Starbucks Discrimination

In a time where jobs are a hot item and people are in high competition for them, it is hard to overlook a job refusal due to discrimination. Starbucks is being sued for not hiring a one armed man in San Diego due to his disability. Starbucks refuses that the claim is legitimate and responded that he did not receive the job due to other reasons, not his disability. Starbucks is known for hiring people with disabilities and that the man's recollection of the interview was false. Pierre, the man who was not hired, is a former bartender that claims the Starbucks manager told him in the interview that the flavoring syrups were too high for him to reach and therefore he was not fully suited for the job. Whether or not Pierre's accusations are true or not we do not know for sure, but what we do know is that people are desperate for jobs and the denial of one over a physical handicap is expected to receive large recognition and bad news for Starbucks if the story is in fact true and he was not hired due to his physical situation. It is important not to discriminate in job hiring. Our unemployment is improving and if people are going out and trying to find jobs, they should not be turned away due to a handicap that would not actually effect their work. This is bad for our economy and unfair to our citizens.

'Greece Can Only Solve Its Crisis if It Quits the Euro'

If you are even slightly interested with the economic crisis in Greece, read this article.

If you are considerate about the nearby future, read this article.

If you need a little push, click here.

One of my favorite points that Sinn makes in his interview:

Greece's creditors aren't entitled to have the debt repaid by the international community. Everyone has to earn the standard of living themselves, and those who chose to make money from risk must bear that risk.

If I understand interest-bearing loans correctly, don't interest rates encode the risk of default? The idea that a creditor may lend money with trailing interest rates and recollect irregardless of the debtor's ability to pay is irritable. That is the entire notion of risk! Likewise, interest represents the opportunity cost of not investing elsewhere. Why is there an obligation to pay debts that cannot be managed? An entire country turning to austerity mirrors a system of debt bondage, just on a much larger scale. While, yes, the ability to pardon debt too easily could limit growth by turning away investors, a balanced between the creditors and the debtors. I should not be able to go to input debtor into a thesaurus website and see it paired with "delinquent."

Further, what are the negatives to this? What is to become of home mortgages that are held by the Euro? And what of the middle class? They will likely be affected most by the currency shift, and their savings may be exhausted, but what of the austerity period Sinn is predicting? There is also a decent chance that a proportion of the middle class will simply emigrate in search of better opportunities. What shall serve as the backbone of economic revitalization without the pivotal middle class?

Gas Prices

As
gas prices begin to rise as we head into summer, the consumer price is going to
begin to slightly rise with gasoline. In January the consumer price went up
0.2%, which is the highest it has increased since September of 2011. As we see
this increase of not only gasoline but as well as consumer goods, we can begin
to make the assumption that the demand of certain goods will decrease. This is
where the market begins to become very competitive and eliminates the smaller
less profitable companies. This is not only bad for the smaller business but as
well as the consumers. As soon as the larger company has waited out the smaller
company’s failure and bankruptcy, the larger business is the only one with the
product now which allows them to "jack" the prices up because they
are the only ones who sell that product. Seeing how the price of gasoline
causes the majority of companies to raise their prices, it seems as if we need
something that does not rely on gas to be fueled. I believe as soon as there is
another way to deliver and shit goods from point A to point B without having to
pay the vast amount of money for gas, then not only will transportation be
cheaper but as well as the majority of all goods. This will better the economy
and the business world. Is there any way for the US to develop such technology?

A Plan To Save the Postal Service

The US Postal Service has presented a five year economic plan to congress asking for their help to get through their financial struggles. The Postal Service would like congress to pass legislation concerning the price of postal stamps raising the price to 50 cents. The Postal Service lost revenue in the past three months, during the holidays, which should have been their profitable time of year. Many people did not ship mail first-class which led to a loss of $3.3 billion in revenue. Congress has been working on plans to save the Postal Service from suffering even more losses, but all plans have faced controversy and have not been passed as legislation. The US Postal Service’s plan would help save them $20 billion over the course of the next five years, but they need congress to assist in helping them save $10 billion. The stamps which now cost 45 cents would be raised to 50 cents allowing for $1 billion to be saved per year according the statistics of the Postal Service. However, the plan also calls for some drawbacks. Many post offices would be closed, deliveries would be changed to five day weeks instead of six, and first-class mail would be delivered a day later than usual. The Postal Service would also like to do away with the federal law that requires that it to prefund retiree health care. However, it would create a new health care plan for the employees. The plan also would create a dramatic loss of jobs for the many people who work for the US Postal Service. This plan, while it may greatly benefit the Postal Service by recovering their losses, it also calls for reductions that could also be less beneficial to the economy.

Can you resist "Schweddy Balls"?

If you are a fan of Ben & Jerry’s icecream like I am, you have probably noticed their funny flavors. If not, check out the icecream isle next time your at the grocery store. Half Baked, Magic Brownies, Karamel Sutra... the list of witty names goes on. Ben & Jerry’s has shown a lot of activism as a company, supporting Occupy Wallstreet, environmental issues and other current events. They even celebrated the fight for gay rights by renaming their “Chubby Hubby” icecream to “Hubby Hubby”.
Ben & Jerry’s decided to go out with a bang when they whipped out “Schweddy Balls”, their new featured flavor last year in reference to a popular SNL skit. The icecream is rum flavored with fudge malt balls, staying true to the "mouth-watering Schweddy rum ball family recipe". Many consumers began to think they were starting to push the envelope. The carefree company let it be known that they were not going to worry about complaints and just wanted to have some fun and honor the hilarious Alec Baldwin skit. Mothers were saying that they didn’t want to hear their children asking for schweddy balls. Some organizations tried to boycott and resist Schweddy Balls. Many were offended and viewed the flavor inappropriate.
Despite your view on the Schweddy Ball controversy, there is a lot of respect to be given for Ben & Jerry’s as a business. They started out selling icecream out of a gas station in a small town in Vermont and are now known and loved nationwide. The 30 year old company has grown drastically despite their edginess and risky stances.
So has their gutsiness been a positive marketing strategy? Do you still there no such thing as bad publicity? And lastly-- will you resist their Schweddy Balls?


Other cool flavors include “Americone Dream” honoring Stephen Colbert, “Late Night Snack” honoring Jimmy Fallon, and “Cherry Garcia” in respects to Grateful Dead’s guitarist Jerry Garcia.

Postal Closings Lead to Isolation

Although it may prove beneficial financial to shut down post offices throughout the nation, it will have a huge effect on small towns as well as poor communities who have no access to Internet. While the post office has become a largely negative impact on our economy, for some areas it is the primary source for reaching out to distant relations. In small towns such as Dedham, Iowa , the post office is the only way to send out mail as well as packages. It is their primary source to keep in touch with outside of their town because they have no access to Internet. Without the post office they will no longer to be able to send packages, buy stamps, or send letters. Being a small town of only 280 residents, they heavily rely on their post office. By shutting their post office down there will be a large number of unemployment in the town as well as a large feeling of isolation the world outside their small town. A study has shown that 80% of the offices that are lined up to shut down first are located in small rural towns where there is little to no Internet connection possible and poverty is very high. Imagine a life with no email or instant messaging and now no postal service. This will be a huge struggle for these small towns who have always relied heavily on their services. I agree that the postal service is bringing down our economy, but I believe a new resource should be developed in order to allow these people to keep in contact with the outside world.

Iranian Oil & Petrodollar Warfare

The US has another potential economic crisis on its hands. This article claims that Iran is continuing it's "attack" on the dollar, when in actuality the Islamic Republic is merely protecting itself from one commenter called "America's super-imperialism." To have a better understanding of the Petrodollar situation and what Iran is doing to leave America quivering, I suggest reading this wiki article.

The Petrodollar refers to the OPEC recognized standard of using only the US dollar "as the world's dominant reserve currency, and the currency in which oil is priced." Now picture every country that imports or exports oil keeping X amount of dollars in a backroom somewhere for Y years. Since most countries rely on importing oil, they will constantly reserve and demand the dollar. This is one of the reasons we can function as a country despite the debt we find ourselves in. All is well, right? Now imagine a majority of foreign countries switching their petrodollar to the petroeuro. There lies a potential for billions of dollars to be deemed useless, worthless. The countries that adopted the new petrocurrency now have no use for the dollar, and can freely sell their bonds, securities, assets, etc., resulting in a sudden flood of US money in the world economy and unprecedented inflation. Game over.

Iran is the first country succeeding at their fight against the petrodollar, and that worries the United States. "Supposedly" the US and friends are merely placing sanctions on the Islamic Republic to coerce them out of pursuing WMDs, but protecting the petrodollar's regime is first priority. We could face the truth: it's unlikely Iran would ever initialize warfare against Israel. They would face utter annihilation. It's also unlikely the US could go to war with Iran given the American public's awakening in the face of media manipulation. We've become much more conscious of the media's bias and its ability to sway public opinion. Perhaps the only way for the US to continue to dominate the oil trade is to utilize Israel to deliver the first attack, then to follow through with the aforementioned 'utter annihilation.'

This article radically shifted my position on "who's the bad guy here" from a "clearly, them" to "nope, us." First off, how is it an attack if Iran is merely wanting to trade natural resources with India? Is it seen as an attack just because of the looming economic threat? If I attempted to sympathize with Ahmadinejad, I would see an otherwise disillusioned man who ultimately wants to protect his people from what they view as capitalist greed and monopoly.

I do worry about the looming future. As justified as it may be, Iran is breaking OPEC regulations by trading in any medium outside the US dollar, which in itself could cause a monumental backlash not just from the United States, but also the OPEC-member countries. In 2000, Saddam Hussein tried to break away from the petrodollar as well. I predict a parallel future for Iran.