The Legend of Santa Claus

The Legend of Santa Claus
If you've managed to stay away from the festering cesspool that is the 24 hour news network for the last couple of weeks then you were certainly lucky enough to avoid hearing about the War on Christmas. Unless, that is, you had the pleasure of engaging your drunk neo-conservative uncle in a friendly, no holds barred discussion of politics, religion, race and gender roles all piled into one migraine inducing discussion. Well, the War on Christmas is real and it's a threat that warrants the establishment of a new branch of military called the Elfish Army, why not. It's not so much a war on Christmas as it is a Christmas war on secularism and the hope that one day you can go through the month of November without having to hear three hundred different versions of Jingle Bells on the radio, in the supermarket, at the gas station, and later on in your head while you sleep. See, Christmas has gotten huge. Much more huger than it has been before the War on Christmas "Operation As-Much-Christmas-As-Possible". Many now put up their decorations sometime between Halloween and Thanksgiving, so that people will be able to show off to their relatives all of the holiday crap they have accumulated throughout their lives like the last 3 decades threw up all over their house in rapid succession. John Stewart explained it best when he said "Christmas is so massive now that it has started consuming other holidays".


I exasperatingly digress, though, because this is not about the War on Christmas. No, this is about something that requires much more attention. The War on Christmas is becoming stale. Partly because the idiots who keep talking about it just keep saying the same thing over and over again, and mostly because everyone just doesn't care anymore. However, these dumbass "reporters" have to fill up their pathetic timeslot between 3 and 4 in the afternoon and lure away Maury viewers to their desperate attempt of a network somehow. So they came up with the Genius discussion of whether or not Santa Claus is white. "What a great idea!" some moron in marketing said, "I realize that race is still a touchy subject, and secularists are going so far as to put up flags of ironic, parodical* religions in state buildings alongside Christian monuments to point out they won't let Christianity claim the nation as their own, and viewers are getting sick of us talking about stupid shit all day long, so let's start pointing out the unsolicited argument that Santa Claus is White, and the appointed Admiral on the SS Eggnog. I probably need to point out that I am not anti-Christianity, nor am I anti-religion; I lose patience with people who feel the need to include their religion in their totally unnecessary crusade of trying to prove why their people are more awesome at life.
*The internet said this was a word

Anyway……. I started looking up the history of Santa Claus, and it was a pretty interesting read. Assuming that the references provided by the sources I read were credible, and that corroborating two sources with each other means historical accuracy, this is what I have discovered.


Santa Claus, was of course not always named Santa Claus. He has had many names throughout the years, but it all started with a little dude named Nicholas. Nick lived in Turkey in the 3rd and 4th centuries, and his parents were pretty rich, then they both died and left him all their money. If I had to guess, they probably died of falling off the edge of the Earth, because I think that was a thing back then. Now, most kids who inherit a bunch of money would start buying a bunch of crap they don't need, like a pallet of gummy bears and diamond studded iPhones, or whatever kids waste their money on nowadays. Nicholas, however, was pretty awesome. He was raised by his uncle, and later became a priest. Eventually he became the Bishop of Myra, where he lived in Turkey. He was known to hand out treats to children, but not in the creepy, windowless van kind of way. Some say he would walk around town at night and leave coins in the shoes of poorer children, who left their shoes out at night for this very purpose. Legend has it he once, under the secretive of night, tossed in bags of gold to a house to provide the father dowries for his three daughters, so they wouldn't have to become prostitutes or slaves. He did it secretively because he was humble as shit, and didn't want the recognition. It is said that he did this on three consecutive nights. The first night he walked by the window and tossed in one bag of coins for the eldest daughter. The next night he did the same thing, for the middle daughter. At this time the father was on to him, and waited by the window so he could confront this mysterious gift giver and offer his thanks. Mister Nicky was too smart for this, though, and the last purse of gold he dropped down the Chimney. This may be how tradition eventually originated of Santa Claus squeezing down chimneys to hand out gifts without anyone seeing him. It also might mean if you leave your fireplace lit, and Santa can't get down your chimney, your daughter will probably grow up to be a prostitute.
 
Word gets around that Bishop Nicholas is a pretty chill guy, and he is given a celebration in which everyone feasts a wonderful feast on December 6th. This would probably still be a thing, but Pope Julian, who was around the same time as Nick, had other plans. The popetacular J-dogg decided that Pagans were having a little too smug a time celebrating the Winter Solstice, and was like "Hey I know Jesus was born way back in like, April and shit, but we're going to have a celebration for him in December anyway." So Christmas was created, conveniently during the same time as the solstice, in an effort to Proselytize the celebrations. People were probably like "I can't afford TWO feasts in December", so they just went ahead and celebrated Christmas and St. Nicholas day on December 25th, much like parents celebrate their kids birthday as part of the closest major holiday, or lump a couple relative's birthdays together, even though they are like 3 weeks apart.


Another fine point about celebrating the winter solstice, and the papal takeover of said holiday, is that one of the pagan traditions during that time was called the Yule, which has translated to current holiday standards, and I'm pretty sure Christianity has successfully established this as their own. You see, Yule was a period that spanned two months, the celebration of which occurred over 12 consecutive days. This is most likely where that awful repetitive song '12 Days of Christmas' came from (see! It should be '12 days of Yulening around getting drunk on pagan spirits') and most definitely why we start Christmas in freaking October now.


Eventually, the traditions of Saint Nicholas spread and people were like "yeah I want some free shit from this guy" so they started placing treats around the house during Christmas to lure him with a little reward. This has most likely transformed into the current tradition of leaving out milk and cookies on Christmas Eve. Currently, something around half the world (probably not but still a huge number of people) do this, and I'm pretty sure Santa is extremely diabetic now. Like, they had to outfit a few cows on the back of his sleigh that continuously pump milk into his body so he doesn't suffer from withdrawal.


As with most things popular, the traditions waned across Europe with the exception of Holland. People in Holland were like "everyone else doesn't want St. Nick to come visit them anymore which means more wooden shoes for us!" and continued on the celebrations. Dutch settlers introduced St. Nick to America for the first time, and for some weird reason the Yankees loved the Dutch after the Revolutionary War, so they exercised their Manifest Destiny and went ahead and took over this celebration, too. When the Dutch came over to New York (at that time called New Amsterdam) they called Saint Nick Sancte Claus, which was later pronounced universally as Santa Claus. I don't know why; it's not even close to Nicholas. Oh wait, I guess it is: Saint = Sancte = Santa and Nicholas = Claus somehow. ANYWAY, none other than Washington Irving, the Author of 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" first illustrated Santa Claus in a comic in 1809, the first time the legend of St. Nick was printed in the union. Some dude named Pintard, who worked for the New York Historical Society, threw a party in honor of St. Nicholas in 1810. He commissioned Alexander Anderson to paint what he thought St. Nick would look like, and he painted him as what saint's usually look like, but depositing gifts into the kid's laundry. Seriously, the stockings you put over your mantel are there because Anderson thought Santa would stuff your gifts into freshly washed stockings that were hanging out near the fire to dry off.


In 1822, a poet by the name of (who really cares at this point) Clement Moore wrote a little diddy for his family's amusement about how St. Nick was actually an elf, and delivered gifts to all the good little kids atop his sleigh powered by eight miniature reindeer (Rudolph was introduced many, many years later, probably to teach kids that if you have a weird physical blemish, everyone will eventually admire and rely on you because you probably have magical powers). Sometime after this, cartoonist Thomas Nash jumped on the Santa bandwagon and threw out some drawings that portrayed Santa living in the North Pole with a workshop. Way to relocate your operation outside the country and take away American jobs, you communist! Anyway, this is why he lives in the North Pole.

A little while later, in 1921, Norman Rockwell (yeah, THAT Norman Rockwell) illustrated Santa in a fashion where he was now a really old white dude with a red coat and feathery trim, a giant duck-dynasty beard and playing a drum made for some stupid kid named Tommy (seriously, it was another poem or something called 'Drum for Tommy – probably some pro-war propaganda). Prior to this, Santa was portrayed as a skinny-ish saint in a manner of all different colored coats. I guess red was the one that really pulled it all together though, so everyone stuck with it. This illustration was later used by the Coca Cola Company to sell their cocaine induced syrup drink. This is how elves are able to produce toys for millions of children, and how Santa is able to deliver them all in one freakin night – they are all juiced on cokesugar.


Ok, so this all comes back to the argument of what race Santa is. The answer is: IT DOESN'T FREAKING MATTER. Santa is just the result of a tradition carried through different cultures to eventually meet their partying and greedy needs at the time. He was originally Turkish, or Greek, so he probably looked a lot like Yanni. In fact, Yanni is probably a distant relative. Christmas was created to turn people away from Paganism. I'm not saying people are bad for celebrating it, it was just kind of a dick move by the pope and we should know where it came from. Christmas was not orchestrated by big business to create a cash crop of consumerism; rather consumerism was likely fueled by the tradition. That being said, the tradition was centered on the NEEDY. Saint Nicholas was a champion of the poor. He spread his wealth to those who had little. Said a different way, he took the wealth he inherited and spread it evenly to the poor. Today, this is considered socialism, communism, Marxism, and in some cases liberalism. It's not, though. This is called compassion and empathy. Not only was Saint Nicholas compassionate and empathetic, but he was humbled and didn't act for recognition. Saint Nick was altruistic, which I believe is the truest form of compassion, and is one of the most admirable qualities of a creature I can think of. As traditions endure, so should their spirit. We should all remember the purpose behind the holiday we now celebrate.

Sad Life of the Fig Wasp

I was reading something about weird facts that you think can’t be true but are, like how lobsters don’t age and how Neil Armstrong had to go through customs in Hawaii after returning from the moon.  They’re all here.

The one I thought was the coolest, though, is how all figs have dead wasps in them.

Continuing through to the HowStuffWorks site gives all the details, as summarized below:

-Over the years, Fig Wasps and Figs evolved into a mutual relationship (re: mutualism), in which one organism needs the other to survive (or, rather, reproduce).

-The female Fig Wasp needs to incubate her eggs, and she does so inside of a fig.  She crams herself through the ostiole, which is a tiny passage at the top of the fig.  In the process, she loses her antenna and wings, and is trapped in the fruit.

-The female fig Wasp pollinates the fig, while laying her eggs inside the fruit.  The newly hatched male wasps spend their entire, pathetic lives digging tunnels through the fig, and apparently they are blind and wingless, so they are pretty much useless after that point.  The female wasps, who are not blind or wingless, use these tunnels to escape to sweet, sweet freedom, only to meet the same fate as her mother in another fig.

-BUT WAIT.  There are two types of figs: caprifigs and edible figs.  Only caprifigs have the male flower parts needed for the wasp to lay her eggs.  If the female wasp shoves herself into an edible fig, she just starves to death and is unable to lay her eggs.  However, the edible fig plant still enjoys the pollination.  “Thanks for the seed of life, wasp, now die with dignity and take your precious children with you!” says the fig plant.

-HOLD ON THOUGH.  We still have a DEAD WASP TRAPPED INSIDE A FIG.  I’ve definitely eaten a fig before, and never saw a wasp in it.  The edible fig releases an enzyme called ficin that pretty much dissolves the dead, rotting wasp carcass into a protein, adding that nutrient to the fruit.  That’s right, THE FIG IS ESSENTIALLY A CARNIVORE.

I suppose in the end, the fig’s fate is to dissolve in our stomach, so they don’t get off too easy.  But seriously, what a crappy life for the wasp.

Anyway, freaking science, man.

The BS Opposition to the BSA GB Lift

News had been circulating that the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) would consider lifting the ban on gay scouts and volunteers amidst strong encouragement from the LGBT community and activists.  Of course, once news broke about the consideration, thousands showed up in opposition.  The BSA decided to postpone their decision until May.  It’s not clear why they are waiting until May, nor are their considerations known.  It would seem that they are weighing on whom to alienate – gay rights activists or anti-gay supporters.  Since the BSA doesn’t appear to have a legal obligation not to discriminate against the LGBT community, it is evident that consideration to drop the ban on gays was financially motivated.  Unfortunately, the decision to postpone the decision until May is also financially motivated.

As stated before, the BSA is now concerned with who they want to alienate.  More specifically, they must decide what type of funding they receive.  Since activism for gay rights and equality has increased and been recognized on a global level, the financial impact to large corporations and political impact on politicians have come into the spotlight.  Intel had halted donations to the BSA organization because of their anti-gay policy.  I believe it was the threat of losing funding that led them to consider changing their policy, not necessarily a moral obligation.  Since the announcement, opposition to gay rights has threatened to pull their funding as well.  Nearly 70% of scouts are supported financially by religious organizations.  The decision not to lift the ban will be due to the fear of losing funding from religious groups, as a Quinnipiac poll shows 55% of Americans favoring elimination of the ban, to only 33 percent opposed – clearly a majority interest is not at stake.

It is of course a sad state of affairs, as it has been, that such extremes are taken to protect children from what is perceived to be the evils of homosexuals.  Parents are determined to pull their kids out of a program that teaches them integrity and honor simply because there may or may not be a gay scout leader, or member in their troop.  It’s a pathetic notion that an organization that donates to the scouts would pull their funding just because the BSA says they would allow a gay child the same opportunity as his straight peers.  The intolerance and alienation of the gay community from gay rights opponents will create a self-fulfilling prophecy of evil from homosexuals.  If a homosexual commits a sin it won’t be because they are gay, but because much of society refuses to accept them as an equal human being.

Fear of acceptance and ignorance to understanding is preventing positive development of our youth.  They call one who opposes gay equality a homophobe, because by definition that is what they are.  A phobia is an irrational fear.  Homophobia is an irrational fear towards homosexuality.  The fear is irrational because there is no logical reason to be afraid of someone, simply because they are gay.  Anyone who says they are not afraid of homosexuals, but oppose gay rights is extremely naïve.  They are afraid of the impact to society that would be caused by homosexuals, because that is what they are taught to believe despite any evidence opposing their beliefs, or the lack of evidence to corroborate their fear.  Most homophobia is the result of religious beliefs, which makes it harder to convince someone of the irrationality of their fear because they are led by faith; faith is strengthened, not diminished, by the belief in something despite the lack of evidence in support or the abundance of evidence in opposition.

The case with BSA accepting gay members is just one quest in eliminating the irrational fear of homosexuals.  It could be any organization, the fact this case happens to revolve around the Scouts is irrelevant.  In order to convince opponents of the BSA’s decision to allow gays into the organization, one must understand what the opposition is about.  This is usually difficult when arguing against homophobic individuals and groups, because their opposition is irrational, and they have no clear reason for their opposition.  Reasoning for the opponents usually jumps around quite vaguely: “It’s just wrong” or “it’s immoral” are common arguments, although why it’s wrong or immoral is often excluded.  “Because the bible condemns it” or “Jesus said it’s bad” or “it’s bad for society” are insubstantial claims.  The bible also condones slavery and rape in some situations, but the church no longer enforces these passages because they no longer conform to developing societal morals.  Claiming homosexuals are bad for society is an extremely unaccredited and hypocritical claim as well.  There is no credible evidence to suggest homosexuals have a negative effect on families, communities or child rearing, and any reports stating otherwise are riddled with inaccuracies and presumptuous conclusions at best.  What is the opposition really about? 

Many believe that subjecting their sons to homosexuals in the scouts will increase the possibility of either their sons becoming homosexual, being influenced by the evil nature of homosexuality, or worse being molested.  The first two are easy to discredit.  Being around homosexuals does not switch someone from being straight to being gay.  Chances are every straight person has come in contact with a gay person and did not walk away a homosexual.  Deviant homosexual behavior is yet to be defined.  Exactly what to gay people do that is wrong?  If a gay person commits a crime it isn’t because they are gay.  If this were the case, everyone would be gay.  There is nothing specifically deviant about homosexuals that also cannot be committed by heterosexuals, and being homosexual does not intensify the occurrence of said behavior.  I believe it is largely the third claim: allowing homosexuals to openly volunteer or join the scouts will lead to pedophiles molesting your children.

How ridiculous is that?  Say it out loud, it sounds even worse.  Most will not admit it, but this is the reason to oppose allowing gays in the scouts.  Rick Perry believes the scouts should keep their anti-gay policy because “societies failure to adhere to the organization’s core values was a cause for high rates of teen pregnancy and wayward youth who grow up to be men joining their fathers in prison.”  He makes this claim despite the fact that teen pregnancy is highest in abstinence only educated states.  Where Perry doesn’t specifically say including gays will invite molestation in the scouts, his core values against homosexuality and belief of the evils it causes suggests he doesn’t necessarily oppose that assumption. 

Some are more outspoken about the assumption homosexuality equal pedophilia.  The host of 700 Club Pat Robertson suggests if the ban is lifted on gays joining the organization then there will be “predators as Boy Scouts, pedophiles who will come in as Scoutmasters.”  Tony Perkins, the “leader” of the Family “Research” Council says something similar.  “Leader” and “Research” are in quotations because they aren’t credibly used in that sentence.  Family is a stretch, too.  Really it’s just a council of people who hate homosexuals, and believe the sanctity of marriage and family values will disappear because homosexuals have rights. 

Opponents of lifting the gay ban are determined to keep the scouts pure and molestation free, just like it has been in the past, except for, you know, it’s never been like that in the past.  Just three years ago in a case of sexual abuse the Oregon Supreme Court ordered the BSA to release what is referred to as the “perversion files”.  The case revolved around a scoutmaster that was accused of molesting 17 boys, and later found guilty.  The 1,247 files are reports on individuals volunteering or employed by the BSA that have cumulated over 2,000 instances of abuse between 1965 and 1985.  The BSA started keeping these files and using them internally in an effort to track scoutmasters that have been found to abuse scouts. 

“More than 3 million reports of child abuse are received each year, including half a million reports of child sexual abuse. As a major youth-serving organization, the Boy Scouts of America has a unique opportunity to help protect the youth of our nation.”

This is an excerpt from a BSA handbook given to parents to warn their children about child molesters.  The handbook was distributed in 2005, five years before the BSA was forced to release their records of child abuse allegations.  The BSA also did not report these offenders to the police when the abuse occurred.  The BSA apparently was not concerned about informing the community of possible predators, rather they were concerned about mitigating exposure of the organization to litigation.  829 of the files involved molestation of 1,622 boys.  In some cases, either more than one boy was molested per occurrence or multiple occurrences were reported.  To further highlight the disturbing nature of this situation, these are only reported situations; considering only 10% of molestation cases are actually reported, it would be easy to accept that far more accounts of sexual abuse occurred.  Maybe these scoutmasters were homosexuals?  After all, you don’t know someone is gay unless they tell you, or if they are wearing a fabulous scarf.

Is this a preemptive measure, then?  Will allowing homosexuals in the BSA increase the occurrence of pedophilia?  The answer is an emphatic NO.  The truth is not just philosophical, it’s scientific.  Yet, tt’s not enough to tell proponents of the BSA gay ban won’t result in homosexuals molesting boys, so here’s the proof.

First off, the math just doesn’t add up.  Child molesters are overwhelmingly male, but the victims are overwhelmingly female.  Without facts and figures, one may deduce that most molestation encounters of children are heterosexual.  However, the encounters in the BSA were homosexual, or male on male.  In reality it’s not a homosexual or heterosexual encounter at all.  The psychology department of UC Davis performed a study on molestation compared to sexual orientation.  One may describe a male as homosexual once he has molested a male scout; however, a male child molester choosing a male as a victim does not indicate the offender’s sexual orientation.  Many child molesters lack an adult sexual orientation completely.

“…many child molesters cannot be meaningfully described as homosexuals, heterosexuals, or bisexuals (in the usual sense of those terms) because they are not really capable of a relationship with an adult man or woman. Instead of gender, their sexual attractions are based primarily on age. These individuals – who are often characterized as fixated – are attracted to children, not to men or women.”

In a study of 175 adult males who were convicted in Massachusetts of sexual assault against a child:

-47% were “fixated”, meaning they had never developed a sexual orientation

-40% were regressed heterosexuals

-13% were regressed bisexuals

None of the men identified as homosexuals, nor were they primarily attracted to other adult males

In another study, the medical charts of 352 sexually abused children were reviewed.  Less than 1% of the occurrences involved a gay or lesbian offender.  The study did not mention if the offender-victim relationship was same-sex.

A study in Canada enlisted the help of homosexual and heterosexual males to try and link the relationship of pedophilia and sexual orientation.  All men were determined to have physically mature adult sexual partners.  The men were then shown photos of boys and girls, clothed and unclothed in various environments.  The applicant’s sexual arousal was measured for each photo.  The conclusion was that homosexual men were no more attracted to male children than heterosexual men were attracted to female children.  This is the exact, scientific antithesis to the argument that homosexuals are more prone to pedophilia, and putting them in an all male child environment will result in higher cases of molestation.

Male scout leaders molested male scouts because they were pedophiles, not homosexuals.  There were so many occurrences in the scouts during 1965 and 1985 not because there were homosexuals infiltrating the organization, but because it was an environment susceptible to pedophilia.  There was a large selection of unsupervised children, and what’s worse is there wasn’t a deterrent to improper action.  If you got caught molesting a boy, at most you got kicked out of the scouts, but imprisonment wasn’t a worry. 

In the late 1980’s, the BSA developed the Youth Protection program.  The program was the result of pressure from law enforcement due to the rise of child abuse.  Unbeknownst to law enforcement at the time, the BSA had been keeping secret tabs on all of the child abuse allegations within the organization.  The program included policy changes that would prevent abuse from occurring such as requiring at least two adults on all trips and outings, no one-on-one or private contact between a scoutmaster and a member, requiring all scout masters to sleep in separate quarters from scouts and prohibiting supervision of scouts during compromising situations (showers, dressing, restroom breaks, etc.).  The BSA also required all volunteers and paid scoutmasters to pass background checks.  Since the program took effect, the BSA recorded one instance of abuse – AND there have been gay scoutmasters who had publicly come out during this time, and then promptly ejected from the scouts despite no bad behavior.

A homosexual is no more likely to be attracted to a young boy than a heterosexual.  The attraction is not because of sexual orientation, rather to the age of the child.  Homosexuals and heterosexuals are equally susceptible to pedophilia.  Actually, given the fact that most pedophiles are individuals without a sexual identity, I would expect homosexuals to be less susceptible to pedophilia.  Scouts may actually be safer with gay scout leaders.

The hypocrisy is overwhelming, but it really isn’t shocking.  The ultra-conservative religious indoctrination of homosexual beliefs is ever present.  Getting followers to fear gay people is the core strategy of their war against homosexuality.  One must decide if they will continue to accept an irrational fear in an effort to protect obscure and discredited morality, or if they will be flexible with a changing society as humans develop into a more reasonable being.

Biting the Hand that Fed You

When you invest in a company, you give them money and hope that they do well enough to give you more money back.  This is called a return on investment.  There is a chance that you will get less money back than you hoped or no money back at all.  This is called risk.  Every investment includes these two variables, return on investment and risk, and they are known and agreed upon by the investor and person or company receiving the investment.

One company, rather a former leader of a company is in denial of this basic fact of investment.  Maurice “Hank” Greenberg is the former CEO of American International Group, a multinational insurance conglomerate.  Hank is the former CEO of AIG because of a fraud investigation resulting in a fine of $1.6 billion.  Hank was ousted as CEO, but is still a major shareholder of the company.  Hank is an unappreciative, spoiled brat.

 In one facet of the organization, AIG sells protection for Credit Default Swaps (CDS), in which Company A buys debt from another Company B and then buys insurance from AIG in case they default on their loan payments to that debt.  So let’s say company B, probably a savings and loans conglomerate, wants to eliminate some of their risk and they sell off some of their liabilities – unpaid loans and lines of credit to Company A.  Company thinks they will get a return on their payment to Company B by collecting on these loans and lines of credit, but aren’t quite positive it will pay off, so they buy insurance from AIG.  Company A and AIG enter an agreement that Company A will submit payments to AIG for the insurance, and if the owners of the loans and lines of credit they have acquired start to default on their payments to Company A, AIG will purchase the remainder of the value of those loans and lines of credit, and Company A will have no further liability.  AIG, however will now own this debt, and is responsible for paying it off.  The idea is that there is little risk for the CDS to go into default, so most of the time AIG makes a profit on the insurance because it’s never needed to purchase the liabilities. 

To ensure that AIG will be capable of buying the debt in the event of default, they must maintain a high credit rating, or they are forced to provide collateral in the form of assets or cash.  AIG posted significant losses in the second quarter of 2008 which led to their stock price falling over 95% and a downgrade of their credit rating.  Since they no longer held a high credit rating, they were being forced to provide collateral to all of their partners with CDS agreements, but their assets had significantly declined in value and had a shortage of cash due to previously reported losses.  Due to the concurrent recession and AIG’s previous successes that led them to acquire greater liabilities, the company was in alignment with other failing financial corporations in that they had become too big to fail.  AIG couldn’t afford their new obligation to provide collateral due to their credit rating decline, and the amount of liabilities flowing back into the market would have been devastating for the economy.  AIG thus became a candidate for a federal bailout.

AIG received $85 billion initially to cover collateral to their CDS partners so they could continue to operate.  Towards the end of the bailout, AIG received a total of $182 billion in taxpayer money to avoid bankruptcy.  When bankruptcy happens, all shareholders lose the value of their stock and the company restructures itself financially.  The bailout saved the investments of thousands of AIG’s shareholders.  AIG was part of the group of financial corporation’s receiving federal funds, who often traveled to Washington on private jets to appeal to congress on how badly they needed money, then proceeded to immediately hand out executive bonuses and salaries to the people that got them into their mess in the first place.  But I digress; AIG took taxpayer money so they wouldn’t have to go through bankruptcy.

Now, Hank Greenberg is filing a lawsuit against the same people who bailed his former company out – the American taxpayer.  Hank is upset that the bailout did not provide acceptable returns to the AIG shareholders, and I’ve mentioned before that Hank happens to be a major shareholder.  You see, the federal government required AIG to pay back the $182 billion with 14% interest, and despite also being in charge of a bank that has no doubt charged higher than a 14% interest rate on high risk loans or defaulted loans, Hank feels this was too high.  I’m sure had Hank been in charge of negotiating the terms of the bailout, he wouldn’t accept a 14% interest rate and instead gone through bankruptcy, effectively eliminating any shareholder value of the company.  Since he wasn’t he feels cheated, and he feels all the other shareholders were cheated because they were not provided with adequate returns on their investment due to AIG owing too much money to the feds.  This is, of course, ridiculous.  So what you hear in the news today is AIG potentially allying with Hank in the lawsuit, which means AIG would be suing taxpayers $25 billion for charging too much interest on the bailout provided to them, even though they agreed to the charges.  Perhaps if they didn’t shell out millions of bailout funds to failures of executives to “retain their talents” the return to AIG shareholders may have been larger.  Really what this comes down to is that Hank is an unappreciative spoiled brat, among other shareholders of AIG that took a hit on their investment, and are ready to sue the very people that bailed them out of bankruptcy so they can make some of their money back.  He and other shareholders are in denial of the risk they took when investing.  When you are this greedy, no amount of treachery or disrespect is out of bounds.  Hank believes that AIG doesn’t owe loyalty to the government; they owe loyalty to its shareholders, yet it wasn’t the shareholders that bailed the company out.

If AIG agrees to be a part of this lawsuit they are essentially throwing a big “F You” to taxpayers.  If this happens, the next time you choose to take out a loan, put money into savings or purchase insurance from AIG, you are giving your money to a company that needed you to bail them out, and then sued you when they didn’t get enough money to save their business, pay their executives huge sums of money for doing a crappy job and pay off their shareholders.

Why I Hate Walmart

I recently shared a short story in an attempt to lightly illustrate modern consumerism.  It was a bit dramatic, but it flushed out of the mind and rolled off my fingertips fluidly, so it must be how I really feel.  Now, it shouldn’t be a surprise that I find the corporation Walmart to be a soulless existence of a company with a goal so one-sided it actually falls of the track and plows through society with its momentous cars of market share.  For the sake of simplicity, and for that fact that I could care less, I am intentionally misspelling Wal-Mart.  Seriously though, the company is enormous.  Every hour, of every day, consumers spend $36 million of their hard earned dollars at Walmart.  Of every dollar spent in the U.S., 8 cents of it is at a Walmart.  That’s 8 percent of all national expenditure – of any sale made for anything in the U.S.  Walmart earns nearly $34 thousand of profit per minute.  That’s more than an average hourly employee earns there in a year.  They have over 4,000 stores, worldwide, and approximately 90% of all Americans live within 15 minutes of a Walmart.

Annually, Walmart earns $405 billion, near 2 or 3 in the U.S.  It’s not just metaphorically massive- one Walmart Supercenter is about 197,000 square feet.  That’s about 100 times an average home.  Every week, 100,000,000 people shop at Walmart.  This is just under 30% of the total U.S. population.  Walmart has an economy greater than some developed nations.  It would be ranked 19^th in the world if it were a country.

So what if they are a successful company?  They provide affordable, abundant goods and services to everyone in the world.  I don’t blame people for shopping at Walmart.  The economy is tough, money is tight and people need to save as much as they can.  People need to know just how dangerous this corporation has been to the country.  Walmart has been the frontrunner of corporations that have taken advantage of free trade and lax corporate tax policies to create an economy that is heavily unbalanced.  They are the epitome of unpatriotic business practice, and lack any sense of a moral compass.

First and foremost, Walmart is a for-profit business that thrives in the realm of capitalism.  They will market anything that can be sold to a consumer, whether it’s a necessary commodity, luxury good, or complete trash that just looked shiny out of the corner of one’s eye.  They have combined all the sources of necessary consumerism into one giant store, and then dumped whatever else they could onto every remaining empty shelf.  You can go to Walmart and buy groceries, clothes, electronics, furniture, toys, auto maintenance, eyeglasses, prescription drugs, pet food, pet accessories, even pets.  Everything that was once in several different stores in several different locations is now under one roof.  Not that they weren’t before; Walmart expanded efficient shopping to the extremely unnecessary.  It has contributed to a society of overconsumption.  Greater accessibility of a good or service paves the way for excessive consumption.  Think about it: if you go to a restaurant, and they give you a large portion, you will most likely eat as much as possible, even though you are already full half way through the meal.  It is still unclear whether it was our own desire for efficiency and cheapness that necessitated a monstrosity like Walmart, or if it was Walmart that introduced us to this lifestyle.  Did we seek out the drug, or was it peddled to us?  I would hypothesize that the founder of Walmart, Mr. Walton, saw an opportunity for massive profit and has ignored the dangers to society all along the way.

Massive profits Mr. Walton got, indeed.  The Walton family beneficiaries, all six of them, control a collective fortune of $102 billion dollars.  Put into perspective, this is greater than the combined wealth of the bottom 30% of Americans.  Walmart is so profitable it can afford to pay their CEO nearly $20 million in compensation, compared to the average CEO pay of $11.4 million.  On average a store manager, one of over 4,000, makes about $150,000 a year.  The average store manager in the retail sector makes $49,000 a year, and for supermarkets it’s $68,000.  Maybe they deserve it, though.  The company is one of the most profitable, why shouldn’t the CEO make more than average?  Ignoring the fact that the average CEO pay is astronomical and has skyrocketed above the curve in the last 40 years, it’s customary to pay higher for greater performance, right?  Perhaps in the business world of the past 40 years, but that doesn’t make it right.

Consider Sam’s Club, Walmart’s sister company and their competitor Costco.  The Walton’s pay their employees at Sam’s Club slightly more than they do at Walmart.  They can afford to, because on top of goods and services sales, they also charge a membership fee.   Additionally, the starting wage for Sam’s Club employees isn’t far off from Costco’s employees, with Costco paying $11 per hour compared to Sam’s Clubs $10.  However, in five years at Sam’s Club, you end up with a wage of $12.50.  At Costco, you can expect to earn about $19.50 per hour, plus bonuses twice a year totaling $2,000.  Costco provides great benefits on top of this, and experiences very low turnover rates.  They create this environment of well paid employees by rejecting Wall Street investor’s demands to minimize worker pay and expenses to maximize profits.  As a result of providing for his employees, the CEO of Costco, James Sinegal, earned a compensation totaling $550,000 in 2011 before retiring.  This is 95% below the average CEO pay.  Would you say that’s low?  He seems to have a perfectly comfortable life given his pay, and at the end of the day he could go home knowing he is both providing adequate pay for his employees and a contributing to a healthy economy.  I should also mention that even though Costco does not partake in the same practice of Walmart or Sam’s Club, of minimizing worker compensation to the point of anorexia in an effort to maximize profits, they are still a profitable company.  Costco is ranked 29^th in the U.S. for revenue, and posted a profit of $12 billion in their last fiscal year, just $3 billion short of Walmart.

Now, of course Costco and Walmart are not apples to apples comparison.  After all, Walmart has far more employees, greater liability and rely on much larger sales than Costco.  It still illustrates the misconception that the business practices of Walmart are not only acceptable, but necessary to be profitable.  They are not; it’s just how business has been run in order to maximize profits.  After all, there is one goal in business.  It’s not to care for employees, or strengthen an economy.  The goal in business, in a free market and capitalistic society, is to make money.

One may be surprised to see that hourly wages at Walmart are actually competitive.  Competitors like K-Mart and Target pay wages very close to that of Walmart.  I would hypothesize that Walmart’s competitors treat their employees better, and provide better benefits.  This is slightly corroborated by the fact that Target provides benefits for an employee working 20 hours a week, to Walmart’s 24 hours.  Target may even limit their employee’s hours, just like Walmart, in an effort to avoid paying benefits – I don’t know for certain.  What I do know, is even though Walmart is a perfectly profitable company, they not only continue to minimize but further reduce employee compensation.  They have set goals to increase their part time workforce by 100% in an effort to reduce operating cost, as this would enable them to withhold benefits.  This may happen at other companies, but it happens at Walmart the most.  Hourly employees are compensated on average 14.5% less than comparable employees elsewhere, yet perform the same functions, and have the same skills.  Yet, this is known to many people, and we trick ourselves into accepting this as the baseline for business practice.  After all, Walmart does provide millions of jobs.  If Walmart didn’t exist, these jobs wouldn’t exist.  If someone can’t survive on a part time Walmart income, they could get another job.  These are the reassurances we tell ourselves, and they couldn’t be further from the truth.

Walmart did not create the demand for what they sell.  They may have influenced some demand by marketing crap no one needs, but people would still need food and clothing, among several other commodities.  If Walmart didn’t exist, the jobs they provide would still exist.  The economy would demand these jobs exist, and they would at other supermarkets, retail and grocery stores.  In fact, Walmart has such a large share of the market that one simply can’t find another job in a similar capacity because they aren’t available.  It’s hard pressed to find another part time job to supplement your income in any capacity, let alone in a market that is dominated and dictated by your sole employer.  If by chance you do find another part time job, Walmart imposes other restrictions that would make it difficult on your schedule.  Walmart requires some, if not all part time employees to be on call 24/7 in an event they are needed to cover gaps in their resource schedules.  So if someone calls in sick, they expect you to be available if they request you to work.  So, finding another part time job, or quitting your job at Walmart to get another job at a competitor is not as simple as it sounds.

One may further justify themselves in defending Walmart’s business practices by thinking that even though the jobs would be available elsewhere if Walmart did not exist, it’s still Walmart who are providing these jobs – it doesn’t matter what company exists, as long as they provide jobs.  The fact is Walmart is damaging the economy.  For every two jobs created by Walmart, three local jobs are lost.  Walmart imports 80% of their merchandise from China.  One study found this resulted in over 196,000 jobs lost in U.S. manufacturing between 2001 and 2006.  Simply put, had Walmart not existed, far more jobs may be available than it has created.

When you are hired at Walmart, you are given an employee handbook.  In this handbook are instructions on how to obtain government assistance for healthcare, food and other expenses.  They encourage employees to get assistance from the government, even though they are employed, because Walmart does not want to provide proper wages, hours and benefits.  They want to maximize their profits, and they take advantage of government subsidies to do so.  If you think you are paying low prices at Walmart, you should consider what you are paying to the government to subsidize Walmart employees.  80% of all Walmart employees are on government assistance.  This equates to $2.66 billion a year.  Additionally, many Walmart employees don’t qualify for health benefits under the company’s plan, and when they do they often can’t afford the premiums, or the coverage isn’t acceptable – this is why Walmart advertises how to get Medicaid in their employee handbook.  $1.02 billion a year in Medicaid is spent on Walmart employees.  All this money comes from taxes - your taxes.  On top of this, Walmart enjoys over $1 billion in tax breaks and other subsidies from the government.  In all, Walmart costs taxpayers over $4 billion a year to exist.  As they expand, this cost will increase, and more jobs will disappear.  Perhaps if Costco followed suit with Walmart, they could get the government to pay for their employee’s benefits as well.  We would accept this, too, because we fully support a company to be successful.

So many of us complain about having to pay taxes, and having to support those in poverty, yet many of the same people support businesses like Walmart that have pioneered extreme redistribution of wealth and dependency on government.  Some forty years ago something out of the ordinary happened: productivity continued its upward climb without any change to slope, yet the rate of worker compensation increase fell flat.  Prior to that, as productivity, or output increased steadily, so did worker compensation, meaning we were both hiring more people to work as we started producing more and paying them more as the economy grew.  We created a system that was supposed to reward companies like Walmart to hire people and give them adequate compensation and benefits.  Instead, these companies took the extra cash so willingly given to them and lined the pockets of their executives and investors.  It’s no coincidence that executive pay sharply increased around the same time we started hiring fewer people and paying them less.  Forty years ago, CEO’s were making 25 times that of the average worker.  They are now making over 200 times that of an average worker.  Over the last 40 years, worker compensation rose by 5.5%, while CEO compensation rose by 725%.  The problem isn’t people being successful.  In retrospect, a CEO could do a bad job and still get a raise.  The problem is as more income is funneled into the hands of the few, it leaves very little opportunity for the average person to be successful. 

“I don't believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good. So while we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else.”
--Abraham Lincoln, March 6, 1860 Speech at New Haven, Connecticut

Is this about money?  Do we really need to compensate a company’s leader as much as we currently do?  What about the company as a business?  A company in a free market, capitalist society exists to make money.  How much money is enough?  A billion dollars is an astronomical amount of money.  The Walton family has over $100 billion to their name.  Do you know what you would do with $100 billion? 

I fear it is not about money, but about the power money enables one to have.  In a sense, the wealthiest of this country are building barriers to becoming rich, so as to eliminate competition and amass as much power as possible, and they are letting the government help them.  Imagine being able to dictate an economy to move one way or another; to be able to take a massive workforce and control what they make and how they live.  Imagine being able to tell consumers where to shop and what to buy.  You soon control the lives of millions of people.  This is what a god must feel like. 

Sources 

http://www.statisticbrain.com/wal-mart-company-statistics

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/10/1141724/-Walmart-fuels-inequality-epidemic-taking-advantage-of-our-safety-net

http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Walmart-Stores-Store-Manager-Salaries-E715_D_KO15,28

http://walmart1percent.org/top-reasons-the-walton-family-and-walmart-are-not-job-creators

The Shopping of Days Long Past

There was a time I was never fortunate to be a part of; one could walk down the street and pop in the bakery for fresh bread, and then head a couple of stores down to the butcher for their weekly protein, maybe to a small lot where local farmers had all of their fresh, chemical free produce and eggs on display for the choosing.  If you needed clothes, you went to a clothes store.  If you needed furniture, you went to a furniture store.  If you needed drugs, a drug store and if you needed just some general items, well, you can probably think of the store’s name by now.  Don’t get me wrong, you can still do that now, although it’s harder to find a proper butcher and most farmers markets run once a week, and usually don’t appear in the winter (the ones that do are often quite a drive for somebody).  There are still plenty of stores around that specialize in the sales of a simple selection of merchandise.  Years ago, everyone had this routine of shopping selectively.  They shopped for what they needed, and they had a place to go that simply had those things in which were needed.

It did end up, of course, more efficient to localize certain markets into a central location.  So we created department stores with many household items and clothes, and supermarkets with all different types of food in the same place.  This was a good idea, I suppose, because we were going to buy all that stuff in the same shopping day anyway, and now we had more time to grab a drink at the local speakeasy and maybe plan a fancy dinner party.  Over the years we grew accustomed to this highly efficient lifestyle in which our leisure time increased proportionately to the decrease in shopping time.  Efficiency bore its enticing talons into the flesh of our wants and needs until we craved it so much it became that which it is not.  We combined, and combined, all of the shopping we could ever want into fewer and fewer places.  The quality of our goods and services suffered but we didn’t care.  It was efficiency we were after, no matter the cost.  It could be morality; it could be economical, even personal finances it didn’t matter.  Efficiency is what we were after.  ‘There must be an easier, faster, cheaper way’, this became our motto.  Behind the scenes the American Dream is unfolding yet is unnoticed by the crowd so fixated on the glorious revolution known as efficiency.  All of the consumer goods, in one easy to reach location.  Fifteen minutes down the road and we are there, the physical manifestation of insatiable desire to have all things quickly and cheaply.

But Alas!  What have we become?!  I am here, in my supermarket utopia.  I needed groceries for the week and underpants for the year.  Gone were the days where I needed only to purchase vegetables once a week instead of two times a week, because of all the efficient chemicals used to render unto them immortality.  I navigate through the seemingly infinite jungle of capitalism and procure all of my desires.  But… wait.  Here are some parlor games.  Surely I need none, as I already have plenty.  But they are on sale!  I would be a fool not to purchase one!  And this candy?  Certainly no nutritional value but if I buy one box I get another for free?  Why that’s a free good!  Never mind paying the initial cost for the first box, I couldn’t find this deal anywhere else in a fortnight!  I continue my journey onward, diving into the thicket of wondrous product I would never dream of seeing in the general stores of yore.  Wielding only my shiny wobbly wheeled cart as a weapon I advance on my enemy of consumerism.  I need not these things, but I want them.  I don’t even want them, but I have to have them.  Only a fool would pass up 49 cents off a pint of bubble solution.  Why that provides hours of fun for the little ones, or several minutes of cleanup if inevitably dropped on the floor.  What’s this?  Some new shoes… and they are only a half’s worth of an Andrew Jackson?!  A mere Alexander Hamilton?!  Simply two paper Lincoln’s?!  Surely they won’t disintegrate upon just a few weeks of infrequent use?  It’s no matter if they do, I can just buy another pair!  At this price I can buy a years’ worth of shoes!  I certainly don’t need anything else, do I?  Why not peruse the fancy electronics area of this amazing cornucopia of modern desire?  After all, who could escape the trance of glowing lights and inviting musical wonderment?  I could use another picturetube so I can watch a talky while I work on my gas powered people carriage in the garage.  Besides, I couldn’t use any of my other five picture tubes as they are currently in sparse use in my several bedrooms, and over frequent use in the living rooms.  As I finally make my way to purchase all of these fine products, and I stop to throw a few fish into the cart for my aquatic jungle (the others had perished a mere 3 days of existence out of their natural habitat) and a couple of old talkies that were on sale for a two bit coin, I start to wonder why the employees of this fine establishment aren’t as bewildered with excitement as I am, nor are they beaming with pride to be a part of this fabulous establishment.  Incredulous was I as I departed this amazing land of savings and abundance.  I can’t wait to return next week to replenish my food stores.  Or… perhaps I will return tomorrow to pick up that shiny picture frame I saw in the third aisle from the back left quadrant.  I don’t yet have a picture to put it in, but luckily this amazing source of all wants and needs has a photography department, so that I may finally have that portrait of me and Lionel, my Siamese cat, taken to place over the fireplace.

Walmart blows.