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You probably remember Subway's famous "five-dollar footlong" promotion as much for the obnoxiously catchy jingle as for the sandwiches themselves. (Sorry for getting that stuck in your head all day.)
The sandwich chain recently resurrected the promotion in a national advertising campaign promising foot-long subs for just $4.99—but the special deal won't fly at one Subway restaurant in Seattle, where owner David Jones posted a sign this week giving customers the bad news.
Sadly, the consequences of high minimum wages, excessive taxation, and mandate-happy public policy are not limited to the death of cheap sandwiches. The cost of doing business in Seattle is higher than the Space Needle, and the unintended consequences of those policies are piling up too.
The biggest cost driver, as Jones' sign mentions, is Seattle's highest-in-the-nation minimum wage. It went from $9.47 to $11 per hour in 2015, then to $13 per hour in 2016, with a further increase to $15 per hour planned.
The result? According to researchers at the University of Washington's School of Public Policy and Governance, the number of hours worked in low-wage jobs has declined by around 9 percent since the start of 2016 "while hourly wages in such jobs increased by around 3 percent." The net outcome: In 2016, the "higher" minimum wage actually lowered low-wage workers' earnings by an average of $125 a month.
And now those same employees will have to pay more for sandwiches from Subway—and everything else too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @06:21PM (3 children)
Charlie Gard was a very sick baby in the UK. His parents were offered experimental treatment in the USA, but were not allowed to take their baby.
You say "death panels" don't exist. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. A death panel by any other name is just as evil. Charlie Gard was killed by a death panel in the UK.
I find it obscene that parents would be denied to right to take their own baby home and go wherever they want, but that's socialism for you. Socialism kills.
Actual communism is totalitarian communism because theoretical communism is incompatible with human behavior. All communism requires violent enforcement. Those "democratic socialism" places in Europe are not in fact nice. People can't afford large families due to taxes. The countries depended on cultural values that are rapidly eroding. The traditional Swedish culture was such that a non-working person was shamed into working, but migrants feel no such duty. All of those countries are going to collapse.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RedBear on Sunday January 14 2018, @03:05AM (1 child)
I could come up with a hundred cases here in the US just like the Charlie Gard case, where physicians refuse to allow an experimental procedure or extend the suffering of a patient unnecessarily with no hope of improvement. It sounds like it was fundamentally a disagreement between doctors doing their best to provide proper care. Such disagreements and outright mistakes happen wherever you go. So if that's your definition of "death panel" then we have that here too. Never heard of Terri Schiavo? I don't see any of that as a relevant reason not to have a not-for-profit national health care system.
I never said real communism works well, or at all. But you still can't claim that totalitarian communism is the same as textbook communism. The real stuff has been tried numerous times in small communes, and always failed. But it was tried, and it wasn't totalitarian. Which, of course, is why it failed.
Migrants feel no duty to work? Really. Nothing racist about that kind of blanket statement applied to millions of people, most of whom are actually quite motivated to work hard and make a better life for themselves and their children in their new country. That's why they migrated, after all. Migrants are human beings, just like everyone else.
People can't easily afford large families in any society unless they're wealthy or live on a traditional farm where they can use their progeny for cheap labor. I don't see that as a relevant indictment of democratic socialism versus uncontrolled profit-worshipping capitalism. Why would you want people to have large families anyway, don't we have an overpopulation problem conservatives are always moaning about?
Long story short, I won't be holding my breath waiting for all the European democratic socialist nations to collapse.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @05:38AM
Terri Schiavo's case didn't involve a death panel. It involved one person, her husband, wanting to let her die. He alone had the authority. Her parents disagreed and raised a fuss.
I have no doubt that sometimes the USA effectively uses the court system as death panels. We don't need to add to the problem.
Migrants clearly seek to claim asylum in the European countries with better welfare benefits. This actually violates refugee treaties; they are required to claim asylum in the first safe country. Many pass through Turkey or France, both considered safe by treaty standards. Migrants usually continue on to places like the UK and Sweden. Most do not find employment; you can find them idle on the streets during the day.
Some of those European countries are having roughly 1 kid born to each woman. They need a bit more than 2 to avoid extinction. Adding migrants does nothing to preserve endangered European cultures.
Sweden is already having to increase the retirement age due to non-productive refugees. This isn't going over well. There is a lot of suppressed anger in that country; you can't dare say it because it is socially unacceptable. At some point the inhibition will be overcome, and then the genocide starts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @01:05PM
Charlie Gard's parents were offered a no-hope scam that would have drained them of money and left the baby just as dead. Being desperate and vulnerable, and not being doctors themselves, they would have fallen for it had not the doctors of the NHS recognised that the child's best interests were served by staying in the UK and receiving palliative care. Tough decisions are tough.