Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain Radio, sifts through the wreckage of the 2012 US elections to find hope for reason, peace and the progress of humanity.
Category Archives: reality
George Carlin: The Illusion Of Choice – YouTube
Liberal media, White House owes preppers and survivalists a massive apology in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy
Electotainment: Elex reality TV super-hit as ratings trump US politics – YouTube
With just four days to go until voting day, both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have kicked their election campaigns into overdrive.
Racing from rally to rally – both are desperate to break their poll stalemate – something neither the debates nor superstorm have been able to do.
Darden tests limiting worker hours as health-care changes loom – OrlandoSentinel.com
orlandosentinel.com/business/os-darden-part-time-workers-20121007,0,1505128.story
OrlandoSentinel.com
Darden tests limiting worker hours as health-care changes loom
By Sandra Pedicini, Orlando Sentinel
7:15 PM EDT, October 7, 2012
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In an experiment apparently aimed at keeping down the cost of health-care reform, Orlando-based Darden Restaurants has stopped offering full-time schedules to many hourly workers in at least a few Olive Gardens, Red Lobsters and LongHorn Steakhouses.
Darden said the test is taking place in “a select number” of restaurants in four markets, including Central Florida, but would not give details. The company said there has been no decision made about expanding it.
In an emailed statement, Darden said staffing changes are “just one of the many things we are evaluating to help us address the cost implications health care reform will have on our business. There are still many unanswered questions regarding the health care regulations and we simply do not have enough information to make any decisions at this time.”
Analysts say many other companies, including the White Castle hamburger chain, are considering employing fewer full-timers because of key features of the Affordable Care Act scheduled to go into effect in 2014. Under that law, large companies must provide affordable health insurance to employees working an average of at least 30 hours per week.
If they do not, the companies can face fines of up to $3,000 for each employee who then turns to an exchange — an online marketplace — for insurance.
“I think a lot of those employers, especially restaurants, are just going to ensure nobody gets scheduled more than 30 hours a week,” said Matthew Snook, partner with human-resources consulting company Mercer.
Darden said its goal at the test restaurants is to keep employees at 28 hours a week.
Analysts said limiting hours could pose new challenges, including higher turnover and less-qualified workers.
“It’s a real problem for restaurants,” said Howard Penney, a restaurant analyst and managing director for Hedgeye Risk Management.
Darden, the world’s largest casual-dining company and one of the nation’s 30 largest employers, said it offers health insurance to all its approximately 185,000 employees. Many are offered a limited-benefit plan. That type of coverage is being phased out under health-care changes, which will ban annual limits for most plans.
About 25 percent of Darden workers are full time, meaning they work more than 30 hours a week. Though employees say Darden already offers traditional health insurance to full-timers, Janney Capital Markets analyst Mark Kalinowski said the cost of providing that could become higher for Darden under the Affordable Care Act. Because that law requires everyone to have health insurance, more workers will likely choose its coverage, Kalinowski said.
“Even a modest jump up in the amount of employees that decide they want the insurance you’re offering could have a meaningful impact on your bottom line,” he said.
Under the system Darden is testing, employees are to be scheduled for no more than 28 hours each week. They can run over that if things get busy, but Darden acknowledged they are not supposed to exceed 30 hours.
At a new Olive Garden in Stillwater, Okla., former busboy Keaton Hasty said employees were routinely limited to 29 1/2 hours.
“It was 29 1/2, and they’d kick you out,” said Hasty, a college student who now works at a pharmacy. “They’d always print off a little slip every day and say who was getting close.”
And Michael Walker said when he applied for a job at a new Olive Garden in Hammond, La., he was told that except for a few “key training positions,” only part-time jobs were available for hourly workers.
“Without having full health care … I don’t see that as an option,” Walker said. He decided to stick with his current job at another restaurant.
Darden told analysts last year it would consider changing its mix of part-time and full-time employees to reduce costs.
Darden has been aggressively keeping labor costs down. It has cut bartenders’ pay and required servers to share tips with them. It also has eliminated busboy positions at Red Lobster and reduced the number of servers working each shift at that chain.
Labor costs as a percentage of sales have dropped steadily from 33.1 percent in fiscal 2010 to 30.8 percent in the most recent quarter.
spedicini@tribune.com or 407-420-5240
Copyright © 2012, Orlando Sentinel
Darden tests limiting worker hours as health-care changes loom – OrlandoSentinel.com.
Government Dependency Will End in Chaos-Ron Paul
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The media insists on characterizing statements about dependency on government handouts as controversial, but in truth such statements are absolutely correct. It’s not that nearly half of Americans are dependent on government; it’s actually more than half. If one includes not just people on food stamps and welfare, but also seniors on Medicare, Social Security and people employed by the government directly, the number is more like 165 million out of 308 million, which is 53%. Some argue that Social Security and Medicare benefits are a right because people pay into these programs their whole lives, or that we need a government safety net in place for people who fall on hard times. However, this all becomes a moot point when the funds people depend on become worthless due to government default or rampant inflation. This is less an issue of dignity or dependence on government, and more about thedeceitfulness of government promises. The Fed recently announced that it plans to keep interest rates near zero and keep buying near worthless assets from banks indefinitely. This enables Congress to spend without having to take deficits or the debt seriously and there is every indication they intend to spend with impunity until the system collapses. There are no brakes on the runaway train. The federal debt ceiling law does nothing to limit spending. The ceiling will have to be raised yet again perhaps before the year is out. What is happening in Greece with austerity measures and riots in the street will happen here within a decade according to some realistic estimates if we do not find some way to fiscally restrain our government. There is little point in a debate about being entitled to healthcare or food or shelter from fellow taxpayers if the whole system has collapsed. And, with the way our politicians have taken over and mismanaged vast amounts of resources, collapse seems almost unavoidable. Yet the number of Americans who have significant dependency on government is dangerously high, and I honestly fear for them. Worse, corporate welfare is also at an all time high with no signs of diminishing. Though it is hard to quantify, Tad Dehaven at Cato has estimated that the government spends nearly twice as much on corporate welfare than on social welfare. Both parties are equally guilty. More and more, the business sector is learning to rely on taxpayer largesse in one form or another. They used to be solely concerned with providing a better product to the consumer at a better price. Now, success on Wall Street depends entirely too much on having the best lobbyists on K Street. If one includes the employees of “private” businesses who depend on government contracts, grants or bailouts, there are even more people dependent on government in some way. Government does not create resources when it taxes people and prints money; it merely redistributes the wealth, while supporting a massive, wasteful bureaucracy along the way. Government is a giant, blood-sucking parasite on our otherwise healthy economy. For too long we have entrusted too much economic power and influence to irresponsible politicians in Washington. It’s the chaos that ensues after they run the system into the ground that will be so painful for so many people. But realigning our economy with the free market and away from government mandates and handouts must happen in order for it to thrive again. The answer is not to keep asking government to do more. The answer is to extricate our economy and ourselves from the grasp of Washington DC as much as possible now, before our dependency becomes our downfall. |
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