Why You Can't Argue With a Liberal

Let me explain something that you must understand, for I see it frustrating my conservative, libertarians and capitalist friends;

It is pointless to argue with liberals and leftists.

I don't mean this in a broad-insulting-stroke-of-the-brush sort of way. I mean that in a sincere, realistic way.

It is pointless to argue with liberals and leftists.

And here is the reason why;

When you argue with them, you are not arguing facts or statistics, you are arguing against a religion. Understand that conservatism, capitalism, and liberty are all founded in empirical evidence that has proven, time and time again, that when a people are free and you do not tax them to death, they will thrive and succeed. Limitless examples throughout history show this, not to mention terrabytes of economic data will support this as well.

Capitalism is the BEST economic system, hands down, period, if for any other reason it is the only system based in reality.

However, leftists ideology, whatever the strain, is not based in reality. It is based in a belief. Specifically, a belief that they WANT to believe in. There is no empirical evidence. There is no rational thought or intellectual honesty or rigor involved. It is simply something for the masses to opiate themselves on and feel good about it. ie- it socialism, leftism, liberalism IS A RELIGION.

Now two points that must be made of this;

1. You can't argue with fundamentalists, not matter what their stripe. Religious right christians that insist sex is bad and gays are evil. Radical muslims that want to blow you up because, well, you're not a radical muslim. Extreme fringes of Jews who won't fly on planes on Fridays (or whatever day it is, I'm not terribly familiar with the Jewish religion). Regardless, trying to convince a leftist that lower taxes and a small government is best for society is like trying to convince a christian that dinosaurs did indeed exist MILLIONS of years ago and that carbon dating is a correct technique. It goes against their religion.

Yes, they have no basis. Yes, they ignore the empirical evidence. But that is the whole point of a religion. You ignore reality because you CHOOSE to believe in what you WANT to believe in.

2. The hypocrisy of it all. I want to know the number of global warming zealots that mock christians and religious people in general. No seriously, think about that. How many leftists who believe in this global warming RELIGION in the same breath then slam on religious people. The brush could be plied to leftists in general. How many socialists scoff or mock people for believing in something that has no empirical evidence to support it yet at the same time swallow the socialist religion whole?

Thus, my friends, there is only one thing to do. And that is let reality do your arguing for you. You can't win, because they won't believe you. It is more important to them to adhere and subscribe to their religion of socialism than it is to adhere to anything as noble and honorable as the truth. Therefore you're just wasting your breath.

But just like the radical muslim who might have second thoughts about blowing himself up, or the 75 year old christian, spinster virgin who passed up on plenty of honorable men to be alone with her cats and her bible reality will inevitably dawn on them. They will look at their single, infinitesimally finite life they were given and realized they ruined it. They pissed the only thing they had away. Think about it for a second. Don't you think the burnt out hippie who is now approaching 65 years old who still wears the pony tail and can point at nothing but, "sticking it to the man" back in '68 as his largest single achievement? How about the millions of aged Russian communists who were all for the Bolshevikian revolution? Boy, wasn't the past 90 years of their lives fun and fruitful? What will the modern legions of socialists, leftists and communists achieve in their lives? You do realize that the majority of young people voted to have Obama make them indentured slaves (ergo why "young" is latin for "stupid as all hell.)? How successful do you think these socialist zealots are going to be in their lives pursuing a "dream" that is really a nightmare?

But you see, that's the only thing that will convince them otherwise. It's not going to be you. It's not going to be the charming Captain with all of his charts and graphs. It's not even going to be people who have lived and suffered under communism.

No, what will inevitably prove you right will be the leftists getting what they want and realizing they've pissed their lives away.

And that is the best revenge one can have.

Entrant #13 - Captain Capitalism's 2009 Annual Chart Contest

Main Stream Media

Yep, that about sums it up.

I just hope when I'm older I'm not this clueless.

You Kids and Your Damn "Texting"

I get my cell phone bill.

$3.40 for TEXTING.

What pisses me off is that I DO NOT TEXT!

My friends do.

And ooohhhh, what a fun time it is to text the ole Cap and needlessly charge him 20 cents. Oh boy! What fun! Just like poking a poor sleeping dog, tee hee heee! Let's annoy the Captain and send him a pointless text.

Of course my friends think this is funny. That I'm the "one guy" who doesn't have texting. As if it's the equivalent of not having internet access or a toilet in 2009. And besides which they sickly view it as a form of cheap entertainment. "Well, it only will cost him 20 cents, but tee hee heeee! Oh he'll be pissed! That's so worth it." And damn if they can't go a day without texting him about irrelevant BS when a normal freaking phone call would suffice.

"Hey, Captain, we're going to a moving. Want to go?"

Oh, no. That has to be texted you see, because "texting" is "cool." It's what the cool hip kids do.

Never mind it takes longer than picking up the freaking phone and calling the person.

Never mind it's infinitely more labor intensive to type a paragraph than to just call the person while on the phone.

Oh no, we gotta text.

Ergo, to smite you young punk kids, guess what I just did? THat's right, I disabled the texting on my plan. Now, instead of being sucked dry of my finite wealth for other people's texting addiction, I will laugh as I never receive your textings. You will waste your time and labor texting me messages that I shall never receive. And remember the fun times you had saying, "Hey, you know, it isn't a lot, it will only cost him 20 cents, but boy that 20 cents will sure goad his goose, tee hee heeee, let's text the Captain" yeah, har har, those times are over.

I now plan on taking the $56,902 I would have saved over my life in never receiving texts and
buying a sports car with it.

Annual Chart Competition Coming to a Close

I shall be ending the annual chart competition by this weekend.

If you want to get your chart in (and thus, get your chance to win fabulous Cappy Cap prizes, then you better hurry up and send me your charts!)

E-mail them to CAPTcapitalism@yahoo.com!

A Friend of Mine Told Me to Post This

I usually "josh" (not to get Jewish on you, but I am, afterall (I'm told) a quarter Jew) with my friends, but every once in a while I write something to my friends, in lovingly jest to lessen the pain of this recession, that endears me to them. Thusly, I am requested to "post that on the internet."

Ergo I shall. Names have been deleted to maintain anonymity. Obviously you will have to click on it to see it full font.

Entrant #12 - Captain Capitalism's 2009 Annual Chart Contest

From Tom.


Freaking hi-larious!

Joe Penaz - Carry Conceal

My carry conceal permit is about to expire and so I went in to get the mandatory training needed to renew. You have your choice of many instructors who conduct the training and as it just so happened Joe Penaz was the only instructor offering classes that fit my schedule.

Now I was referred to him by a friend who said he offered the cheapest classes in town so naturally when I went to find out more about him I looked up his name on the internet. But to my surprise I found this web site.

Apparently a couple people don't like Joe, but notice I said "apparently" and "a couple people." Because if you read the comments you'll see pretty much everybody WHO HAS TAKEN HIS COURSE LIKED HIM!

Now "apparently" it seems to me, that good ol' Joe is nothing more than a victim of a malicious, childish intent to rub him out of business. "Apparently" it seems to me that the only thing good ol' Joe is guilty of is pissing off the instructors who charge $170 for the class while he undercuts them by only charging $100. It seems to me that you have little baby Obama socialist whiners who aren't real men, can't compete in the free market and therefore have to resort to dirty underhanded childish, COWARDLY tactics like this and frankly don't deserve to be delivering the training themselves.

Now I have no personal ties to Joe Penaz, I just took his class last night. But what pisses me off is childish little brats who have to go and hide behind the internet and try to slander hard working people for something that can only be described as childish spite (and those Cappy Cap readers know I have gone through one such instance). Joe's class was fine. Sure there were a couple things I'd change, but it wasn't any worse than any other course I've taken. Besides which this guy and his wife were kind enough to FEED US HOME MADE FOOD (the course takes about 5 hours). His wife took the time to make the students a meal (and if you read through some of the comments these trolls even rip apart her cooking).

And these little internet trolls have nothing better to do?

So do yourself and Joe a favor. If you're looking to get your carry and conceal permit or renew it, contact Joe. You may have to drive a ways, but it will cost you a lot less, you'll get a good meal, and it will piss off all the right people.

World's Dumbest Economy

Wall Street as you know likes to convince the world that they are the smartest people in the world. That they are the elite, the cream of the crop of this country, because they went to Harvard (like their daddy did) and ended up working for Goldman Sachs (like their daddy did...matter of fact they work for their daddy...what are the chances of that?)

However, it was precisely these morons that got us into this financial mess in the first place. Ergo why GDP can contract at 6% (which is HEAVENLY!) and the markets can rally;


Morons.

Ramirez Rules

Man got game.

Highest Marginal Tax Rates

Russia, and I've said this before, will probably out pace the US in terms of long term economic growth because of one thing and one thing only; a flat tax.


And not only is it a flat tax, but a very low one at that.

Now Russia, for all its faults (alcoholism, corruption, etc) does have an infrastructure, a stable and sane society (ie-not shooting each other up over food as per Africa) and as they get corruption under control, I believe more and more people will take advantage of these low taxes and capital will flow there. However, fresh on my mind is also how much time and effort I had to piss away to calculate my tax bill. I do believe the simplicity of their tax code will alone attract people there. Again, over the long run.

Uncle Jay Explains the News

Ah, good ole Uncle Jay.

Intellectual Honesty

I don't like Barack Obama. He's a socialist, he's a daddy's boy, he's never had a real job.

But I will give credit where credit is due. He is the first politician I've ever heard tell an unpopular truth.


However, while he is more moralled than the average politician, sadly he's a moron when it comes to economics.

Do Women Make Better Employees?

A theory I have been kind of developing or at least kicking around in my head is the theory that there is something fundamentally flawed about corporate America that basically undermines the long term ability of companies to not only be profitable, but also undermines their longevity and integrity. This flaw (or these flaws) come from the fact that the American population as a whole is more or less being corrupted and there is no longer any semblance of "doing the right thing," only "doing what's best for me."

Now, this is not to say the people have become immoral. I'm just saying their thinking has been corrupted much like a software code. And whereas in the past principle, honor, integrity and personal morality would self-govern individuals to "make the right choice" now it is self-preservation that determines what choices we make, even if it is the "wrong" choice.

Like I said, the theory is not solidified yet (and I would love your commentary to help me solidify it), but for example when I was a credit analyst at a bank, my job was to assess and measure the risk of the proposed loans. The "right" decision to make was to recommend these loans be turned down. It was moral. It was just. It would be in the long term interests of the bank. It was just the plain truth. However, there was an incredible amount of pressure for me to re-write these loans in an unrealistically better light. This would be the wrong choice.

Now, my personality being moral, honorable, ethical and right (fools call this "stubbornness") I made the "right choice" and resign my position. However, there were thousands of other credit and risk analysts who just capitulated under the pressure and made the "wrong choice" and kept their jobs. Now keep in mind, I'm not accusing them of immoral behavior. I'm just saying they probably had no choice. If you are a father of 3 or a mother with a child on the way, you cannot afford to all of the sudden become moral and put in peril your job and living. But regardless of the morality of the decision, it is here that the corruption creates that fundamental flaw that I theorize plagues most of corporate America.

In other words (or as in the words of my father) "it is better to be nice than right."

Now, this does not just apply in terms of banking and assessing the risk of loans. But because it is in the people's best long term interests to do what they're told and not necessarily what's right, corporations and employers of all stripes, if unwilling or incapable of listening to criticism, run the risk of having nobody to sound the alarms and act as if everything is hunky dory even though the ship is sinking.

Another perfect example would be the auto unions. I can only imagine my intellectually honest UAW worker equivalent saying, "hey, hey, hey. We're killing to goose that laid the golden egg here. We got to reign in health care compensation otherwise we'll ALL lose our jobs."

I'm sure he was shushed up real quick.

Regardless, the larger point is that corporate America, which is staffed and headed up by Americans, do not like conflict, they do not like challenge, they do not like bad news, no matter if that bad news is reality. And in sticking their fingers in their ears and singing Jimmy Cracks Corn and I Don't Care, or worse creating an environment where any kind of rocking the boat is punished, they then undermine, if not guarantee their demise.

Now, how does this relate to women making better employees? Naturally you have all seen the data showing that this recession is affecting men disproportionately more than women. Men face an 8.8% unemployment rate, while women only face a 7% unemployment rate.

And while they cite the reason for the gap is industries that employ more males have suffered the most during this recession (construction, finance, real estate), I cannot but help but wonder if at least some of that difference is because women make better employees.

Now understand, by saying "better employees" I mean "better soldiers." People who follow orders. People who don't give their commanding officer any guff. They do what they're told and that's it. And not that I have any empirical evidence of this, but I have heard enough stories from my female friends that suggests this may be the case. One female lawyer friend of mine works at a law firm where all the partners are males, but all the staff lawyers are females. She said "they tried to hire a male lawyer once, didn't work. Egos were clashing." She also mentioned how emotions can run high and it is not uncommon where the female lawyers end up crying. If it ever came to that point with a male lawyer, he would just quit or at least be less likely to tolerate that crap.

Another female friend of mine, god bless her soul, she's a moron. A complete ditz. However, she keeps getting promoted at work. Again, not because she comes up with new and great ideas, but because she is just a good soldier, a good cog (he grandfather also happened to have been one of the founding members of the company).

Regardless, there are more anecdotes, but in general men's tendency to be more aggressive, confrontational, and blunt make them worse employees, at least in the eyes of a corporation that wants compliance, conformance and obedience above profitability and morality. Additionally, corporations are moving away from the swashbuckling, Captain of Industry, Hank Rearden, Andrew Carnegie, Tony Stark, progress-at-the-speed-of-light industrialist and towards a more politically correct emasculated "good corporate citizen"/entity that is there to provide jobs for people and sell only green products. And if you're going to keep staff on during a massive recession and in this environment, you're probably going to keep the "yesmen/women" while you fire the firebrand males who (no matter how right) are rocking the boat and disturbing the corporate America serenity.

Ergo, why unemployment for men is higher than women today.

Thoughts? Observations?

For the RSS People

I will be making about 20 or so posts that are nothing more than links to my online classes but have titles that are related to the classes that are commonly searched. My apologies if you get too many posts but you can disregard them, unless of course you were interested in taking one of my classes.

Step Aside Baby Boomers

I had many conversations like this (though not as arrogant) with my baby boomer bosses.

Technology seems to elude them.

How the Captain Would Run a Business

And I would require those outfits as well...which is why I would get hit with a lot of sexual harassment suits...which is why I will just plain not hire anybody and be the lone independent contractor no matter how much more money I could potentially make if I did set up an actual business.

The Captain Will Broadcast Tonight

Greetings all cappy cap readers.

I will be a guest panelist on Radio Free Nation tonight at 730PM.

Feel free to tune in and give the ol' Cap a call!

Chris Coleman is Hugo Chavez

It's Friday night, but when you are self-employed, every night is Friday night. And it is late. However, I've been meaning to write about this so it will be a quick, half-inebriated post, which I've found actually make for better posts.

Chris Coleman is the mayor of St. Paul. And yes he's a liberal and yes the council is a bunch of worthless community organizers, and yes, I don't bother reading the local paper because, well, papers are pointless to read. However a friend of mine brought in the Pioneer Depressed and I saw this;




Now here are my quick drunken points, which would still outdo any leftist in that they're based in reality, no matter how doused with scotch they may be;

1. "Responsible" private investment means that Coleman wants to attach so many strings to that "private" money that it is not really private. You see "private" means it's up to that private individual to do what s/he wants with it. But when you attach strings by making it "responsible" (and by responsible, we don't mean "responsible" in the classical English sense, we mean in what Chris Coleman cares to define responsible which I'm going to crazily guess here and means it achieves a leftist or politically advantageous purpose) you essentially make that private money "quasi-private" as you more or less start to dictate what can be done with it. So it really won't be private money, but besides which, you won't really ever get any money into the city anyway because when you put the adjective "responsible" in your quote, well you've just driven off any real investor with half a brain and real money.

2. "Adds value to our neighborhoods." Again, the money is not enough. Oh, I know, one would think "well wouldn't the money going in to the neighborhood immediately benefit it? You know, like driving home values up and so forth?" Ah, but that is the key string. You see, if any of you dumbass investors with money want the "honor" and "privilege" to invest in the sh!thole...err...I'm sorry, "cosmopolitan metro area" that is known as St. Paul, it must also benefit the voters of Chris Coleman to keep him employed...errr....I mean...."to benefit the neighborhood." But of course, again, any investor with half a brain cell still functioning will not invest in St. Paul, and thus, all Chris Coleman has really managed to do is scare away ANY hope of bringing ANY REAL help in bringing investors into St. Paul.

Ergo, if you think about it, Chris Coleman is just like Hugo Chavez. Chavez, if you haven't noticed is playing the same game with the oil companies, timber companies and other industries in Venezuela. Oh, his piece of crap third world country would love foreign investors to come in an invest, but when they do, he has this nasty habit of nationalizing their subsidiaries, if not attaching so many strings that most companies will never ever set foot inside Venezuela again.

And this gets to a very important lesson for all leftists to learn, assuming you have not been driven off by my cynical tone already.

If you want to bring investors into your little realm, then you must not tax them, not apply regulations, not apply all these little "wish lists" or bark all these orders. You must realize you are the beggar asking for money. And if you are so inconceivably stupid (which I know a lot of you are) to start demanding worthless and utterly pointless things like "green construction" or "committing a percent of pretax profits to non-profits/community programs" or, heck, just an insane level of property taxes, guess what, your "private investors" are going to be as real as one of your other pet projects;

Social security.

Of course, don't listen to me. I just plain don't know what I'm talking about.

The Woo Girls Must Die

Just wanted to point it out, make sure we have a record of it here.

Yeah, those girls, at clubs, or at bachelorette parties or, well anywhere. The ones that yell out

"WOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

And your entire nervous system starts to explode from the sheer shrieking and childishness of it?

Yeah, they have to die.

Just wanted to make sure we're all on the same page here.