Okay, just a thought. Everyone should make pages for their Skyrim characters on Facebook. Wouldn’t that be sweet? The next step would be an MMO, which these guys are already working on. Just a thought, go back to what you were doing before.
Latest Occupy Movement Promises Results
StandardI’ve heard whispering about an upcoming Occupy Wall Street event that promises to draw a massive crowd of protesters: Occupy Walmart. On Friday, November 25, 2011, millions of agitated consumers will be gathering in front of department stores and shopping malls across the nation. They gather in angry protest of the high prices levied against our American consumers this Holiday season. Because of the super sales and excessive advertisement, they’re determined to stick it to the greedy CEO’s and Business Executives behind these so called Black Friday “deals.”
Published in newspapers across the nation, these well-known specials are bait for the wealthy business owners and executives to lure shoppers into their stores. Their conspiracy has been exposed time and time again in colorful sales pages and inserted into almost every newspaper across the nation. This year the American public isn’t going to stand idly by and watch others get the best deals in the store. These brave protesters will be sure to have their wallets intact, protecting their hard-earned dollar in faithful capitalist fashion. It is time to make a difference in this crony capitalist system of cheap cell phones and half-priced blue jeans. It’s time to buy all of their low-priced stock, to rob the robbers of the robes of the robbed.
The dangers of the Occupation are well known. Last year, a man died while being trampled in a horde of angry occupiers the day after Thanksgiving. There have been stories of police officers roughing up occupiers, and I don’t expect Occupy Walmart to be any different. You’ll want to take advantage of the steal-of-a-deal price on sunglasses, just to protect your eager eyes from pepper spray, aimed at more unruly shoppers. One unlucky 84-year-old New York occupier got sprayed a couple weeks ago chasing deals on stocks at her local stock market. Though the casualties are many, we maintain a worthy goal and continue to occupy those greedy markets until our demands for low prices are met.
The Occupy Walmart movement predates the more recent Occupy Wall Street movements by many years. In the past, however, we’ve been content to merely camp out at stores the night before, passively waiting for the management to turn on the lights and open the doors to the stores, heavy laden with Tickle Me Elmos. But this year, in camaraderie with those brave souls occupying Wall Street since August, there will be adopted a similar spirit of anger at injustice. No more will we pay full price for imported, lead-laced children’s toys. It is time, once and for all, to stand up and demand lower prices on cheap consumer electronics.
The Occupation isn’t just limited to Walmart; they’ll be crowds as early as 3:30am Friday morning at Kohl’s, Target and even Best Buy. They smaller local businesses will be watching enviously across the street as hordes of angry shoppers, armed to the teeth with credit cards and cash, storm the doors of corporations and conglomerates. Some local businesses are even trying to match the special deals offered, but most consumers see through the charade. The small businesses aren’t the enemy here, so they shouldn’t be occupied. The local mom and pops’ fair prices aren’t undercutting anyone, so they will continue to be ignored. Our true enemies here are those big businesses, those capitalist bulwarks, who, though rich and fat with the filthy lucre of years past, are still unsatiated in their evil goal to amass the world’s wealth. If you share in the growing distrust of big business, if you spent too much the last few years on your Target card and want the debt forgiven, or if you just want to equal the playing field by picking up a great buy on pepper spray and batons, then come out and join your brothers and sisters this Friday morning as week seek to right the wrongs on Black Friday.
Something Fishy This Way Stinkith
StandardI got to see behind the scenes of something yesterday I shouldn’t have seen. Strange happenings and monetary inflation were viewed through wonder-filled eyes as I found out that my car, which had slight hail damage and a bumped front fender, had cost 4 times the original estimate the Geico claims adjuster had given me.
“Believe me, we’ve billed much higher supplements,” the clerk at CARS, Inc., on Callahan Rd. in Knoxville, TN told me reassuringly. I bet they had. The original estimate was for $2,300 bucks in damage repair. My brother told me that was high and he thought he could have gotten it done cheaper than that. I met the GEICO claims adjuster at CARS, so I just figured they were a trusted vendor and known to do good jobs for GEICO..
My red flag went up when I picked up the car. It looked really good and for that I cannot complain. I was signing some documents for CARS and the last one promised that if I got a check from GEICO, I would immediately forward it to CARS.
“Why would GEICO send me another check?” I had already been paid from my insurance company what seemed like a lot of money.
“Sometimes we have to bill a supplemental amount of work to the insurance company,” the clerk reassured me. “Sometimes, they accidentally send it to the owner of the car instead of us. This is just a precaution.”
Since the car was finished, this begged the question: “So did the work come to more than first estimated?”
“Oh yeah,” the clerk said.
“So how much was it,” I asked, puzzled.
“The final bill is $8,100.” I was floored. How had the GEICO claims adjuster missed the mark by $6,000? I couldn’t sign the form. It seemed like something really fishy was going on here. I made the clerk wait and called GEICO. They sent me to someone else up the chain there, who told me, Yes, sometimes there is more damage than initially estimated. She said it wouldn’t affect me, my rate wouldn’t change, it being an act of God and a hail storm.
Didn’t GEICO care that CARS is gouging them for another $6,000? Why is there no responsibility on the behalf of GEICO? If I was paying out of pocket, I would be furious, but since I wasn’t, I signed the front of my folder at CARS that said I would forward them any check from GEICO, got in my car and left.
As I turned the situation over and over in my head, I kept wondering what I had just witnessed. Insurance Fraud? Palm Greasing? Maybe this is why our economy is in such a mess: companies with shady little scams they run to make massive profits. The car’s only worth $18,000, or it was when it was new. If I had known it would have cost $8,100 to fix it, I just would have taken that money and paid it towards my balance, almost paying off half of the car’s note. I could have lived with the slight hail damage and fender bump.
As I left CARS, I noticed the owner getting in a Lexus parked in the handicapped spot out front and leaving. Maybe I should call Don Dare, I thought, then decided against it. After all, they had done a damned fine job.
Hostages
StandardThe Problem:
Corporate America is holding us hostage. We are the negotiation tool of the rich, used as a bargaining chip with the government. The well-to-do want tax breaks and to extend corporate loopholes, meanwhile, they ship our jobs overseas to be done by slave laborer with slaves’ wages in India and China. Final Irony: these people call themselves patriots.
The Solution:
Tax incentives to insource jobs back to the US to put people to work again. For example, if you employee a factory of workers for a job that was done in China, you can be given a healthy grant to start your business, including tax benefits for every American job you bring back. Everyone wins.
