A young Adolf Hitler

fuckyeahhistoryfoes:

Now - I’ve never experienced war, so I can’t knock the achievements of others in the field of battle, it’s not for me too pooh-pooh the record of Hitler - HOWEVER… Hitler received both the relatively ‘common’ Iron Cross, 2nd class [fair do’s] and, highly unusually, the Iron Cross, 1st class.

It’s generally regarded that Hitler received the 1st class Iron Cross due to his proximity to officers day-in day-out - his being posted at regimental HQ, rather than an act truly worthy of it.

Which brings up the salient point. Hitler was posted to Regimental HQ, where he:

pursued his artwork, drawing cartoons and instructions for an army newspaper

For those of us that have seen Blackadder Goes Forth, does this brown-noser, off at HQ remind you of anyone?

He’s a little Captain Darling - across no man’s land he’s his little mirror image.

I hope to high heaven that the Germans make their own Blackadder Goes Forth and has the character of Darling as Hitler - It’s too much of an opportunity *not* to!

P.S. The officer who gave Hitler his dubious Iron Cross, 1st class [and the superiority complex that no-doubt came with it] was Jewish… lol?

Minimum Wage, a Synopsis

laliberty:

After receiving a few messages today regarding the minimum wage, I thought it worthwhile to offer a brief summary of the argument. (For a bit more detail, please see my post Repeal the Minimum Wage.)

The premise can be understood in one sentence: you set a price floor for anything, you create a surplus of supply. 

When it’s a price floor on hirable labor (aka a minimum wage) - you get a surplus of hirable labor (aka unemployment). 

It’s fairly basic economics: as the artificially dictated price increases above the market clearing price, the overall quantity demanded by consumers decreases (and thus supply remains unsold). 

Lower-skilled workers in particular become un-hireable when their productivity in a given job is less than the wage an employer must pay. If a person can only contribute $5 an hour in productivity, any wage above $5 (plus overhead, insurance, taxes, and whatever profit that makes the employee worth hiring in the first place) would make the hire a net negative, or loss, to the employer. And no business can be competitive, much less sustainable, by carrying losses.

This glut of hirable labor as a result of a price floor in wages, in turn and counter to intentions, grants more power to the employers who now have more candidates for every job opening. Instead of these mostly entry-level candidates being able to negotiate their foot in the door, the employer may be able to use extraneous criteria that may have previously been unnecessary or immaterial (extended referrals, higher education completed, greater experience, church attendance, shared interests, ethnicity, etc.) to decide who to hire.

Employers often also increase prices of their products to compensate for their greater expenses, and thus pass off the costs to consumers (and we’re all consumers).

In the long run, the effects are further compounded as employers invest in ways to stay competitive by using machinery to automate tasks previously performed by workers. And once that investment has been made and the new efficiency has been created, it is unlikely to be reversed. Another long-term effect is that employers lose flexibility in offering non-wage benefits. To be able to afford the new wages: compromises may be made with regards to working conditions, vacation days may be decreased, or a workplace that was once more casual may make stricter and less comfortable demands in order to increase the productivity of the workers commensurate to their increase in pay. 

So not only does a minimum wage price some workers out of the market altogether, it also incentivizes employers to find ways to use existing labor less and in a less favorable manner. This is what Bastiat called “that which is not seen.”

It is utter common sense: making something more expensive tends to force people to use less of it (by eliminating it altogether, finding ways to do more with less, or simply turning to alternatives, including black market options). Statists seem to understand this principle with regards to things like sin taxes, gasoline taxes, or penalties for overwatering a lawn - but unfortunately they fail to make the connection when it is the price of labor that is increased.

Labour isn’t a ‘product’ - it’s something that intrinsically needs to be sold - people need to work in order to live. You have the choice of buying/selling a product - you have to sell your labour.

If someone came to you and said ‘I’m desperate, I need to sell this to you - take, it, $100’ you’d say ‘well, you need to sell it, so I think I’ll pay whatever I want for it’. The people who are on minimum wage are likely to be uneducated and incapable of finding a better job - We live in a society where people are brought from all over the world to work for next to nothing - people that were living in remote Congolese villages five years ago are now working in London - the market is continually being flooded in order to keep price low, causing mass-poverty in cities in order to keep profit high - these ‘products’ are humans, it’s highly unethical.

It’s not a matter of businesses not being able to pay minimum wage, it’s a matter of them wanting to keep all profit at the top. There are plenty of nations on this earth that have minimum wage and they’ve not collapsed into a heap - they’ve merely stopped all profit from going to a few. Anyone who’s worked in these big companies knows the money that’s floating around is shocking - even during a recession. Lets look at a nation that isn’t taught to be inherently greedy - let’s look at Sweden. Their workers are paid well, they’re well-represented - are they in the verge of economic collapse? Or do they have a far, FAR higher standard of living?

If companies can get away with paying people less, they will, in order for them to maximise profit. If a company will charge you whatever it knows you’ll pay for a product. Business is a simple matter of taking as much as you can for whatever service you provide.

In the UK many large companies are trying to convince the government that they should be given the unemployed to work for ‘experience’ - free labour. The value of petrol has been slashed and yet the price is still as high as it ever was at the pumps. If they can take it, they will. Minimum wage is a way of reigning in greed. Big business is no different to big government - they tax and they fleece and they tell you it can’t possibly find a few more dollars for wages because they’re simply isn’t any!

…as they write down that statement as falling under expenses. Big business is a bureaucracy.

Paris of Troy.

fuckyeahhistoryfoes:

Paris is the worst of the worst in my book:

1. His family knew he was going to be the downfall of Troy, and after his birth try again and again to kill him, but ultimately fail. THEY LEFT HIM UP A MOUNTAIN but some bear suckled him. That’s bang out of line, bear, leave the kid to die.
2. When the gods [Athena, Hera, & Aphrodite] end up having a tiff over who’s the fairest, Zeus, being asked to judge but knowing how quickly that situation is going to go south, appoints Paris to judge - Zeus says the conditions of judgement are his, HE gets them to take their clothes off. They’re gods, Paris, have some damn respect. You’re on thin ice here…
3. Hera offers him EUROPE and ASIA, Aphrodite offers him some pretty girl [Paris at this point is married to a sea-nymph, a sea-NYMPH] and Athena offers him unmatched skill and wisdom in battle. He picks the girl [??? I’m pretty sure the other two options would get you here too but whatever…] Oh, she’s married, nice one Aphrodite. So he kidnaps her. However, Practically every feller in Greece is sworn to protect her marriage to Menelaus, so they’re all sworn to bring her back… Great one PARIS.
4. He’s a big wuss and leaves all the fighting to his ultra-cool brother, Hector. Fight your own damn battles. He gets his brother killed by the also ultra-cool Achilles.
5. He *tries* fighting Menelaus to sort it all out - except he gets utterly thrashed and gets spirited away by Aphroditie - at this point Paris is looking like someone who’s fallen out of some grotty nightclub, starting fights and being held back by his girlfriend screeching ‘leave it ahhhht, he’s not worth itttt’
6. He then kills Achilles in the most cowardly way, an arrow to the knee foot - at this point someone needs to tan this son-of-a-gun’s hide [he has a track record for arrows to feet, he pulls the same trick on Diomedes - a name which means ‘God-like cunning/Advised-by-Zeus’… I know what I’m calling my kid.]
7. Guy finally dies [maximum respect for the arrow to the eye Philoctetes!]… His brother gets married to Helen [apparently this is just the done thing now? I’m pretty sure you could just let her go now].
8. Tory gets destroyed all because of him - family get killed, city in ruins. WHAT a mug.

This picture is called Hector Admonishes Paris for His Softness and Exhorts Him to Go to War - it’s all about calling people out as the nancy-boys they are via the medium of art.

I hope you did exist Paris, purely so you could experience death [the logic there is faultless]

vespervesper:

cadburycrazed:

I need feminism because Tumblr feminists provide me with endless entertainment.

Tumblr introduced me to radscum, and they define the phrase ‘a barrel of laughs’ in a depressing ‘oh god, they’re so ridiculous, and they absolutely believe their crap’ way.

Whoa - hold your horses sister - that sort of attitude is so pro-rape… you wouldn’t believe it, but you’ve actually caused sixteen rapes with it.

Think before you speak. Lose lips sink ships [worst analogy ever].

cadburycrazed:

I need feminism because Tumblr feminists provide me with endless entertainment.