The Beat Goes On

The Beat Goes On

Last week we talked about how politicians, all politicians everywhere, are truly bad at second and third order consequences. Those things that, if you think about it, are obvious or sometimes not so obvious results other than the targeted one. Before we review that, let me say that dinner is Jambalaya, the booze is in the sliding pantry, the soda is under the settee, and the tip jar is at the link. As always, I thank those of you who donated to the cause. You are why I keep doing this.

Now let’s get back to consequences, and a couple examples: from the right wing, we have: “I am going to ban ‘Something’ that over half the nation likes, enjoys, and uses on a regular basis. I do this, because it’s the ‘Right Thing ™’ to do, for the morality of America.” The second order consequence is that the Black market is going to start up on ‘Something’ immediately, and the people are not going to assist Law Enforcement in busting that market. The Third order, is that you have now increased the contempt that Joe Citizen holds for politicians, law enforcement, and frankly the law in general… Or why Al Capone, Bugsy Malone, Bonney and Clyde, and the rest of the gangsters of all sorts from the ‘20s were folk heroes. Those folks were almost all truly despicable, evil people, but Prohibition was so unpopular that the average citizen who was barely getting by, was rooting for them, over their victims.

Another instance, a favorite of the left: “Half the people in my jurisdiction aren’t making a ‘living wage.’ (we’ll touch that phrase in a second) So, I’m going to rase the Minimum Wage (MW) so that everyone is making a living wage! I’ll be a hero and be sure to get reelected.”

Well, in all likelihood you will be a hero, and will get reelected, because the people who stay in your jurisdiction are too poor, and too stupid, to get out.

That said, let’s first look at “living wage.” That amount is generally computed by propagandists of all flavors. It’s supposed to represent how much you have to make in order to get by: “A wage that is high enough to maintain a normal standard of living.” Now there’s all sorts of wiggle room in this.

What is “normal?” Depending on who is defining “normal” it might be anywhere from living in an efficiency appt, and eating ramen, to living in a Single Family Detached, with meat on the menu seven days a week, internet, a cell phone, and an automobile.

Furthermore, “Normal” has changed dramatically since I was a young 18 YO living out in town, sharing an apartment with three other sailors, couldn’t afford cable, and “What’s a cell phone?” and that had changed dramatically from, oh say, 1946 when the guys were coming back from World War Two.

Second problem is that mandatorily raising the minimum that you can pay someone brings about all sorts of second and third level issues. Just to touch on a few, those businesses that work on a very small margin, like, oh say “ma-and-pa” restaurants and grocery stores, small retail business in general, must raise their prices. There is literally no way to stay in business and not do so.

If you’re not aware of the margin that such places run on, a small restaurant runs about 3%, a grocery store that’s not part of a chain runs 1%. Dwell on that number for a second. If your costs go up by just one to three percent, you’re losing money every day you stay open. Your wages are approximately 1/3 of your total operating costs. It doesn’t take much of a change in MW to shut you down.

Those sorts of margins are true for everything but luxury goods retailers (like Jewelry stores. Their profit margin is 10-30%. Car dealerships make about 3% on new, and 10% on used, but they have other sources of income that really kick up the numbers, like their repair garage and their financing operations. Then you get into really stupid levels of profit like Yacht brokerages: 30%, or Financial Businesses at 60%, and the very worst, Software as a Service (this is why you no longer own the software you bought; you just buy a license for it for a limited period) those guys have a 90% profit margin.

So there’s something to notice here. The places with the higher profit margin don’t PAY minimum wage. Their workers make good money, and they still have that sort of a margin. So raising the MW only really hurts the little guy. The independent businessman. It’s fucking brutal to him. That and another ‘little guy’ the poor shmuck that is finally making a buck and a quarter over minimum. He was actually starting to see some improvement in his lot. Ah, but now some politician has raised the minimum wage… But did his wage go up?

Oh no sir, it did not.

But guess what, everyone has raised their prices! The grocer who’s running a 1% profit margin had to raise his prices to make up for the costs in wages, and he’s also seeing his cost in inventory go up, because the company that packages his vegies, or makes his crackers, or his Raman or… is also getting hit by that wage piece. The trucking company that drives the stuff from where it’s made, to his store, just saw their costs for fuel and everything else go up, so they’re charging more, and so on. End result, if you raise the minimum wage by 1% the cost of living generally goes up by 1.5%.

Now there’s a lot of economists that will argue this point, but they’re basing their arguments on “the national rate of inflation.” That’s bullshit, because it takes into account a bunch of stuff that is not part of someone who lives below the “living wage’s” shopping list, (things like cars, and high end electronics) and is based on the rate of increase in LA, Chi, and NYC. Not on Desmoines. A good explanation of how price increases differ from inflation rates can be found at https://www.stlouisfed.org/open-vault/2025/july/differences-prices-inflation-explained

Ah, but then they put their thumbs on the scale again by deciding that “well people will just change from buying beef, to buying pork if beef goes up.” (This ignores the poor bastard who’s already buying store brand tuna because that’s all he can afford.) So they wire that into their numbers. The CPI (Consumer Price Index) is frankly, a lie. It’s useful to measure the lifestyle changes for the wealthy and even the middle class, but for the poor, it’s garbage.

Oh, but we’re not done yet! After that wage increase, and a bunch of ma-and-pa stores, and bodegas go tits up, the unemployment level in the marginal areas also goes up and oh wait, the amount of petty crime goes up.

The shoplifting rates increase, which also helps kill the small businesses, both through hits on their profit margin due to ‘shrinkage’ and because their insurance goes up.

So still more stores move out, or fold. Soon we have that thing that all the leftists are crying about in sound bites; a “food desert” where there are no places to buy groceries within neighborhoods. (Here’s a little clue people, if you want stores to stay open, don’t fucking rob them blind!)

But hey, it’s not ALL gloom and doom. One group actually makes out well on this. The big multistate conglomerates. They don’t feel the pinch as much on wages, because the part of their team that’s on MW is a smaller part of their total operational costs. They have the money to hire “Paul Blart, Mall cop” to keep the shrinkage low, and they can afford to shut a place down, and move out to just beyond the reach of the idiot councilman who’s bad decisions shut down all the little guys. Further, because the little guys are gone, they are getting all those customers that used to go to the bodega. It makes up for the MW increase on their books.

So, third level consequences of raising MW includes making the very rich, the Walton family for example, even richer, by driving out the competition. Doug McMillon thanks you.

Now, let’s look at another trait of Politicians everywhere. The lies, damn lies, and statistics that they believe will get them more power. Oh, and anyone who tells you “Well the other guys lie like a rug, but our stuff is all perfectly true”? Yeah, don’t shake hands with him without counting your fingers afterwards, keep one hand on your wallet at all times, and make sure your watch, rings, and pants are still on when you walk away from him.

I want to call out a couple of the worst of this week’s beat of lies. Since I’m normally pigeonholed as Hard Right, let’s start with the bullshit from the right this week.

For example, we have “The Ezra Cohen” Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence… who published something so mind numbingly stupid that anyone who reads it has to roll a saving throw against wisdom or lose three points of intelligence. I’ll start with the ‘headline:’

TRUMP PURGES 2,967 DEEP STATE OPERATIVES IN MILITARY STRIKE AGAINST THE STATE DEPARTMENT

Uh, mothafucka, you’re supposed to be an Undersecretary for Defense. That means you should know what a “military strike” is and looks like. Hint, it involves a lot of high explosives delivered as ‘warheads on foreheads,’ lots of bullets, and a lot of blood and body parts left lying on the ground.

He goes on to talk about how this was a massive Military Purge. It wasn't a "Purge," that word is reserved for the sort of thing that, again, winds up with dead bodies, and a lot of people "disappeared." "Military Purges" even more so. Turkey had one of those recently... Hundreds of officers just "disappeared" and many more were "Shot while trying to revolt." Those taken into custody got show trials followed by executions.

Then he rambles on about how Trump is “Operating under Continuity of Government Protocols,” and is “unstoppable.” Trump is not "operating under continuity of Government protocols" that's a phrase reserved for "who winds up in charge when some sort of natural disaster or enemy action takes out most of the top guys in our government.

He talks about how all these “spies and traitors were Forcibly Terminated.” They weren't "forcibly terminated" they were discharged. Forcibly terminated is something you do with a gun. And unless you have solid evidence of providing aid and comfort to the enemy, for the love of Gods, lose that phrase “traitor.”

The rest of his bullshit is just as over the top. This feeds into the hands of the panic mongers on the left. The fool is helping the left’s argument that Trump is a dictator, and a fascist. Gods’ sake man, try to be a little smarter than Schiff.

The next couple are inditements against both sides. The Democrats are claiming, and have been all along, that Trump was violating security, giving out secrets etc… Well now whistleblowers, and documentation that was put into burn bags, but never actually destroyed, seems to firmly indicate that a whole chain of politicians from Obama to Schiff, with stops for Hillary, and many others, not only faked all of their accusations, but falsified official documents, classified them and then intentionally leaked them. Further, there seems to be documentation that my two “favorite” incompetent agencies (OK favorite after the BATFE pricks, I speak here of the FBI and CIA) knew the claims were bullshit, told the politicians that the claims were bullshit, and were told to shut up and be good Germans. The trouble is, the water is so muddy with he said--she said, that the likelihood of getting a conviction, or even getting everyone to believe their own lying eyes, is slim to none. Here’s the latest I can find on this chaos. https://justthenews.com/government/congress/exclusive-democrat-whistleblower-told-fbi-schiff-approved-leaking-classified

Then there’s the whole Gerrymandering insanity. Look, this game has been played by both sides since eighteen fucking TWELVE. Unless we come up with some sort of national law (and I’m not sure it would be constitutional) that equates districts with zip codes, or some equally nonpolitical way of divvying up citizens, it’s going to be with us forever.

Now I would be in favor of that zip code ploy, but lacking that, who ever is in charge in the state gets to decide what districts look like, as long as they don’t discriminate; and even that can fly if you have the right state supreme court: Just ask Washington, who gerrymandered to insure that minority citizens had enough votes to elect some representatives, by putting non connecting pieces of land together, and cutting out the part between that was full of Anglos. See, in any reasonable definition that would be discrimination… But since it’s against white folk, the Washington Supremes see no problem with it.

Funny how the Dems are keeping silent about that, while screaming about Texas’s gerrymandering… Which is an undoing of a Democrat gerrymandering effort before it. Please can we stop the hypocrisy? Oh and to make it better we have Gavin Nuisance, who keeps posting threats at Trump, that if he doesn’t do something to stop Texas “From cheating”

Personally, I can’t wait to see what Nuisance thinks he can do… California is already as gerrymandered as it can get. It’s funny, most of the states that claim they’re going to “do something” to counter Texas, are already completely Democrat in their precincts, even though they’re anywhere from 20% to 46% Republican by registry.

Now none of this is to say Trump is “Pure as the driven snow.” The man is a braggart and a bullshitter from way back… Remember how “I’ll have the war over between Russia and Ukraine in 24 hours!” Yeah. Well anyway…

Still, as politicians go, he’s kept more of his promises than most, and Yes, leftist America, this is “What I voted for.” I voted for “Kick the non-citizens the hell out of our country.”

I don’t care that poor Juanita Sanchez has been living in this country for thirty years, and now her husband is dead, and the evil orange man wants to deport her. Look, if she’s been here for thirty years, and hasn’t made constructive acts toward citizenship, she doesn’t want to be a citizen, she just want’s the bennies, while cleaving to her actual home. We have no place for such people. Teddy R. made that clear.

Oh, while Nuisance is in my sights, let’s look at another stunt he pulled recently. He agreed to an interview with a podcaster named Sean Ryan. It was a softball interview, prearranged to try and buff up Nuisance’s reputation to a nation that considers him to be the poster child for liberal problem children.

Part of it was that Sean gave Nuisance a pistol, so that he could show that he wasn’t actually anti gun. (forget about your memory and your lying eyes, we’re telling you that he really is just fine with guns! BELIEVE DAMN YOU!)

Well, here’s the fun part. The good governor can’t bring the gun into his state without committing a felony, based on the laws he pushed for and signed! The Democratic machine had to hire a full time lawyer just to try and figure out a way to allow Nuisance to bring the gun into California. To date, they haven’t been able to find a loophole that would allow it! For a full report on this shit, https://www.americas1stfreedom.org/content/about-that-gun-gifted-to-gavin-newsom/?utm_source=newsletter

Then we have The PRC, who’s doing their lying mostly by omission

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What you’re looking at here, is a PRC Coast guard cutter, who just rammed into a PRC destroyer. How did this happen you ask? They were both trying to threaten a Philippine Coast guard cutter that was responding to distress calls from Philippine fishermen. Seems the PRC got so enthusiastic about fucking with the PI’s ships, that they forgot about each other. For full coverage of it, I recommend Sal’s

The Scarborough Shoal Bumper Boats

I would crow more about this, if we, (the USN) hadn’t had so many collisions in the last ten years in the same area. Still, anything that puts a thumb in the eye of Xi, is something that pleases me. Funny thing, China is denying (domestically) that this ever happened, while internationally blaming the PI for the whole thing, on the “well if they hadn’t been there, we wouldn’t have ran into each other” plan.

Yeah, weak huh?

Finally, to round out the week, we have two cases of people I’m not particularly fond of having to dine on crow. First, we have Goldman Sucks, who had to eat a lot of crow over how “well these tariffs are going to put us in a recession, and it’s all going to cost the US citizen, who after all will be paying the costs.” Turns out not to be so. https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/goldman-finds-sharp-declines-import-prices-foreigners-absorb-trumps-tariffs It seems that the international community is willing to take a profit cut rather than lose US market share. This is huge, and Goldman bet wrong. They just can’t resist saying that “well that’s what it looks like now, but in the end we’ll be proven right” though, and following that up with “if we’re not proven right, it’s not over.”

In addition, we have the House of Mouse, who had to settle out of court with Gina Carrano, https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2025/08/07/gina-carano-and-disney-settle-their-legal-dispute-n3805605 rather than allow the case to go to “discovery.” What they didn’t want the public to know, we will never know, because part of the settlement was a gag order that Carrano can’t talk about how much they paid her to keep her mouth shut, or what it was that they didn’t want her to talk about. Funny thing though, she’s smiling and the Mouse is saying “we would like to work with Gina again, in future projects.” Gosh that must hurt.

Well this has gone long, so I’m going to end it here.

QOTD: from the “did your mother have any children that lived” file. "We know how the age of colonialism worked on this planet. Should we be trying to colonize [the moon]?" —CBS News's Vladimir Duthiers

Yours in Service,

William Lehman