Minimum wage part two

Now that I've gotten some time, between classes and all, I've come to decide its time to finish this rant.

I recently attended a job fair at my college. I talked to several people, which is what you're supposed to do. I learned a lot, such as the availability of entry level NON-MINIMUM wage jobs, such as call center jobs, which seems to average around 10 to 12 dollars an hour, and do not require any formal training. I was able to apply for a job in risk management with a bank, at a call center, that required nothing more than a high school diploma or GED.

I also talked to a lady from a company called Primerica. Primerica is an insurance company that offers exclusively term life insurance, which being certified in Texas to sale people life insurance, I can honestly say is the best of the two types of life insurance. Employees at Primerica only need to be atleast 18 or older, and have no felonies, have 100 dollars to apply for an IBA, individual business application, and be able to take and pass your states life license exam, which Primerica trains you to pass, and then reimburses you when you pass! Now, you don't make base pay with them, but you make commission on sales of insurance. Another thing Primerica helps with are investments. They have a policy called but term, invest the difference. What that means is people who overpay for crappy investments called whole life insurance, get more affordable term life, than invest the difference in a higher return investment account, such as an IRA, Roth IRA, annuity, or other accounts.

Entry level position, no training prerequisites, and holy crap you can make as much money as you want, by just talking to people. Need help finding a Primerica agent? Let me know, I have contacts.

So, how can anyone on earth tell you that they can't find a higher paying job, when all you have to do is go to a job fair, have copies of your résumé, and talk to people? You can not make money without effort. That's why I don't necessarily like minimum wage. It's like a farm subsidy. People who don't need them can get them, so, why the hell not take advantage of opportunities like that?

I know people who don't need financial assistance for school, but as long as they can qualify for it, they get it. I don't blame them. I don't necessarily like it.

All I'm saying is, there are more than one way to get money working minimum wage, and more than just minimum wage jobs available, you just have to get your ass on the ball and actually put in the effort.

When I had my rant on the economy, I may have touched on this, but if you want to increase the minimum wage, than you have to give businesses reason to keep and hire people, otherwise all you do is inflate money value more, increase unemployment, and make businesses raise prices to compensate for lost profit. Simple economics says that is what will happen.

Moral of the story: go to school, become a business major, open a business, and generate income that way, or take advantage of the welfare system as long as you possibly can, until they make it impossible for you to keep getting welfare, and than roll over and find something new to do. I suggest the former because that's how you become successful in life financially.

Minimum Wage part One

As I got ready to go to my job tonight, where I make minimum wage, compensation and tips, I saw that the US Department of Labor was flooding my twitterfeed. Naturally, I looked at it, and saw that they were talking about minimum wage, and the increase. They had a bunch of people telling their stories about their life living at or below minimum wage. Claims that you cannot raise a family on minimum wage, and other things of the sort. Well, I am here to say that, that's the point! The point of minimum wage is to provide you enough money to support yourself while you attend college, get an education, and once you receive your Bachelors degree, get a salary job. Not remain on minimum wage all your life.

I am an advocate for an increased minimum wage, do not get me wrong, but I do not support making minimum wage high enough for someone to live comfortably. You should not, and never should you, be able to have  a comfortable living off of minimum wage. If you do, than you are content on having virtually nothing and living in poverty. Wake up people! YOU NEED TO GO TO COLLEGE AND GET AN EDUCATION SO THAT YOU CAN GET A SALARY JOB, NOT DEPEND ON THE GOVERNMENT AND MINIMUM WAGE TO PROVIDE FOR YOU! There was only one story that was posted by the DOL that actually impressed me, and that was of a gentleman named Jose, who owns a small business.

People, opening and operating small businesses is what we as Americans need to do! We need to open businesses. Become business owners. Let competition flourish! How do you keep a stable capitalistic economy? You keep competition! Perfect competition is so very important. If you can keep large companies, say WalMart, to keep their prices low because of competition, than you no longer have WalMart being a price setter! Instead, you make WalMart a price taker! Open your eyes! Every single student should take classes in business management! Even if it's not your major. You will benefit from opening a business and running it properly! You will be able to get people to have patronage at your business if you do business correct!

Example. A person opens a resturant similar to that of Chilis. Chilis sales their fajita trio at 15 dollars a plate. Their chicken is ABYSMAL. It's bland. Has absolutely no flavor. All the smaller resturant  has to do is offer the same fajitas, with the chicken better tasting, and at a lower price, say 12 dollars a plate, and BAM in order for Chilis to compete, they have to drop their price, and make their chicken taste better! Principals of Business.

Anyways, I will most definitely return to this when I am able to, I am not done with this rant.

I have failed to mention that I do indeed have an official facebook page, it is https://www.facebook.com/GpSmithBlog

And an offical Twitter, @OfficialGPSmith

Twitter updates go directly to my facebook page. I update as often as I can.

I would like to give a bible verse to everyone. It is James 1:12-16

12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God," for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempts no one. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when is it fully grown brings forth death. 16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.

Remember, God does not tempt you. The Devil will always be your temptation. When you stand up and say "I will not be tempted by you Satan, for I am a child of the one true King," you spit in his face. Jesus' name is all you have to say and demons must flee, for they cannot counter His name. If you claim to have gone through life without temptation, than you are not truly saved, for Satan has no need to tempt those who are already his.


I will have my update from the Department of Labor Equal Pay chat up whenever I receive an email back from them concerning my unanswered questions and have done research into their statistics, and researched my own. A post should be ready by the end of the weekend, hopefully.

Thank you for reading, God bless. Have a great day.

Rant on state of United States economy

Ok, so everyone is talking about the economy, and the budget, and all that other stuff. Everyone has their own opinion on how to fix the economy. Some say that we should just let businesses do whatever, some believe in a damn near hostile take over of businesses. Obama even said he wants to up the minimum wage to 9.00 per hour. GREAT! I like it. More money in my pocket. I'm not under threat of losing my job. I've been there two years, and remain in good standing. I feel sorry for those who, if that does become the new minimum wage who do. I know what it's like trying to find a job and having 0 luck. I can't get so much as an interview sometimes! It's the way it is right now. But there is a solution! Listen to me when I say; we can fix the economy and become a profitable nation once again! What do we need to do?

Obama said last year that by 2016 he wanted to add one million manufacturing jobs. Ok. I can work with him on that, and I'm not an Obama supporter by very many means. I like him, but I don't like most of his policies. Here is my initial quick fix for the lack of manufacturing jobs. Open back up the oil refineries that YOU (Obama) closed! Guess what that does?! It increases jobs, increases gasoline production, and makes gas prices DROP! Who could disagree with that? I know I wouldn't.

I got to thinking though, after that. What could we also do to increase the amount of jobs in America. Well, we have a problem with outsourced jobs. Companies outsourced jobs to other countries like Mexico, China (nice apple, making it where the iPad doesn't capitalize China.. Shows how much you enjoy your child labor), Canada, just to name a few. I've already mentioned Apple, so ill use them as my target. I hope one of my arrows hits them in the knee. (I know I know, old joke. I'm not very good with a gun, yet.)

Apple manufactures the microchips used in their products in Austin, TX. Better technology, better educated people to make them. They than ship the chips to China to be put together. All your Apple products, the iPad, iPhone, iPod, Mac PCs, are all products of CHILD LABOR in CHINA! They can pay Chinese children as little as 7 cents (USD) A DAY! Ad we buy their products for hundreds to thousands of dollars. Really? Ok. I've got an idea. Lets make importing products even more expensive. Make everything to expensive to import! Tariffs! We used them to excellent effects, sort of, in the early years so the United States. We owed millions after the revolutionary war, and guess what? With tariffs, we paid it completely off by the Andrew Jackson administration. One of the only good things to come from that P.O.S. individual. I say take him off our money and put Theodore Roosevelt on it. Much better president.

Now that tariffs are in place, set temporary price caps on goods that a manufactured in America, to increase American business revenue, meaning they can hire more people at higher wages, and still be PROFITABLE. I am putting key words in caps because it helps. Also, if you're based in America but have outsourced manufacturing jobs or a majority of your workforce to other countries, you are not an American business, so get the (insert foul language here) out of here or bring your jobs back to America, you swine of a company.

With increased revenue from tariffs, guess what we can do with taxes? We can LOWER them! We won't need nearly as much revenue from taxes, because outsourced businesses are now paying a lot of money in tariffs.

This is temporary though. Eventually companies like Bane and Apple will bring their jobs back to America, and taxes on businesses will need to be increased to make up for the loss of tariff revenue. In the time that takes, our economy will pick back up and our unemployment will go back down to under 5% which is considered fully employed.

All it takes to come up with that is half a semester of an introductory to economics class. Get out of here Ben Stein, you're not helping.

Day One, Gun Control

Ok, so as I write the inaugural post for my blog, I'm trying to decide what the most important thing to write about is. There are several subjects, from the current "North Korea Missile Crisis" which I don't think is going to amount to much, to gun control and other gun laws. There was a recent stabbing at a college campus in my home state of Texas. There's the upcoming NFL draft. There's basketball, my Houston Astros rolling the Seattle Mariners last night which I was unfortunately unable to watch. I can write about Houston Texans cornerback Brice McCain's interview with the official houstontexans.com podcast. My point being is there's a lot to write about, so there's a lot to choose from. Fortunately for you, the reader, I know what I'm going to address right now.

I'm actually hopeful that this supposed bipartisan background check for gun buyers bill gets the light of day in the senate. I like this because a it is a compromise from two NRA endorsed senators, Joe Manchin (nice name) democrat from West Virginia and Patrick J. Toomey republican from Pennsylvania. I like this because its a suggestion at has been worked on for a while between these two senators. I think it is a legitimate compromise, and I'm looking forward to hearing more from the senate about their vote on whether to hear the bill or not, and if they do, are they willing to work together on further compromise with amending it.

My personal stance is that I think it's a waste of money to pursue more background checks than what is already necessary for you to purchase a gun. It's something like 7 to 14 day long wait to be allowed to receive a purchased gun, if you pass a background check. Better use of money would be further research into mental disorders such as schizophrenia and autism, which are cited as possible reasons that lead to shootings. Less guns does not mean less violent crime. If you think it does, go to Europe. Most all of Europe has a ban on guns, and I'm going to specifically attack the British. In 2012, ending in September, there were 549 reported homicides, there were approximately, from what I can tell looking at the graph, 500 attempted homicides. That's around 1050 violent crimes in Britain. The population of Britain is 63.2 million according to the 2011 census. Now, that seems like a small number. Let us compare that to a larger country without gun bans. I'm going to use the United States. 2011 statistics are what I can find, by every 100,000 people; there is an average of 377.2 violent crimes. In the south, where I live, there is approximately. 428.8 violent crimes per 100,000 inhabitants, 67% of those involve firearms. That makes it according to my calculator 640 violent crimes involving weapons. I do not believe that is correct. Into my calculator, a TI-84 plus, I typed 428.8/.67. So you can do the math yourself and find out if its right or not. Now, the population in the United States is 313.9 million in 2012.

What I've gone and done is found the difference in British population and United States population and then increased the British population to the same amount. I also increased the crime rate to reflect that by dividing the increased British population by 100,000 and then multiplied that into 549, the 2012 reported violent crimes. What I got is: 1376343 violent crimes in the population of Britain when they have the same population as the United States, by my math.

That math is not official, it is most likely highly inaccurate. I am not an expert in math and don't know how it’s really done. But as you can see, banning guns in America would increase the crime rate, if you assume my math is correct, which I reiterate, is more than likely is not. If someone knows how to actually do it, please make a comment and inform me. It would be useful information for future reference. They make the blog better.

How can anyone say it’s more important to take guns away from law abiding citizens, while we can do more to avoid mass shootings, which is the current outrage, by better research on how to treat mental illnesses? The man that shot Gabrielle Giffords in Tuscon, AZ, had a documented history of mental illness. He was legally able to purchase the gun used. A better background check would have helped avoid this, yes, but also if better understanding on his mental illnesses existed, than he would not have been expelled from the college, and he would not have had the opportunity or motive. James Holmes, the man accused of the shooting in Aurora, Colorado, most definitely had schizophrenia, in my opinion. No logical human being has as many booby-traps in his small apartment as he did. I agree with not allowing him his insanity plea because the shooting was premeditated. It could have been avoided by better knowledge on how to identify the mental illness, and better treatment for it.

I only echo other people's opinion, but I do agree with them, which makes them my opinions.

This was written on 4/10/2013, edited on 4/11/2013.

Links used.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jul/14/crime-statistics-england-wales

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/taxonomy/index.html?nscl=Population

http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2012/october/annual-crime-in-the-u.s.-report-released

Information on the bill was taken from CNN.com front page article on Wednesday, April 10th. Sorry I do not have a link at this time.

Thank you for reading,