The current trend.

There seems to be a growing trend spreading.. It is all over the talk shows. Quite frankly, as an American, it kind of bothers me.

The trend I'm referring to is the defamation of Wal*Mart.

It seems that it's becoming popular to say that the largest retail chain is destroying the fabric of the US economy.

It seems to me that it is sour grapes. They are upset that Sam Walton was smarter than they are.

Isn't it just that Wal*Mart has embraced the idea of capitalism and does a better job than most.

Refresh my memory.. what is capitalism? Is it you do your best, unless your best is better than someone else's best?

Perhaps it's let the government put restrictions on one entity who earns more than another?

Oh yea, it's the idea that the goal is to do your best, and if someone does something better, than you find a better way to do it.

The nay-sayers blame Wal*Mart for putting small businesses out of business. But is that really the case? They say that their business practice is unfair, but is selling something for less than someone else really unfair?

Whether or not you agree with the business practices of Wal*Mart, you can't disparage them from doing anything they can (within the law) to make as large of a profit as they can. Doing anything less would be unfair to the shareholders and employees. Disparaging Wal*Mart is un-American, and stinks of communism.

It's obvious that Americans approve of Wal*Mart, or at least we tolerate them, otherwise, we wouldn't be flocking to give them our money. It must not be that important that they are 'running mom and pop shops out of business', or perhaps, they aren't. Didn't we go through this when grocery stores, butcher shops and bakeries started going away in favor of a larger supermarket?

I say good for them. I'm going to do much of my Christmas shopping to support one of America's icons. A company that openly opposes unions, a company that choses not to settle law suits to discourage frivolous suits.

All this, and the best prices and best selection. Oh yea, they re-incorporated the 'C' word in their advertising.. they actually said 'Merry Christmas' in a commercial. Keep up the good work Wal*Mart!

The dust is starting to settle on 'Decision 2006'.

Who is going to turn out to be the big winners and losers? It's still too early to tell, but the newly crowned democrats are tripping over themselves to raise minimum wage. That will only serve to slow down the strongest economy in the history of the world.

When I was in high school, I was all about the raise in minimum wage, but that was a long time ago.. and it was a very selfish view point.

First off, how many people do you know that are older than 20 that still earn minimum wage? If it's anyone you know, tell them to go back to school, get a real skill, and get a real job.

Working for minimum wage is good when you are in high school, or maybe even college, but if you are still making that amount, you need to look within yourself, not to the government, to better your financial standing.

Learn a skill, work in a factory, basically, make yourself more marketable.

People get paid what they are worth.

A lot of people complain that athletes and celebrities make too much, but I say, if someone is willing to pay it, they are worth it.

To those who say athletes are paid too much, and that teachers should get more (I agree that teachers are grossly underpaid) I say this: 'As soon as 50,000+ people show up and pay $50+ to watch you work, then you can complain that you aren't getting paid enough.'

Well, I kind of got off on a tangent, but what it comes down to, is that less than 2% of the population make minimum wage (according to the department of Labor estimates that 2 million Americans earn minimum wage, and we all heard the reports of the 300 millionth American a few weeks ago). Raising minimum wage will only increase the operating expenses, which will result in one of 2 things happening.. small businesses will go out of business because they can't afford to pay the high school help more than $5.15/hour, or they will pass the higher costs on to their customers, causing all of us to pay more for our goods and services.

It's just another example on why a vast majority of the unions in this country are just dead weight in the economy. Take a look at the industries that are dominated by union labor.. how are they doing? (I'll give you a hint.. the automotive and airline industries)

I'm not one to say 'Write to your Congressperson', but if you are so inclined, it won't be a bad idea.


As always, I encourage your thoughts and comments on this or any other topics.

Happy Turkeyday!

On this day of thanx, most of us have much to be thankful for, but sadly most of us (myself included) take what we have for granted.

On a lighter note, a thanksgivig tradition that has stood for several years gets better today.. for some..

For as long as I can remember, the Cowboys and Lions each host a game each Thanksgiving day, this year, the League did us one better, they added a 3rd game.

This is a good thing, right? It is, unless you are not able to get the NFL network..

That's right, you can only see the 3rd game if you are one of the 14 subscribers of the league owned network.

Ok, it's not that low, but most cable companies don't carry it, including Time Warner (my cable provider).

Both companies (Time Warner and NFL network) have links on their website to contact eachother to petition viewers and potential viewers to express an interest in the channel.. a virtual game of chicken. who will buckle first? only time will tell.

But this is all a moot point, I'm not going to get to watch much football today.. I'm taking my grandma to the casino today, it's going to be fun!

Have a great turkey day, don't eat too much (just kidding.. go nuts!), but keep the spirit of the holiday in mind.

I wasn't one of those freaks who spent days camped out in front of a a store to be the first to get a Playstation 3. I probably won't ever even get one..

I wasn't even one of those guys who got up early to stand in front of a store to get the new Nintendo Wii. I wanted to get one, I just didn't get up at an ungodly hour to get one.

And I'm not going to be the guy who spends $5-600 on a system that retails for half of that.

I'll be getting one in a few days, when they are back on the shelves.

If you see one for sale at the list price, drop me a line!

As I pulled the curtain closed behind me in the voting booth this morning, I couldn't help but wonder why we need to spend millions of tax dollars to replace voting machines that seem to work fine.

And to replace them with what? Computers that have not been proven to be 100% reliable.

The way I see it, the old fashioned machines are reliable, and completely non-biased.

There were never any 'hanging chads' in NY. Why? well, partly because most New Yorkers are smart enough to figure out the basics of voting, they have a severe case of picking the wrong candidates, but we can figure out the ballots.

How many of the candidates that I voted for will win? With the poles closed for not quite an hour now, it is difficult to say.. it's likely that 3 for sure, (Clinton, Spitzer and Cuomo ), and possibly a third, (that alleged felon Hevesi), but the rest we'll have to wait for the results.

What will come of the future? Only time will tell, but to quote a line from Robin Williams latest movie (which I haven't seen, the line was used in the commercials) "Politicians are like diapers, they both need to be changed often, and for the same reasons."

As always, I welcome your comments.