Kevin Bae dot com

This is just too funny. A company in Oregon can’t hire back their employees because they are making more now with the COVID-19 stimulus than when they were working. I wouldn’t go back to work either if the government was going to pay me to stay home.

The starting wage for a line cook in one of our restaurants is $15 an hour. These cooks receive at least $1 an hour in tips, so at a minimum they make $16 an hour, or $640 before taxes for a 40-hour week. The overwhelming majority of our laid-off cooks qualified for Oregon unemployment compensation of 1.25% of their annual gross wages weekly, or $416 in our example. The extra $224 a week provides a strong incentive to return to work.

But as of this week, that same employee receives $1,016 a week, or $376 more than he made as a full time employee. Why on earth would he want to come back to work?

The Wall Street Journal

1. I’m going to have to vote for Donald Trump in November.
   1. One thing is crystal clear. Joe Biden is not equipped to handle much of anything. It’s not his fault he’s just not the same man he was even 4 years ago.
2. The U.S. Dollar is nothing but funny money. How else can the government pass legislation dolling out more than $2 trillion when the nation is already deep in debt. And there’s more to come.
3. #Lockdown2020 is a tiny taste of socialism and it’s bad.
   1. Shortages because prices are not allowed to fluctuate according to demand. That’s how stores run out of toilet paper.
   2. Government requiring stores to only sell essential items (as defined by the government). That’s how we get Target and Walmart not being able to sell garden supplies while Home Depot can. That’s how major appliance stores can remain open while your local restaurant can’t. That’s how liquor stores can remain open while your local florist can’t.
   3. Government mandating behavior. WEAR YOUR MASK SLAVE!
4. We’re soft and ripe for conquering.
   1. 9/11 brought the security state. COVID-19 has brought the safety state. Together we have the tyranny state.
   2. The overreaction from 9/11 gave us the TSA and security theater of taking our shoes off, taking our belts off, and putting liquids into 3 oz. bottles. COVID-19 will bring us the safety theater of wearing masks in public and permanent social distancing.
   3. If we’re afraid of living how will we fight off a true invasion and take-over of our country?
5. No one understands our federal system.
   1. The U.S. system of government is designed to be bottom up and not top down. You are responsible first and foremost for your own health, safety, and welfare. If for some reason you can’t then it gets bumped up to your town, then your state, and then the federal government.
   2. It’s like this because the founders of the country believed that individuals were best able to decide what was best for them at any given moment.
   3. If done right, and each layer is not depending on the one above it, a federated system is more robust and is able to respond to what’s best for each location. Montana doesn’t need the same rules and regulations as New York. Broadalbin, New York doesn’t need the same rules and regulations as New York, New York.
6. There are more fascists among us than I ever imagined.
   1. Neighbors actually floating the notion to arrest children for playing.
   2. People calling the police on their fellow citizens for suspected “illegal” behavior. We used to make fun of socialist/communist nations that did this in the past.
   3. The government is using anti-terrorist laws to go after non-terroristic threats. Any excuse to use police powers.
7. Computer models are wrong most of the time and we should stop using them to push public policy.
   1. The old term, “garbage in garbage out” holds true.
   2. The human factor cannot be accurately accounted for in computers. Humans act in relatively random ways.
   3. Models don’t change with life. Multiple scenarios can’t predict actual behavior.
8. The public needs to wake up to the fact that doctors and scientists are human and not God.
   1. There’s a reason they call it “practicing” medicine.
   2. Sincere scientists want their theories tested and do not subscribe to consensus.
9. The government that helped spur the obesity and Type-2 Diabetes epidemic is the same government controlling social and economic policy to stop the COVID-19 pandemic.
   1. Diabetes and obesity seem to be huge risk factors in COVID-19 morbitiy. They helped create the health condition of the people the virus is now killing.
   2. They never consider the unintended consequences of their actions.
10. The U.S. Constitution is no longer worth the paper on which it’s printed.
    1. Emergency powers are unconstitutional and should be stripped from each executive position in the government.
       1. “But Madison knew this as well when he wrote the Constitution. And he knew it four years later when he wrote the Bill of Rights. He intentionally employed language to warn those who lust to dominate that, however they employ governmental powers, the Constitution is “the Supreme Law of the Land” and all government behavior in America is subject to it.
          
          Even if the legislature of the State of New York ordered, as my friend Gov. Andrew Cuomo — who as the governor, cannot write laws that incur criminal punishment — has ordered, it would be invalid as prohibited by the Constitution.
          
          This is not a novel or an arcane argument. This is fundamental American law. Yet, it is being violated right before our eyes by the very human beings we have elected to uphold it. And each of them — every governor interfering with the freedom to make one’s own choices — has taken an express oath to comply with the Constitution.“
    2. The 1st Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Just try freely exercising your religion or assembling peaceably… anywhere.