I like this approach
 

Dear Fellow Business Owners,

As a business owner who employs 120 people, we have resigned ourselves to the fact that Barack Obama will be our next president, and that our taxes and fees will go up in a BIG way. To compensate for these increases, we figure that the Customer will have to see an increase in our fees to them of about 8-10%.

We will also have to lay off 25 of our employees. This really bothered us as we believe we are family here and didn't know how to choose who will have to go. So, this is what we did.

We strolled thru the parking lot and found twenty Obama bumper stickers on our employees’ cars. We have decided these folks will be the first to be laid off.

We can't think of another fair way to approach this problem. If you have a better idea, let me know.

We our sending this letter to all business owners that we know. I don't think there are any federal anti-discrimination laws that would apply here.

Sincerely,
name withheld

Agreed!

Saw a sticker that said, " Will Rogers Never Met Barack Obama". If you see one on an epmlpoyee's bumper....give him/her a raise.


My $.0200001


RF 1

Now that's what I call a "Fairness Doctrine"!

I saw this Anti Obama Sticker of all places IL

Ill keep my Guns, Money and Freedom. You can keep the Change

I was just lectured and told to remove my McCain sticker from my Personal truck at the embassy today by a Senior State Official. I was polite and listened and then told him to Kiss my Ass and go away.:p He sent an e-mail to my Agency Head. I told him that you could not bring politics into the office and he could not talk to me any more and walked out. Next week could be fun here.

:munchin

"We strolled thru the parking lot and found twenty Obama bumper stickers on our employees’ cars. We have decided these folks will be the first to be laid off. "

Wow, being laid off for professed support for a political candidate sounds downright un-American to me, regardless of what side of the aisle they're on.

Why shouldn't those who professed their support for change, and swallowed his lines hook line and sinker be the first to go?

Additionally, for somene who just "surfed in" to this website, it might behoove you to do a little reading and learning before you start spouting off about who is un-American on this site. You are a guest here, and as a fellow guest I strongly suggest you get your bearings about the type of individual you are discussing issues with on this site. This is not your normal message board.

Perhaps because if there's reason to lay off any employees, criteria such as performance standards, reliability, and how they interact with other employees should take precedence over one's personal opinion over who should lead the country?

You better run out and take off that Obama sticker....:D

I'll second that motion and ammendment

My neighbor does specialized computer programming for small businesses. He was amazed how many of them have exactly 49 employees. Care to guess why?

Pat

After due consideration, perhaps a layoff is too quick. Something slower may be in order.

Instead, let them work. However, in the interest of spreading the wealth, confiscate half their pay. After a substantial deduction for handling costs, distribute the rest to the owner's favorite cause.

But they can stay just as long as they want.... :D

I heard this on a local radio show. If he (Obama) believed in fairness, the $100 million dollars he pulled in for his campaign this month, should be divided in half . Then John McCain should get his portion. :D

I like it. :D

Three quick points. First, you may be well served to take Afchic's recommendation to heart. Thoughtful disagreements are welcome here--high-horsed grandstanding not so much.

Second, sarcasm is an impoverished response to thoughtful irony. (Do you really believe that a quiet professional would be anything but thoughtful and fair in his evaluation of anyone's character or performance? While it seems that neither the Columbia University or the NYU library systems have a single copy of Chosen Soldier, the most casual reading of that work will suggest the opposite conclusion.)

Third, if Senator Obama's supporters are so intent on Americans making economic sacrifices in the years to come for the sake of "change," "hope", and getting America "back on track", what is wrong about expecting them to lead by example?

That just happened.......

Well said sir!!

Perhaps I've been misunderstood. I didn't feel like my response was "high-horsed grandstanding" or off-the-cuff sarcasm, so please accept my apology if it was interpreted that way. I have nothing but the utmost respect for the QPs, servicemen and women (and their family members) who post here, and don't intend to convey anything otherwise in my posting.

As far as me "getting my bearings" with regards to who's posting here, I registered in August 2007 and lurked for well over a year before posting. I guess I'm the odd man out given that I'm an Obama supporter, as I've noticed there's a plurality of McCain supporters here. I respect the reasons that many of you have for wanting McCain, and I won't try to dissuade anyone from those. My point is: if this were the other way around, and this was from a small business owner who supported Obama, I'd think the objections I raised would have been resoundingly agreed with.

As far as "Chosen Soldier" goes, no, NYU doesn't have a copy. I bought my own last year, found it a fascinating read, re-read it several times and now it's resting on my bookshelf right in front of me. :)

Again, I mean no disrespect or condescension. If I'm still coming off as a jerk, I'll retreat for another year or so.

B,

Hope you gave them, "The Look!" :eek::lifter

Holly :-)

Getting laid off is certainly a "CHANGE." :p

After all, it's what they asked for...

First: You do realize that it was a joke correct...

Second: What exactly do you see about Obamas tax plan that takes into consideration "performance standards, reliability, and how they interact with other employees."

It sounds to me that your own candidates method for redistributing wealth fails your own standards by which producers should be gauged...

Can you explain this contradiction?

Is the idea un-American as promoting an individual in the military based solely on his color or ethnicity?

Or how about allowing an individual free room & board to the finest college in America based on his color?

How about free money because people really don’t like to work? That just smacks of American.

Maybe if I was a Hispanic businessman I get a contract not because of my work but because I’m Hispanic? American?

Do not profess your idea of un-American to me, ever.

Team Sergeant

I have to agree with TS.

Who decides fairness at this business, the owner, or the People's Workers Committee?

They wanted change, now they have it.

Assuming that the story was true, what criteria would you use to react to an evolving business situation that some of your employees helped create?

Is affirmative action fair? Is a wrong done to favor one group fair to the others?

Is taxing those who work harder and longer to benefit those who choose not to, or who do not work at all fair?

How about taxing those who studied to get better grades, and who spent the extra four years or more at college to benefit those who dropped out in high school to live at home and deal drugs on the side? Is that fair?

How about grades? Should those who work harder to get an A really not get a B and the balance of the grade go to those who choose not to work harder for it? Maybe the minority should automatically get one letter grade higher, and those who are not minorities be docked a letter grade to make up for past inequities?

There is no such thing as fairness. What is fair to one is perceived as not fair to another.

Life is tough. It is tougher if you are stupid. And voting for a candidate who wants to rob from those who have worked to succeed in order to support those who do not (frequently through their own sloth) is a bad idea.

The trouble is, as soon as 50% of this nation, plus one, discover that they can vote themselves money from the public till, and are willing to do so, the game is over. They will do so till the nation and the economy collapse. We are just now seeing the tip of that iceberg.

Ther money that we are spending today is our children's debt and burden to carry. When the social security and Medicare/Medicaid debt comes due, it will break them. And no on has the balls to tell Grandma and Grandpa that. Least of all the Dims who helped create this idiocy, and who refuse to address it.

In the end, someone always has to pay. Is that not fair? Look at nature.

TR

I believe you will find that it is not as much support for McCain as it is being very much against Obama. I learned to detest Marxism (in whatever form it might manifest itself) and was trained to fight it. I will continue both.

I support McCain because He is the lesser of the 2 evils. Neither is perfect but Obama is a closet socialist or Marxist and if you are a history buff read about Hitlers and Stalin ans Mussolini's rise in the early years. You will find some amazing similarity's in their rhetoric and social programs. That is why I can not stand him. I have fought for years to protect this country and will not vote in a socialist type of president.
This is why you see us not liking BHO

Dividebyzero when you get a chance I would genuinely like an answer to my previous question posted above.

I gave them something better. I filed a complaint...... That will tie them up for weeks to resolve it.

B,

Honestly, good for you for standing up for what is right, if only more folks would, IMVHO.

(...and the WT 101 bottle will be shipped to you in time for Christmas!)

Holly

Moreover, how about spending some of that money paying for the programs he claims to support... or the illegal aunt ;) Dems only believe in the redistribution of OTHER people's wealth.

Yesterday was our big Fall Festival party at the school where I teach. As a surprise for the kids and parents, I spent my own money to buy the materials to make festive picture frames and spent the last week of my (and my mother's) free time building them. I took my Kodak camera and photo printer to the school so I could take pictures of the kids during the costume parade and print them on the spot for the parents. One of the other teachers (an Obama supporter) said, "You should charge $5.00 a piece for those." I commented that I was just doing something nice for the parents and students. Besides some of our kids are on DSS subsidy and can't afford an extra $5.00, which I pointed out to her. She said, "You shouldn't spend your own money on this stuff." I just smiled and said, "Well, for now at least the redistribution of my wealth is my choice."

It floors me how Obama supporters are all about redistributing the wealth until it becomes a reality... which hits THEM in the pocketbook. My sister, an Obama supporter, just realized that if Obama drops the floor for the privileged upper class any more, she and her husband will be included in that group even though their income is only about par for the course in Los Angeles. When she called to bitch, I just laughed and said, "Did ya already vote??"

While actual Socialists deny Obama as being one, I think it would be interesting to do a quick review.

The top 5 percent that earn wages in America will have their income tax rates raised from 35 percent to 40 percent.

Part of this measure is to create social equality. In the "Communist Manifesto," Karl Marx wrote: "a heavy progressive or graduated income tax." Obama's tax plan has been accurately described as a form of class warfare. Punish those on the top and reward those on the bottom. I don't believe the government should force those that are financially successful to pay more. It sounds like Obama prefers a socialist-capitalist system.

We can then go further back to what Obama said in 2001: "If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court. I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I’d be o.k. But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that."

In "Dreams From My Father," Obama writes "To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist Professors and the structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy. When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our stereos so loud that the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois society's stifling constraints. We weren't indifferent or careless or insecure. We were alienated."

Even worse, in his second memoir "The Audacity of Hope," he mentions: "The arguments of liberals are more often grounded in reason and fact," and "Much of what I absorbed from the sixties was filtered through my mother, who to the end of her life would proudly proclaim herself an unreconstructed liberal."

It didn't just end there, he continued to embrace other people that followed this same ideology. Even the unrepented domestic terrorist William Ayers described himself by saying: "I am a Marxist." Jeremiah Wright, his reverend for 20 years, has been described by analysts with his black liberation theology as being rooted on Marxist ideas.

I could go on and on, but if looks like a duck, walks like a duck...

This is an excellent point. It would seem that study after study conducted on the topic of voluntary giving demonstrates that conservatives give a far larger share of their time and money to charity. And not just to religious institutions. It has also been noted that the type of institutions given to by conservatives, tend to be those that work on the behalf of the homeless, hungry, destitute etc. While liberal donations tend to favor arts.

There is one reason, and one reason alone, someone supports socialism...it is because they presume that they will personally gain through the labors of another.

Conservatives = Republicans = Giving, time and assistance that they chose
Socialism = Democrats = Hollywood Donations for elections, Redistribution of wealth and gaining something from the hard work of others.

Ping the light is coming on...:D:D
Wish the rest of america realized this.

dividebyzero, you know I can see how you would think this was un-American, I don't agree with you but I think I at least understand your view, further I have a theory that I think explains why you think this way, and I don’t think I’ve shared it before on this board so I’m going to.

I call my theory “Everyone gets a trophy”, and it’s based on my observations of sporting events for young children today and how it's effecting present day society. So when I was a kid, even in the 1st grade in both “ant ball” soccer and T-ball the team who scored more goals or runs won the game and the other team lost. Now at the end of the respective seasons the teams who had won the most games got a little trophy, the rest of the teams were told try harder next year. Now fast forward to today, at the end of those same seasons everyone gets a trophy, there is no first or second, because some of the parents of the losing kids thought that not getting a trophy makes their kids feel bad and that’s somehow not fair, so instead they collectively have taken away the accomplishment from the team who actually worked harder and or had more talent to give to those who didn't earn it, see where this is going? What we have done is created a society of people who feel entitled, and feel like if they show up they should get the same thing as those who have not only showed up, but worked hard and excelled. Another side effect of this phenomenon is that personal responsibility has been pretty well discarded in our society of loop holes in lieu of perceived fairness, this has happened to the point that everyone feels like they aren’t responsible for anything even their own actions, there’s always an excuse they want to get off on. Look at nearly any murder trial, the suspect inevitably claims to have been abused, not bee hugged enough, blah blah blah, and that because of these things they’re not responsible for their actions. It has become so pervasive today, that we are indoctrinating our youth to believe they can do anything and they’re just not responsible. In today’s world if your parents didn’t make a concerted effort to teach the dying concept of personal responsibility then you truly probably don’t understand why others on this site have criticized your “un-American” statement.

Now I don’t mean to be harsh to you, but here is how I view the topic of this thread, if the business is hurt by Obama’s tax raises and must lay off workers, that is an effect of an action, the action is the tax raise that Obama levied on these businesses and HE WILL RAISE taxes that’s a fact, he can’t pay for all his socialist policies without doing so, further he has told you and everyone else he’s going to do so. The new taxes are a secondary effect of voting for a left wing uberliberal tax and spend socialist who has already SAID he WILL raise taxes, it's not like he's fooling ya if you're paying attention.

Now while no one can tell you what to think or who to support that does not mean that you do not have to accept the responsibility and repercussions for the actions that come of that support. You say it’s un-American to punish the BHO supporters for their beliefs, is it somehow more American or fair to punish those who voted against BHO and his new taxes? They didn’t want what he was selling, why should they have to pay for it? How is that fair? I would argue it’s very fair to lay off the BHO supporters first, they wanted this “change”, and voted for higher taxes and the hand outs, those votes in this scenario caused the harm that forced the businesses to have to lay people off, the responsible parties i.e. BHO voters should stand at the front of the line to pay for it, that's called personal responsibility and I hope it happens that way because that actually would be fair.

The truth is that no matter how many teachers, politicians, parents of looser kids, or Dims say it should be LIFE IS NOT FAIR , and it never will be, but taking from those who have to give to those who don’t is not only not accomplishing the fairness the above want, hell it isn't even American, it’s Socialism, and it’s one of the things we in the military have fought against since this countries inception, so if you come in here as a proponent of it, guess what you've just painted a target on yourself. That's a choice you made either intentionally or unintentionally, if it was unintentional you might want to keep lurking until you understand those here a little better.

Now your take is exactly what I expect from a Democrat, they want everyone to get everything as long as they don’t actually have to pay for it, look at BHO’s family, he wants to spread the wealth around in the rest of America, yet I haven't seen him spreading his own wealth around to the members of his family living illegally and in poverty in this country, I call that hypocrisy, but I digress. At the end of the day I think this business owners theory is a great lesson on responsibility.

My last point, your above statement is if the shoe were on the other foot we would be the ones bitching, well if the business owner was going after the McCain supporters he’d be punishing them for his own choices not punishing them for theirs, how is that the same? Apples to oranges IMO.

You know, we might want to rethink this.

If the B-Ho supporters get laid off, they’ll just sit at home with their X-Boxes and collect government checks that we fund.

How about they can have the jobs, we get the checks that they fund, and we go fishing? :D

Just a thought.

Pat

Pat
That will not work because we have too much Pride to do that.

My initial thoughts haven't been written since I first saw this thread, so I'll briefly provide. It is fair for a business to hire based on characteristics, and if political affiliation is important, that is fine. Affirmative action programs are different, as they are offered by the public sector for a specific public purpose.

While the business owner has the right to enact such policies, I personally would find it repugnant, and would choose not to engage in any transaction with the business - regardless of political affiliation. I also would be concerned about the good or service provided, as the quality may be impacted by this emphasis on this non-core aspect of the business. I believe our country's competitive advantage in business has been the variety of backgrounds we come from, which allows us to provide the most competitive good, and innovate. I come from a family of business owners, and I'd be highly concerned for the future profits of the businesses if they engaged in such practices.

stu

Here's something that bothers me about Senator Obama's identity issues.

Senator Obama's "logic" is the same as a person who befriends an African American so he can say "I'm not a racist---I have a black friend." How many people will vote for Senator Obama based upon the same twisted logic?

What I find especially egregious about Senator Obama's approach to friendship and to politics is that there is a place for radicalism (both left and right) in American society and politics. In my own experience, some of the best lessons in life come from people with whom I may not see eye to eye on many political and cultural issues.

Rather than engaging the radical left or the radical right, he has pandered to one and demonized the other. I remain at a loss to understand how this pattern of behavior constitutes "change" or "hope."

Well Stu I find it Repugnant that BHO and the Dem party wants to spread the wealth as they call it. Socialism is Socialism and the United States Of American was not founded on these values. Mater of fact we went to war to protect people from these type of practices. Laying off of employees is the decision of the Owner and how he does it is his decision. You know he does not have to state that he let go off X amount of employees because they were behind BHO he only has to say business is bad and you are not employed any more. This thread was opened in a hypothetical situation and it is funny how some people have responded. It was started to make people think... and think we are doing.

I for one am ashamed to be a registered Democrat right now. I have never voted party lines as that is for an ignorant person. You vote for the individual for each position. I have only remained a Democrat due to laziness due to me being deployed and my time home is precious. I know I have always been a Republican at heart since I registered at 18. Mom and Dam were Dems and I followed suit but they have changed also. Well I can tell you I will change party's as soon as I get back to the US.

Could you erase your double Long Post.... Please

You just had to bring up the P word! :D Spoil sport.

Pat

Now there's a line I've heard preached and regurgitated a number of times by those with their own social agenda.

If I have a company of twenty welders who communicate well, having a common language, bond well having common backgrounds, have few disputes because the feelings of acceptable/not acceptable are pretty well shared, then my business will fail because........ ??