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Cab Driver Philosophy Eddie the cab driver was complaining to me just last night about one of his cheapskate customers. The super-generous liberals (aka - socialists) in charge of Hamilton's taxi regulations really "pinched out a loaf" of phony SJW legislation back in the 1990's. For those who don't know, taxi meter rates are mandated in most Western cities. To show how compassionate they were, they came up with the mandatory 10% "seniors discount." Unlike any other business that offers discounts to the customers though, the business owners did not absorb the discount. The drivers did. I hated it from the start. It wasn't because I am greedy and cheap, which I am. It was the principle of the thing. Why should seniors, whose only real collective achievement is to reach a certain age, be entitled to any special treatment? I've always believed in equality under the law. This "discount" set an ugly precedent. If seniors should be entitle…

African Reparations I've been hearing more and more lately about the demand for reparations for slavery. The idea is so disgustingly evil, I thought it would have died a well deserved death by now but it hasn't. It prompted me to dig up my article from The Way Back Machine and republish it on my blog. It's not exactly how I would have written it today, but I decided to leave it as it was originally published back in 1999. I did go through it to remove the dead links, which turned out to be all of them except for the amazon links to Thomas Sowell's books. © 1999 Hans Wienhold
last modified:
Tuesday, November 30, 1999 at 21:18:37
Unedited. African Reparations "The practice of slavery dates to prehistoric times, although its institutionalization probably first occurred in early historical times" "Slavery," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1997 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Should the rich nations of the West pay repar…

Roll up the Rim Lunacy The average Tim Horton's customer waits, say, three minutes waiting for service in the drive-through lane, but every time Horton's rolls out their roll up the rim promotion, the lineups and the wait times skyrocket. A customer might wait fifteen minutes or longer to get that rim. Why are people so eager to waste their time in the drive-through lanes at Tim's only to get an invitation to play the same game again? The odds of winning a coffee or food prize in Tim's contest are 1 in 6. Therefore, the average drive-thru customer may wait as long as one and a half hours before winning anything. A two-litre engine consumes about 1.2 litres of gas per hour while idling. The average Roll up the Rim looney will thus spend about 1.8 litres of gas for the average prize. With gas prices hovering around 90 cents per litre these days, the average drive-thru winner should deduct $1.35 from the value of the prize in order to correctly calculate the value …

Plantar Fasciitis You know how you can tell if you are going deaf? You tend to ask people to repeat themselves a lot. And you know how you can tell that maybe you have Plantar Fasciitis? You find yourself gazing longingly at those handicap parking spaces when you're at the mall and wondering if maybe it's time to visit your doctor and ask for one of those special privilege certificates. Oh, and what is this I see? More designated parking spaces are popping up for designated people. The designated parking area is starting to get crowded, just like the "human rights" area. ("Bad rights drive out good rights." -- Ayn Rand. And they tend to proliferate, just like the quantity of central bank currency. Think of it as "rights inflation." I have a friend who believes all of the problems of the world can be reduced to monetary corruption. I say it goes deeper than that.) For a couple of years now, I have seen spaces for mothers, pardon me, "pare…

Jeepers SneakersA satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.Michael LeBoeuf (1942-)Prelude We take a lot of things for granted including our wardrobe and specifically our footwear. There are numerous stores that sell all sorts of women's and men's clothes with a wide variety of style. We can purchase casual or formal attire and if a consumer shops around enough they may obtain a decent price for what they're looking for. However, it appears there are more specialty boutiques catering to women's fashion than there are shops for men. Back in 2010, I was experiencing a stabbing and piercing pain in the sole of my right heel. At times the discomfort was unbearable...irritating so badly I had difficulty walking. I paid a visit to my family doctor and he immediately diagnosed my problem as Plantar Fasciitis. The following is from the Mayo Clinic: Plantar Fasciitis is a heel pain that involves inflammation of a thick band of tissue that runs across the bottom o…

Has Capitalism Failed? Gerald (See below) is bang on when he criticizes Ray Dalio's ridiculous claim that "capitalism has failed." It just goes to show that you don't have to be smart to be rich. For much the same reasons as Gerald gives, I have felt my blood pressure rising whenever someone chooses to wisely inform me that "capitalism has failed." If I were in a good mood, I would simply tell them that WE DON'T HAVE CAPITALISM. To hear this mantra repeated over and over and over again, for a span of five decades ends up really trying a guy's patience to the point that, when not trying to "be the best a man can be," I would simply reply with, "You are a fucking retard." I know this will be considered to be nothing more than "tin-foil hat" libertarianism, but one of the first things I learned is that government economic intervention causes distortions including, but not limited to, shortages and surplusses. Unemploym…