I Believe Large Retailers Fear Their Employees!

It would seem we've become more of a socialist society than capitalist one, which I think is hurting many businesses' profitability. Today companies in general are rightfully worried about their image as good corporate citizens. A larger part of that has to do with how employees perceive them, not the actual reality of situations that happen. I'm going to share one situation how and why retailers fear their employees.

Most candidates desperate for a job are not totally transparent with their interviewers. Many retailers I know go over with each candidate the needs of the business pertaining to the position. Maybe saying we are looking for those with open availability, we need you to show-up 10 minutes before, and these are the duties and expectations we require daily. Are you able to do these things? If the candidate meets the criteria and agrees a job offer with those expectations is presented for the person to sign. Many have what I call a hidden agenda, wait out their 3 month probation period, and then out of nowhere bring-out their issues. Something along these lines, I'm not sure if I mentioned this to you but I have these health issues. I went to my physician yesterday who has provided me with a doctor's note. I no longer am able to do all my duties, need Tuesday's off for treatment, and because of these health issues require a revised schedule. Now the dilemma begins...

The company hired that employee to work certain hours, explained it in the interview piece, and had them sign the job offer stating all. If they fire the employee because of no longer being able to meet the needs of business could be a huge problem. Maybe be considered possible discrimination, labor board issues because of the doctor's note. The worst part if the employee writes on social media how the company was not compassionate to their issues could be devastating. If you remember at the beginning of this I mentioned we've become more socialist than capitalist, who knows if some group with the same health issues doesn't start rallying against the company. It doesn't matter the company was transparent with that employee, today it is all about perception not reality.

It really is terrible that so many people are having all kinds of health and mental issues today, companies didn't go into business to be non-profit organizations, but to provide jobs and opportunities to those who will help them grow. It's not right that any company should fear the people they pay to work for them, make employee accommodations that effect their bottom lines, and that the public has become so judgemental not looking at both sides before reacting. The problem is also with those employees who do not have those issues now have to pick-up the slack, feeling favoritism, and becoming disengaged, maybe even stress-out work related costing the company even more money. I understand that people need to make a living, but there are too many exceptions simply because employers fearing their employees! By Arnold Nadler

Those Hard Choices

Already the summer of 2015 has been hit with the resurgence of scorching heat. Form the Southwest to the Gulf states temperatures have already reached well above 95 degrees. Those Republican Climate Change deniers about global warming have to agree this past summer was pretty darn hot. So darn hot it was the hottest summer on record. But, for so many especially those on fixed incomes where their Social Security is the only means of support and the rest of our working poor, which by the way is over 76% of the working population, have seen their electric bills reach a point that hard choices now have to be made to either pay for food or stay cool.

The family of Winston Smith who has three young children and works two jobs making a combined income of just under $30,000 per year is a typical statistic caught up in the cycle of what is now poverty income. He is one of the fortunate ones though for he still is working. The plight of the Smith's is typical of so many families all over America struggling to make ends meet. With so many caught in this cycle of poverty today is a sobering reminder that our governmental officials continue to carry out what looks like a vendetta against it's very own citizens.

Having three young children leaves the Smith family with some really hard choices that have to be made. For Mrs. Smith one hard choice is either working at the only job she could land, that being at Walmart for just $9 per hour or stay at home to take care of the children. But, with the rising costs of day dare today that hard choice of remaining at home to take care of her children really isn't a choice at all. Home being a two bedroom apartment at $850 per month in an area that really is not child friendly is the only place they could find with so little savings. Living in Tampa, Florida where over 9 months of the year where the temperatures remain so hot and sticky means that AC is just as relevant as home heating is in the Northeast, like Maine or New Hampshire.

What makes this situation worse is that the cost of energy has only continued to soar. That cost of energy today is draining the incomes of so many families like the Smith's to the point where there are going to be more hard choices one would not normally have to make if the cost of energy remained stable. The Smith's electric bill within the span of one month went from $120 to $196. When the food stamp program was slashed just last year around Christmas just is barely enough for one weeks worth of food still today at $122 per month. If one does the math considering rent, car insurance, car payment for Mr. Smith to get back and forth from work, extra food and all the other what many call necessities today like cable, phone and Internet there are going to be very hard choices that have to be made just to keep a roof over their head and some semblance of food on the table.

When a recent report came out about how so many Republicans and even some Democrats view a large percentage of the population as having it made in the shade sort of speaking just underscores how out of touch they really are. They have the audacity in dictating laws and policies the have a direct negative impact on the lives and livelihoods of so many millions of Americans. For the Smith's out there hard choices are being made each and every day. For seniors, there again are faced with even more hard choices that have to be made.

When one is faced with rising electric bills not to mention homeowners who have to also pay for water and sewage the increasing energy costs are also reflected on every other utility bill. Take the Smith's and everyone lese on fixed or low incomes hard choices become the norm. Do I rob Peter to pay Paul are the realities in today's economy. Many are caught in this web of juggling bills just to keep from being hungry and homeless. Incomes today for far too many just don't equate to the rising costs of living. A sad reality that is so often overlooked upon when legislatures from state houses and Washington convene to issue policies that consistently prove detrimental to the greater portion of our society.

For the Smith's when they got their electric bill a hard choice had to be made. Faced with the fact that there wasn't enough disposable income to pay for both the electric bill and their entertainment of cable TV the hard choice was made to discontinue the TV just to be able to pay for the energy to run the refrigerator and keep the apartment air conditioning on. The sad reality today is the fact that not only the Smith's but too many others on fixed or have low paying jobs have already made that hard choice. Welcome to the new reality. In so many instances trying to balance their expenditures on necessities just to stave off being out in the cold millions like the Smiths have to compensated each and every month to compensate for the fluctuating rising costs of energy. When the price of energy climbs everything else costs so much more.

The fate of not only the Smith's but for millions of Americans is a constant reminder of what our energy policies have done to the majority of Americas. When policies that continue to favor a select few have rendered millions the inability to gain an financial advantage where those hard choices don't have to be made. The United States does have the availability, the resources and the technology to implement policies that would greatly impact the lives and livelihoods so that the hard choices that are being made now won't have to be made. Does our government have the courage and the will to do what is right and beneficial for all Americans? We shall see especially with this next Presidential election. By Dr. Tim G Williams

My Version Of Band-Aid Economics

I am not an economist but more of analytical thinker when it comes to our economy. For many years now we hear the spin doctors and politicians boasting about how our economy is growing, which is correct if that is all one considers. The question is why would this be happening when unemployment is high, a huge deficit, and those working are drowning in debt? The answer for me is what I call Band-Aid economics, here is how it works.

Instead of focusing on the real problem which is inflation, we emphasise how our country's economy is on an upward swing. Our bank of Canada describes economic growth like this online, "The most common way to measure the economy is real gross domestic product, or real GDP. GDP is the total value of everything - goods and services - produced in our economy. The word "real" means that the total has been adjusted to remove the effects of inflation." The idea from what I see is that if you paid last week $2.00 for lettuce, the next week it is $2.50, the following one $3.00, it makes the economy look good because as they have said inflation has been removed. The current politicians pitch is vote for me, since elected our economy has grown. Now let's examine the next factor in Band-Aid economics...

Let's face it most lower-income and working poor cannot afford higher ticket items upfront like $30,000 for a car. How about for almost nothing down with good credit, anyone could be behind the wheel of a new vehicle right! It helps our countries economic growth, even if the same type of car 20 years ago was less, but now jazzed-up with more technology, and of course insurance rates on a new cars is higher too. Decades ago people saved up, bought their cars for cash, and it was more of a positive economy. The financial killer for people is inflation, if everything costs too much constantly going up, but wages stay the same, deductions at source are unreasonable, consumer taxation is 13 cents/dollar spent, then not many people can save enough in their lifetime to buy a high ticket item like a car. However the GDP is the total value of everything. You buy a car on credit it goes into goods and services produced in our economy.

The reality is if a person is not earning enough they will always be ten cents or more short on the dollar. Families supplement their below standard income through credit cards, lines of credit, and over drafts. The reason is simple inflation doesn't match incomes. The great news for our government is even if they need to purchase food on credit it boosts the economy. The next time you hear our economy is doing well, maybe look at your own financial affairs, in product costs, and then decide for yourself if our countries economy is really in good place. Welcome to my version of Band-Aid economics 101, where a good economy doesn't mean citizens are living better, and over many years now even below par levels. By Arnold Nadler

The Leading Cause of Illness, Disability & Death Is Prescription Drugs

"Every drug is by definition a poison. Pharmacology and toxicology are one, and the art of medicine is to use these poisons beneficially." This statement from "Drill's Pharmacology in Medicine" was shared by the Dean of LLU's School of Public Health, Dr. Mervyn Hardinge. He had a PhD degree in pharmacology and previously chaired the pharmacology department.

Pharmacology evolved from toxicology that studied how much of a chemical would kill half the animals. The science has been refined, but the direction hasn't changed. We may be pain-free, but the more medicine we take, the sooner we are likely to die. Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine said, Nature cures... let your food be your medicine.

But it's cumbersome to see dozens of patients a day and try to find out what they eat or don't eat and MD's really aren't trained in that area. So medicine offers the ability to see people quickly with symptomatic help that they are looking for and the whole "healthcare" system (falsely so-called) profits from the way it's done.

Sadly, the 106,000 deaths reported in the Journal of AMA, 4-15-1998 are just the tip of the iceberg. Two years later, the Western Journal of Medicine reported 199,000 deaths as outpatients. Combining this with the prior study in hospitals, it makes 305,000 deaths per year reported 15 years ago.

Then the Archives of Internal Medicine reported that deaths rose 2.7-fold from 1998 to 2005 for reasons they couldn't understand, though the drug ads on TV approved by Congress were still working well. And given 8 more years, we could expect another 2.7-fold increase making it 5.4 since 2000 with 305,000 deaths. 5.4 x 305,000 = 1,647,000 deaths from drugs "properly prescribed and administered." Three 9-11's every 2 days!

The author moved to Maryland and was visiting US Senate offices with medical literature showing this info when a senator said, You are wasting your time-they own us! (speaking of pharmaceutical donations to their re-election campaigns). Congress appears to be sold out and what we call "healthcare" is buyer beware.

This brings us to a biblical message that Babylon is fallen. The word derives from Babel which means confusion. The message in the 18th chapter of Revelation says, Be not partakers of her sins that you receive not of her plagues and it ends reminding us that "all nations" are deceived by her sorcery (pharmakeia is the Greek word). All nations admire western medicine, but nations that use it are on the brink of bankruptcy, says Ruhling who shares this message as a warning that we should beg out of Obamacare that was largely written by the pharmaceutical people for their profits. Carson's right-"it's the worst thing since slavery."

We might ask, How can we get out? Step one is by tuning in to our bodies. While doing Executive Health, this author had an executive say that the sugar bothered his joints. Another man said cheese made his joints ache. A third said that meat gave him arthritis. These were smart men who had figured it out.

It's not as easy as it sounds and the cause of my headaches were a mystery inspite of consulting a neurologist who taught medicine students. He said foods would be "a very rare cause" of my headaches, but later an allergist clarified the problem.

If we become allergic to a food, maybe because we like and abuse it, it can act like nicotine in the sense that people don't get sick when they smoke-they get sick when they don't smoke-on withdrawal. That's how my headaches were. If my lunch didn't have two whole wheat sandwiches, hunger was a problem, so Monday to Friday, it was sandwiches, but on the weekend we ate other things and Monday mornings meant a headache due to a withdrawal from wheat, an unsuspected cause.

Most allergists do skin testing and it works for inhalant allergens but is 80% unreliable for foods. People with problems might find the cause by a week's trial of brown rice and foods they rarely eat. They may get worse for 2-3 days (detox-withdrawal) but should have less symptoms in 5-7 days and then they can put their favorite foods back into their diet (one a day) to see when their symptoms return.

If we were born normal, but 40 or 60 years later when we have problems, we did it by what we put in our mouths. The good news is that we can reverse it. Taking responsibility for our own problem isn't easy, but in the long run, it's better than trusting a prescription that could kill you as happened to my previous wife who died from an antibiotic taken briefly for a urinary infection. If she had drunk more water and tried an herbal remedy, she would probably still be alive.

Richard Ruhling is an MD with a Master's Degree in Public Health. He was board-certified in internal medicine and taught Health Science at Loma Linda University. He enjoys excellent health in mid-70's and encourage others with the possibility of better health and new foods. The best book he's found on natural health is offered cheap on his site at http://bit.ly/1NY3UoJ He also has an eBook, Why You Shouldn't Ask Your Doctor that's on Amazon at no charge Sat, Dec 12 at http://amzn.to/1I22otT Kindle offers a no-charge app for reading eBooks on computers as an easy download

Why Do We Consume Luxury Goods, But Spend Little Time Enjoying Them?

It can be perceived that day by day, the number of populace investing in Luxury Goods/Services is cumulative. For example, if one was to observe posts on Instagram or Facebook, there would be an increasing number of designer handbags, luxurious meals and luxury cars to be seen. At the same time, it can also be observed that the usage of these products is significantly lower than depicted on social networks. So are people investing in luxury goods and services only for conspicuous consumption?

Conspicuous consumption is a term used to describe investment into luxury goods and services in order to display wealth, or economic power. Veblen (1899) came up with this term when introducing his concept of Veblen goods, which Luxury goods and services fall into. Veblen goods contradict the law of demand. The law of demand states that an increase in price leads to a decrease in quantity demanded. However the price and quantity demanded of Veblen Goods are directly proportional; an increase in price leads to an increase in quantity demanded, and a decrease in price leads to a decrease in quantity demanded.

The reason behind this links once again to the concept of conspicuous consumption. Individuals wish to be seen purchasing expensive goods, in order to appear as wealthier, or stand out by being able to access goods which are not simply accessible for everyone. The use of social media enables individuals to do this as they simply take a photograph of themselves and/or the luxury Veblen good, and display it on Instagram or Facebook for everyone to see. This provides them with the economic power they desire. Social Media has also been a cause of this emerging trend, as it has allowed people to create ideas on how certain goods can give individuals a certain image, and so people can be investing in goods simply to post images of them on social networks, and obtain a certain image within society.

The concept of Veblen Goods and Conspicuous Consumption can therefore be used to explain why individuals spend a prodigious amount of money on luxury goods and services, but spend diminutive time utilising them. It indicates that individuals are more interested in portraying their economic power publicly rather than for their own use. This phenomenon also reveals why an increase in price leads to an increase in demand for these goods, individuals who are able to invest in Veblen Goods are an exception to the general law of demand, in a way that they are more economically powerful, so as a result, achieve their desire of Conspicuous Consumption.