Category Archives: This is John Galt Speaking

Goodbye, Blue Monday

Goodbye, Blue Monday!

Thanks as always to Pirate’s Cove, The Other McCain, The Daley Gator, Bacon Time and (new this week) Professor Moron for the Rule Five links!

This hit close to home for me, as I’m a gig worker myself:  The Biden(‘s handlers) Administration is basically telling gig workers where to head in.  Excerpt:

Crime will be fresh on the minds of voters during November’s midterm elections. But there is no greater robbery than that being planned by the Biden administration. What it’s proposing is a government-backed mugging.

In essence, the White House wants to outlaw gig work in America. No, it’s not saying so outright. The Biden Labor Department obscures that harsh reality with words meant to deceive. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh says the department’s proposal is needed to safeguard “​​our nation’s most vulnerable workers,” and ensure they are not deprived “of their federal labor protections.”

Left out is the part that, should the proposal become policy, millions of Americans will be stripped of their jobs and income. Under its rule, the Labor Department would be free to “determine whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act.” And it will determine in every case that the worker in question must be a hired employee, no longer free to continue his or her job as an independent contractor.

How can we be so sure as to say “every case”? There’s precedent. Almost three years ago Assembly Bill 5, passed and signed in 2019, went into effect in California. The standard it put in place to determine if workers could remain independent contractors is so high that it is virtually impossible to reach. Everyone has to be a hired employee or their job is lost.

I don’t think I have to point out that the President has zero Constitutional authority to do this.  President Biden(‘s handlers) have been wiping their asses with the Constitution since they took office.  They have plenty of company,  of course.  Congress has been doing the same thing.

For the last nineteen years, I’ve been an independent consultant.  A gig worker.  I work with a couple of placement agencies, with whom I have corp-to-corp relationships; I do the work, I send them an invoice, they send a check not to me but to our LLC.  So I’m not yet certain how or even if this whole thing would effect us.  But I do know it would be a disaster for independent truckers, Uber/Lyft drivers, food delivery folks, and a million other “gig” workers.  And there’s the thing:  Nobody put a gun to these people’s heads and made them work in the gig economy.  As the article points out, the best data says that the overwhelming majority of gig workers, like me, do so because they prefer working the gig economy over having a traditional J.O.B. – not because they have no other choice, but because that was their choice.

Now a Democrat administration, aping a Democrat state, wants to deny them that.  And these assholes call themselves “pro-choice.”

Rule Five Who Is John Galt Friday

This is now a few weeks old, but I just stumbled over it and found it interesting; it seems a lot of the folks who are leaving the workplace are the ones who actually make things work.  And the message, although not stated in this article?  “This is John Galt Speaking.”  Excerpt:

The Great Resignation is not just a story of economic policy incentives or Marxist analysis, or even exasperation with rude and difficult customers. It’s not a matter of attitude adjustment, as if Americans were adopting the Chinese practice of tang ping—”lying down,” the new trend of young people giving up trying to achieve or accomplish anything. Quietist philosophy—at least when it comes to professional occupation—is foreign to the American culture of liberty and self-determination.

Solving the mystery of the Great Resignation phenomenon is not difficult. We must pay attention to who is resigning—what kind of workers—and put ourselves in their shoes.

The “laptop class,” John Tierney’s term for college-educated workers whose workday is largely computerized, is not resigning. Graphic designers, software developers, and the assorted cohort of spreadsheet surfers and keyboard warriors have not been the primary driver of unemployment during or after the pandemic. Most companies and employees adapted to remote work, a development that was long overdue given the technology available. Now, the only office employers struggling to fill cubicles are those who still think cubicles are the future.

The workers resigning are those most brutally impacted by policy over the last year and a half. They wear uniforms, or at least boots, and most of their customers are strangers: police officers, airline pilots, healthcare workers, builders, repairmen. We used to call them “frontline heroes” and “essential employees”—now we oppress them with litanies of COVID mandates in their workplace. And don’t forget about the workers in retail and restaurants who have always lived just above the poverty line. At a time of unprecedented economic instability, they don’t see much difference between their paltry wage and welfare, with poverty even being preferable to an exploitative or abusive workplace.

Here’s a primary cause, if not the root cause:

We’ve all walked into a restaurant or grocery store where masks are not required for customers, but “corporate office” wants all employees to wear them. We’ve all had a friend or relative whose job has been threatened by public or private-sector vaccine mandates. We’ve watched the disunity over COVID restrictions split churches and tear school districts apart—so why should we be surprised it demotivates workers? Working in these conditions comes at a price—and for blue-collar jobs especially, that price is not justified by the salary. Workers in these jobs value job security, schedule regularity, and constancy of tasks—a job to be proud of, but not to prioritize over values, free time, or personal dignity.

Or, in the words of John Galt:

I am speaking to those who desire to live and to recapture the honor of their soul. Now that you know the truth about your world stop supporting your own destroyers. The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction to give it. Withdraw your sanction. Withdraw your support.

That seems to be what lots of blue-collar (and some white-collar) folks are doing.  Lots of emergency responders, too. And, honestly, why not?  In an environment where we are demonized for being successful, for working hard and taking pride in our work, for not giving in to hypocritical mandates by virtue-signalling bosses?

The linked article concludes:

The American entrepreneur of the future must rally the workers being squeezed by these coercive policies. Their productivity and ingenuity—currently subdued by short-sighted agendas—may be America’s greatest untapped resource.

In other words, let the looter’s state collapse, and build something new, something productive, in the wreckage.  Ayn Rand, while far from the best fiction writer in history, may yet prove to be one of the most prescient.

This is John Galt Speaking.

BlackBerry chief asks Obama to force Netflix, Apple to make BlackBerry apps.  Excerpt:

Facepalm-bearApple, Netflix… listen up. BlackBerry CEO John Chen thinks it’s high time you paid attention to his phones, and he’s calling on the FCC and President Obama to force you to change your tunes.

Specifically, Chen feels that it’s unfair for companies that develop apps to discriminate against a particular platform. He calls out Netflix, who have so far avoided BlackBerry, and Apple, who doesn’t offer any of their mobile apps — like iMessage — for anything other than iOS.

That’s just not fair, he says: “applications/content providers must be prohibited from discriminating based on the customer’s mobile operating system” if we really want to have a free, impartial Internet for everyone to enjoy.

Directive 10-289, anyone?

This is John Galt Speaking.

Wesley Mouch Eric Holder Sues Police Department for Treating Women as Equals.  You can’t make this stuff up.  Excerpt:

Facepalm-bearThe Pennsylvania State Police are being sued by Eric “The Extortionist” Holder for alleged sexual discrimination. No, the Penn police didn’t do anything as egregious as force women to pay for their own birth-control; but apparently it was enough to persuade the DOJ to file a lawsuit. The offense: Women are being held to the same standards as their male counterparts!

Apparently, requiring all candidates to pass the same standard physical fitness test is sexist. See, women are having a tough time passing the test – and this is obviously by design.

So, to match the least competent President of my lifetime, we have the least competent Attorney General of my lifetime.

Interesting times, True Believers.  Interesting times.