant, stupid bigot Toni Bevell, a white British woman. And, of course, our white male heroes oppose their bigoted agendas with their
all-American
hearts.
It is interesting, though, that Supernatural’s most prominent only-good-monster-is-a-dead-monster bigot was Gordon Walker, a black man. Now they bring us arrogant, stupid bigot Toni Bevell, a white British woman. And, of course, our white male heroes oppose their bigoted agendas with their all-American hearts.
This really bothered me, too. A little too much of “watch the pretty white males be right all the time.” Made me uncomfortable.
THIS IS A REALLY FUCKING EXCITING THING, BUT OF COURSE NOBODY SEEMS TO GIVE ENOUGH OF A FUCK ABOUT MESOPOTAMIAN SHIT TO ACTUALLY REPORT THIS ANYWHERE SOMEONE MIGHT SEE IT.
IT’S REALLY FUCKING COOL. TRUST US.
yesssssss
and I guess this makes the Gilgamesh fandom the winner in the contest of who had the longest time between updates…
Hearseeno 