Hippie Company Leaves California for Texas

Well, I don't know if it is a hippie company or not but Jamba Juice does really sound like one: a company that sells healthy juice. That's cool. And it is not surprising it has been operating out of California for more than 25 years.

But Jamba Juice will be moving its headquarters to Texas. Why?

In a statement, Chief Executive David Pace said Jamba was looking for places that had “competitive operating costs,” access to “skilled restaurant talent” and an “attractive cost of living,” along with a central location for further expansion.

After that explanation the Los Angeles Times tries to reexplain the move.

Thanks in part to the success of the technology industry, labor and real estate in the Bay Area come at a high price.

Staying in the Bay Area can be lucrative and valuable for companies in the innovation sector since employees in the area tend to be more creative and productive, said Enrico Moretti, an economics professor at UC Berkeley.

See. It's the tech industry driving them out. Not high taxes and regulations. It's the tech industry, which forced Space X to leave California too?

• Los Angeles Times

Is Capitalism Moral

Of course we need to reiterate this point with the "Money Speech" from "Atlas Shrugged."

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FAA Jerks

The concept of private drones and drones for commerce is a really exciting and popular idea. So if the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) approves a company to use drones, that's got to be great and a lot of social points with the people. In fact here is their front headline for today plus screen capture.
Amazon Gets Experimental Airworthiness Certificate

However, if you read the article you will realize that the decision is nothing more than a headline banner ingratiation for the public.

The details are the excrement of the bowels.

From the page:

The UAS must always remain within visual line-of-sight of the pilot and observer. The pilot actually flying the aircraft must have at least a private pilot’s certificate and current medical certification.

So the FAA rules just completely screws the green movement. If the drone needs to remain in line-of-sight then the controller ( not pilot, there is no pilot ) then they need to follow in a vehicle. And who is this observer? Is the FAA imposing more people to deliver a package than the USPS ( United States Post Office )?

So the more people to deliver a package the more energy needed the less green it is. FAA conspiracy.

And how does piloting a plane translate to a drone? Why is an old technology being applied to a new technology? Don't we need a new standard?

What is the observer? This seems to be an excessive requirement. How many of you do your job and there is someone who's job is to watch you?

How does piloting a plane help piloting a drone? Should we not need a video game expert instead?

What is up with the medical certification? Do you need medical certification to play a video game? No.

Is flying a drone more like flying a plane or more like playing a video game?

If you say a plane you're an idiot.

Teacher's Union

The Union for Teachers. Department of Education.

Good?

Good for who(m)?

Does a Union protect the worker or the client/boss?

The Teacher's Union.

Is it working for the teacher or the students? Who gets paid? Who pays or who's parents pay?

How about a "Client Union?"

A Brain On Socialized Medicine

In the U.K. Caffé Nero paid £0 in taxes. This peeved one of the caffé's patrons. He was a "loyal" customer and turned in his "loyalty" customer card over this. He explains why blathering it on twitter all proud and smug.

If you agree with him hang on and read on because you are wrong. If you disagree with him and don't know why, I think I can tell you why.

Steve Pottinger (he advertised himself and made his persons a public object on twitter) is a valued loyalty customer of Caffé Nero. However, he is throwing his loyalty card back into the fire. His dad was in the hospital and his fate is unknown per the rant. All we know is Steve thought his dad could get more care if Caffé Nero paid taxes. The doctors and nurses could have received pay if Caffé Nero paid taxes. And well, all sorts of other people could have gotten money.

Steve, really!?

You are blaming Caffé Nero for following the rules the government setup. You are blaming Caffé Nero for how the government distributes money. You are blaming Caffé Nero for giving you the most cost effective/quality product that you so thoroughly enjoyed over and over you yourself became a valued loyal customer to them.

So in no way do we see Steve taking the government to task for their tax code or distribution of wealth. He does no chastise the government on what doctors or nurses get paid. He does not blame the government at all. He blames a company for not giving enough money as a reason to problems.

Steve turned in his card and will get his java elsewhere. Will he get the same quality for the same price?

Whether or not he does is only subjective to his palette.

However, let us tear into his final thoughts.

We're all in this together, and without a vibrant and cohesive society - which tax revenues help maintain - you've nowhere to sell your goods.

This sentence is very true but insanely stated by Steve. The cohesive society maintained by taxes is the protection of property, not the usurpation! Steve wants you to think that the taxes are meant to give to the people, not protect what people have earned and own.

Somehow Steve also thinks that the caffé expects customers to show loyalty. Really, the caffé uses gimmicks to get repeat customers to come back, not expecting loyalty. Any business knows they are as good as their last customer served.

So go on Steve. Go find that socially conscious caffé. That extra dollar you pay, it's you paying for what Nero didn't. Your new caffé just passed the cost onto you.

Why Business is Good

Glad to post a positive video.

Richard Branson explains a successful business is a business that benefits people. So cool to hear that business are not preying on consumers, tackling them to the ground, and eating out their wallets.

Happy EBT Day

Happy Labor Day! if you're working.

With the sad state and direction of our economy, how long till EBT card holders outnumber the employed? Will "Labor Day" become "EBT day?"

If we counted government workers with the unemployed, would that outnumber private sector workers?

I hope not!

Farcism of Affordable Education

Your mouth and hands are not a poop hole. So why spew such matter from them?

But so the Department of Education has done in parallel with Obama. You should read the fudge sausage before going through my commentary. It will enhance the "preaching to the choir" attitude if you are outraged.

So let's go...

I’m thrilled today that President Obama is moving forward with an ambitious new plan to make college more affordable for every American.

Government price control is wrong and always fails.

We know that higher education is more important than ever, but we also know it’s never been more expensive.

Actually we are failing to value tradesman, err, or, tradesmen. Blue collar "hands on skill" does not require college but apprenticeships.

As far as the cost of college, if the government didn't get involved the costs would be more reasonable.

We want college to be a secure investment for every student from every background who is willing to work hard, an investment that prepares our nation’s students for a good job and a bright future.

***sigh*** There is no such thing as secure. Secure is a goal, but not a true absolute.

We believe the cost of college is a shared responsibility among the federal government, states, colleges and universities, and our students and families.

Oh good Lawrd! Believe!?

The cost of college is the burden of the individual that wants to retrieve the education through a desired receptacle. I don't feel any shared responsibility of sending anyone to college!

because we know that too many students are struggling to repay their debt today – President Obama is committed to ensuring that students who need it can have access to the ‘Pay As You Earn’ plan that caps federal student loan payments at 10 percent of discretionary income, so students can better manage their debt

"Pay as you earn" has horrifying debt forgiveness. That means you pay for so-in-so's education.

We need more colleges and universities to keep college affordable while delivering a high quality education, not only for students who are first in line, but for all, especially students who are first in their families to enter college, students from disadvantaged circumstances, students with disabilities and veterans who chose service before completing their education.

Because the government is involved in student loans, the value gets distorted. By the way, "veterans who chose service before completing their education" have a guaranteed resource. So they are not a valid part of your argument.

We need states to increase higher education funding, with proven strategies for student access and success.

No. The states should not increase funding. Let the market bear the value of the product.

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By the way, I have no degree, but have taught in the private sector and military. I am a teacher without a degree.

Consider all options. The "standard" is not the rule.

Live well.

The Uneven and Irrational Enforcement of Illegal Immigration

At the blog for the Department of Justice there are two postings that got me thinking and a little bit angry. First was a posting about a Peruvian woman and a Bahamian women sentenced to jail time for helping illegal immigrants into the United States. Next was a story about a Brazilian husband and wife team sentenced to jail for helping illegal immigrants into the United States.

Why don't we just kick them out of the country? Oh yeah. Because of the sequester there were illegal aliens let out of holding for deportation because it was too expensive to keep them in custody. At least there is a consistent policy of no deportation here but now aren't we going to pay to house, feed, and guard them, sort of like they were in holding? What about the sequester?

Another thing that bothered me was that the blog postings wrote that these people people were bringing in "undocumented migrants." This is crazy. These "undocumented migrants" were breaking the law and the individuals going to jail were accomplices. Politicians are pandering to forgive illegal immigrants of their trespasses but we are putting their accomplices in jail during the sequester. It's like letting off a murder but a friend that helps bury the body is the one that goes to jail.

Another thing about the Department of Justice using the term "undocumented migrants" that bothers me is it screams like that George Carlin joke: [paraphrased] "if he's legally drunk, what's the f***ing problem?" If they are "undocumented workers" instead of being "illegal aliens" then what is the crime? Even more priceless is both posts in the title use "Alien Smuggling," not "Illegal Alien Smuggling." The Department of Justice is doing everything they can to make the illegal aliens sound innocent by using the adjective "undocumented" in the posts and "smuggling" in the title as if something was being done to them. Yet, read the post and you find out the illegal aliens pay for the services or someone else pays on their behalf. In fact, one of the cases involved the illegal aliens going from Brazil to France to England to the Bahamas to the United States so that it would appear as if they were tourists. These illegal aliens took a freaking vacation through Europe and the Bahamas as a way to break our laws! But we are going to forgive them and throw their travel agents in jail.

April 15^th is coming up and I am going to find a dumb*** accountant and convince him to tell me to take a European slash Caribbean vacation as a write off. He signs the tax forms as the legal preparer and I claim to be the ignorant trodden worker that took his advice. Sweet. I'm the innocent victim.

As if it is not enough that these "undocumented migrants" were "smuggled" by twelve inch bananas, they are taken advantage of and get jobs and earn money. And so what does the government do? Fine and/or jail employers that hire illegal aliens.

Companies or employers/entrepreneurs that hire illegal aliens face fines and/or jail time. Really? Those that will give money for work are bad people/organizations?

It is just a way to blame business for the illegal actions of others. People come here to get jobs and the government is going to punish the employer for hiring someone the government did not stop from entering? The employer should understand better than the government who should be here? The employer should be better at enforcing the law than the government else be expected to be punished for not being more efficient than the government?

This is beyond crazy. The government wants to forgive the law breakers but punish the accomplices. Those that would give pay for work are also punished. So how else should the criminal entrants survive? The government teat?

The fur flying arguments among parties leaves me without knowing the truth. One side says illegals are suckling on government resources. The other side says they are hard working people earning their way because without documentation they can not suckle on the teat. And the government says they will jail or fine those that hire illegals, which leaves illegals without a job.

So what is really going on? I don't know anymore.

Legal immigration needs to be reformed. It is too expensive and complicated. It has caused a problem to want people to forgive the most law breaking part of the problem, those that enter illegally, and yet punish the most humanitarian, those that get them to a better life or give them a job.

This is why the government needs limited powers. It is not evil. It is stupid.

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The Government Doesn't Create Jobs, It Destroys Them

Remember the Buckyballs' controversy from the summer? Remember how the Consumer Product Safety Commission was suing because a few kids swallowed magnets? Even though the product was not sold in toy stores and marketed to adults and came with warnings not to swallow?

Maxfield & Oberton Holdings, LLC, the Buckyballs company, mocked the lawsuit with some startling facts about beds, stairs, tube steaks, hippos, and coconuts. The blogosphere and conservative sites all bemoaned the lawsuit. And then ... ?

The issue has been closed, and it has been closed for a while and I missed it.

The message you get when you go to the official BuckyBalls' site is as follows:

On December 27, 2012 Maxfield & Oberton Holdings, LLC (the "Company") stopped doing business and filed a Certificate of Cancellation with the Secretary of State of Delaware, thereby ceasing to exist pursuant to applicable Delaware law. The MOH Liquidating Trust has been established to deal with and, to the extent they are valid, pay, to the extent assets are available, certain claims which have been, and may later be, asserted against the Company. If you believe you have a claim against the Company, please click on link below to obtain the Proof of Claim form which you must complete and submit to the Trustee of the MOH Liquidating Trust. If the Trustee determines that a claim is valid, the Trustee will pay that claim, to the extent assets are available, in accordance with the terms of the MOH Liquidating Trust.

Yes. Buckyballs is officially out of business.

How did we miss this? They were gone in December! A Christmas gift going away! Well, they closed in December but the announcement was early November. That means in the final throws of an American election the press were silent on the closing of an American company due to the government frivolously pursuing them in the middle of an American recession, or is it a depression now?

So this means that we can no longer get Buckyballs, right?

Wrong!

There is a place to get them online: Buckyballs Club. Cool! The government didn't win, right? Well, go to the about page and look at the bottom and see the prominent shipment carrier: China Post.

This means I checked the site and got a "WhoIs" from network-tools.com. The result is the site is owned by a Chinese company.

3/F.,HiChina Mansion,No.27 Gulouwai Avenue
Dongcheng District,Beijing 100120,China

Basically we can not buy Buckyballs in stores now, but can get them online. We will no longer buy them from an American company but a Chinese company.

And this administration has been complaining about the sequester and how it would cost jobs? Federal jobs, yes. But do they care about private sector jobs?

I don't know. Maybe it is just too dangerous for Americans to sell magnets. It is much safer to buy them online from China. Tax day is coming up. Pay your taxes so they can make jobs.

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Remembering Breitbart

Stop Gambling With Companies! You Can't Pick Winners!

The government is at it again.

How long have we lived in houses? How long have we striven to weather-proof our homes to keep our energy bills down? There is a vibrant market for making a house energy efficient, is there not?

Then why is the Solyndra debacle being repeated? Why is the government "investing" in companies of their choosing to create efficient heating, cooling, and weatherizing technologies? Of all the companies that do this sort of development the government has given $9.5 million to 6 companies/universities to develop products.

What is even worse is that the products invested in are predefined. Not only has the government interfered with the market by giving a few companies in a large market money, but they are deciding what should be developed instead of letting the market decide. If the end products do not meet the stated goals then people will probably not want them. Even if the products do meet the stated goals the people still may not want them.

Basically, the DOE is gambling in the market again with $9.5 million dollars picking companies and products they want in an industry that has been around for a long time. How did they not learn from Solyndra? How can they not realize that "if you build it they will come" is just a fantasy from a movie!?

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Financial Assault

One of the weapons wielded against terrorism is financial assault. Once a terrorist's or a terrorist cell's bank account is discovered the assets are frozen. Lack of assets makes it difficult to purchase the necessary materials to meet the desired ends.

But what if a bank independently decided to do this? What if it wasn't against terrorists but businesses that they didn't like?

Well, this has happened. Bank of America has decided that they do not like gun manufacturers and decided to freeze the accounts of American Spirit Arms.

Can you see the havoc this nation is descending into? When the tax policies and the forced purchasing of insurance becomes an incentive to lie about profits, when arms manufacturers are pushed into a cash only situation, can you not see the formula for "Going Galt" taking place? Is it not the logical conclusion?

It's About The Happiness Stupid!

Farmers of the World, Re-Populate!

No Detroit?

If not even Detroit is in the list of the ten worst cities to live in, maybe we still are doing fine.

Galt's Gulch :: We Can Build It

You didn't build that.

-Barack Obama

Oh, we built it and can do it again.

As I write this the following is the election results I am seeing.

Will Galt's Gulch become a reality? Probably. But people will not physically move to a geographical location and go into hiding. What will happen is we will hide our money.

We can build Galt's Gulch by creating a new economic system. Do business in the U.S. but handle our money in foreign accounts completely with a currency that is more stable. The U.S. dollar is going to suffer drastically.

A good place to look to is China. With their currency kept artificially low it would be a great economic system for us to take advantage of. As the dollar falls it will not be possible for China to continue to fix their currency. It will eventually expand to its actual value. If you are invested in it you will make money.

It is sad because the political system in China is Communist but they are moving their economic system more towards capitalism. The U.S. government and economy is moving more towards pure Socialism every day. The capitalists will find a way to remain capitalists.

Galt's Gulch will become a reality. We will starve out the government. The government needs us. We don't need the government.

Corporations Have Rights :: A Good Thing

Government Money Handling Insanity

Here's a young man, 40 years old. He discovers he's got AIDS. He's got ten more years to live. Then the government comes along and say "we have to take fifteen percent of your income to provide for your old age after 65."

- Milton Friedman

That was Milton Friedman commenting about social security and how you are not paying for your retirement but other people's retirement. The following is a wonderful interview with this man.

Brilliant!

Many people hate advertisements. The thing is advertising reduces and sometimes removes the cost for a consumer to consume some form of media. You do not have to pay to listen to FM or AM radio because there are ads. Satellite radio you have to pay for since much of it is commercial free.

Online content and services need to make money in order to operate. Just having a website up and running costs money. I encountered the following and thought it was brilliant. A very capitalistic solution to security.

This dialog is a form of a captcha: an interactive applet that requires human interaction to prove a "bot" is not using a site en masse. Hence, captchas are a security mechanism to ensure only people are using a site and spam bots are not taking over.

By incorporating the ad into the captcha and typing in part of the ad, you get product retention. I imagine this form of advertisement must cost a little bit more, but what a brilliant idea. Advertisement retention and security all in one!