My Friend Sous

My friend Sous.

Watch. Enjoy. Laugh.

"This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. "

Free Mimosas With Breakfast

I hate taking my kids out for breakfast, because I want them to order what they want. Breakfast out is a treat. I don’t do it often. Really, I’d prefer to fry up some ‘taters and eggs and sausage, with toast and jam. Red raspberry jam. What the Smuckers folks call preserves. Their jam looks nothing like the jam I grew up on, when mom made homemade jam. From the raspberries we grew.

The reason why I had taking my kids out for breakfast is the cost. I love having a glass of cold milk with breakfast. But what do you pay for a twelve to sixteen ounce glass of milk? Two bucks? Three bucks? I pay two bucks for a gallon of milk at Holiday Drug. That’s ten 12-ounce glasses of milk. And an eight ounce glass. So, you buy a two dollars gallon of milk and sell it for thirty bucks. And that’s just the milk.

What about orange juice?

This one kills me.

How small a glass do glass makers manufacture? To find out, order orange juice with your breakfast. Three, four, five bucks for a couple of ounces of OJ? And then? The kid wants a refill.

Now…you wanna be cheap? Eating out, dining out, is an experience that you must teach your children. It should be a relaxed, special time. It is an indulgence. And should be appreciated as such. If you can’t afford to take your children out for breakfast, dinner or supper, you do have a choice. (The choice is not to send them to your in-laws, although there is a certain poetry to that choice.)

The choice is to provide for them in your own kitchen. Have a fetish for freshly squozed juice? Most times of the year, doing it yourself is pennies to the dollar different from restaurant juice.

So what happens to health care, when everyone has a daddy buying it for them?

There is no option to head for the kitchen. There are things one can do for oneself when it comes to avoiding injury and disease. But where is the restraint when the option—eating in the restaurant—is free? Why would you choose to cook breakfast for yourself when Uncle Sam is willing to pick up your tab at the neighborhood diner?

A friend of mine has provided his employees (and their families) with comprehensive health insurance. Found out something interesting; co-pays (out of pocket costs for covered members) were required for doctor’s office visits, emergency room coverage required no co-pay.

So what happened when Little Billy or Little Sally had a sniffle? Off to the emergency room to avoid a $15.00 co-pay expense. The employee avoided a fifteen dollar expense. The insurance plan paid five to six hundred dollars for an emergency room visit, rather than an eighty to $150.00 charge for a visit to the doctor during regular hours.

Are people rational? Sure. Given the choice between free or not, I’d take free. If liquor stores had an hour each week when liquor was free, you’d prolly see me there. Or in line. Or, jammed in the store with my arms full, milling about, waiting for the appointed hour.

Window shopping, as it were.

I would submit that it would be very hard to make money owning a liquor store if word got out that, for an hour each week, liquor would be free. I think that I, and others within this happy little community, could completely empty a liquor store within an hour under the conditions cited above.

What would be the motivation for spending money on liquor under this system? I’m sure there are a couple. If, on free hour day, you were unable to cadge a bottle of vermouth, a visit the next day to pick up a bottle would make certain sense.

But what price would that bottle command?

The liquor store owner wants to make a profit, and since all of his product has disappeared on liquor free day, he had to completely restock all his liquor. And attempt to make a profit on the remaining sales he is able to knock out. So, to cover the cost of his inventory, the cost of inventory that went through the door on liquor free day, what would be a reasonable price for that bottle of vermouth? Five thousand dollars? Fifteen thousand?

I’m all in favour of liquor free day. But after the first day of free liquor, how many liquor stores will be closing down?

So, good luck with your Health Care Reform efforts. Sure, it’s all going to be free. But only what you can get when it’s available. And only if you know how the system works so that you can be “there” at the right time.

I don’t have health insurance. I looked into buying it about twelve years ago, and was quoted a rate of around $600.00 a month.

Twelve years later, I’m up $86,400.00. Oh, and if you miss a payment? You lose your coverage. So, it’s not like you’re investing in a time share or something. All your purchasing with your health insurance dollars is current admission to the doctor’s office. What you’ve spent on health insurance, if unused, is simply gone. Poof!

Is reasonably priced health insurance possible? Yep. If you want to make health insurance a federal matter, then remove state boundaries from determining where and how much insurance you may buy. All I want is a catastrophic policy. Car wreck? Busted head? Please. If I need mental counseling, I’ll pay for that outa my pocket. Same thing for a bad cold, or the crud, or whatever. When blood comes out of me, I’ll see a doctor and I’ll pay the price. Will I need a five hundred dollar deductible to make the cost affordable? A thousand dollars? Twenty-thousand dollars? Just let me know. I’ll make the decision.

The unions, the AMA, politicians and the nurses’ groups oppose this kind of thinking. When you and I have control, they lose control. But when I have greater control, I know I also get to choose from a menu of services that is larger and more competitive. And competition drives the prices of goods and services down.

Think about it. The next time your wife orders one of those ridiculously priced Mimosas.

International Intrigue and Climate Change!™

There are basically two groups of people on the issue of Man Made Global Warming; the apostles and the heretics.

On the heretical side has been the steady work of Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit. Head over and read today's post on Great Britain's "Met" office and the reluctance of those in charge of the Met to provide data. Actually, the last several posts all relate to McIntyre's request for data from this agency, and the reluctance of this agency to meet these requests.

Reading through the comments section, it's apparent that most of us don't know that temperature data is secret. Like, we're not supposed to know.

Wars are fought on many fronts. Unfortunately for we heretics, access to the data sets that drive the accolytes claims is one of those fronts where they currently hold the advantage. They have the numbers, are unwilling to share these numbers.

In the world of science, whyfor this type of sandbagging?

Congressmen Working To Put At Ease Your Pretty Little Heads

Interviewed by Erin Burnett, Barney Frank indicated that he wants to see that people who own property and then sell it won't be able to receive the fruits of that sale until some time after the sale has been completed. That way, if a guy makes money on that sale, but loses money on a future sale, the money that was profit could be used to offset the losses on a losing sale. That way traders won't be so focused on short term profits.

See?

It's simple. Barney Frank wants to make sure that the effects of trade, negative and postive, are offset by rules established by the federal government. Same thing with compensation. Why pay guys today for their work, when that compensation can be delayed in case these guys do something that costs their companies profits?

We need to change the model. Thankfully, we have guys like Barney Frank thinking for us.

(UPDATE: I was able to find this video of Barney Frank explain how bad things have gotten us. Don't worry, Congressman Frank is on the job. We'll be stampin' out some risks, right soon.)

And then we get Jerrold Nadler talking about outlawing advertising for drugs. Because, you know, we don't want ordinary people taking charge of their own lives. As if.

Sure wish we could find some Republican congressmen who were this willing to take the risks of life out of our hands.

The Product of Our Public Schools

Have you ever had a conversation with your child? I don't mean, "Is your room clean?" I mean, "Have you ever thought about when life begins?" That kind of conversation. Don't be surprised when you find your child is entirely uncomfortable taking about life and death and taxes. They've been programmed since kindegarden to view taxes as important for their future. The more we pay in taxes, the better our country is going to be. We'll have better paid teachers. And you know how important teachers are.

Well, here's the product of that kind of thinking.

Now that I think about it, you're better off not talking to your children. Better not to know that all that time, money and energy has been wasted producing this type of thinking.

Congressman Says "No Need To Read Bills"

John Conyers, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, (Democratic).

Representative democracy. You know, where somebody else does the heavy lifting.

Oops!

A man owned a small farm in South Carolina.

The South Carolina Wage & Hours Department claimed he was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an agent out to interview him.

"I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them," demanded the Agent.

"Well," replied the farmer, "there's my farm hand who's been with me for 3 years. I pay him $400.00 a week plus free room and board.

"The cook has been here for 18 months, and I pay her $300.00 per week plus free room and board.

"Then there's the half-wit. He works about 18 hours every day and does about 90% of all the work around here. He makes about $10.00 per week, pays his own room and board, and I buy him a bottle of Bourbon every Saturday night. He also sleeps with my wife occasionally."

"That's the guy I want to talk to.....the half-wit", says the Agent..

"That would be me," replied the farmer.