Small businesses can now cut every expense but labor.

Every day, I become more and more convinced that we are being governed by idiots, and that Barack Obama is their king. 

As anyone who has ever run a 5-employee coffee bar knows that businesses have an income and businesses have expenses. 

Expenses are coffee, cups, cleaning supplies, cash register tape, stir sticks, flavor for shots, milk, chocolate and, yes, employee labor. 

Income is income.  It could be dollars, or it could be javelins, Coca-Colas, gasoline, eggs, butter, ammunition or anything else you would swap for a double-espresso.   It's what people swap for your coffee, cups, cleaning supplies, cash register tape, stir sticks, flavor for shots, milk, chocolate and, yes, employee labor.

Let's pretend that you have a chain of coffee bars, and you have 100 employees.  If so, you're going to be hit with Obamacare costs.  But if you have 99 employees, you can avoid that expense for another year. 

Any sane human will find a way to avoid that expense.  All sane humans will avoid that expense, if at all possible. 

If the costs of cups goes up, they will try to find a cheaper cup.  Ditto for coffee or cash register tape.

So if expenses go up to the point where costs have to be cut (whether it is in cups, labor or chocolate), how will Obama's Mouth-Breathers protect their reputations? 

They will make it illegal to reduce the number of employees.  I swear to God, they're going to make you swear to them that you didn't cut payroll to avoid paying the Obamacare shakedown tax. 

 Consider what administration officials announcing the new exemption for medium-sized employers had to say about firms that might fire workers to get under the threshold and avoid hugely expensive new requirements of the law. Obama officials made clear in a press briefing that firms would not be allowed to lay off workers to get into the preferred class of those businesses with 50 to 99 employees. How will the feds know what employers were thinking when hiring and firing? Simple. Firms will be required to certify to the IRS – under penalty of perjury – that ObamaCare was not a motivating factor in their staffing decisions. To avoid ObamaCare costs you must swear that you are not trying to avoid ObamaCare costs. You can duck the law, but only if you promise not to say so.

If you've ever run anything and tried to make a profit by doing so, you know that this is lunacy.  Labor is the same as cups, coffee, or chocolate. 
If you aren't making money, you have to cut where you can.  Anywhere you can. 

Godalmighty, I'm ready for the Rodham Administration to take over. 

In praise of good neighbors. Ed in particular.

I love my neighborhood, and have great neighbors. 
We occasionally have some badness drifting up from a nearby high-crime region, though. 

My truck has been broken into something like 3 times in 10 years.  The police can always be relied on to say something like "Doh !"

A few nights ago, one of my neighbors heard somebody messing around with his pickup, which was parked out on the street.  He looked outside, and yep, somebody was messing with his truck.  Mr. Ed, the truck-owner, is a calm, older black gentleman, and one of the best folks I know.  Age Morgan Freeman by about 20 more years, shave his head, and you've got Mr. Ed.

Mr. Ed calmly got his pistol, went outside, and took a shot at the son of a bitch. 

He missed.  Mr. Ed apparently had all the appropriate permits that are required for someone to shoot at truck thieves, and as far as I know he isn't in any trouble with the law. 

That happened four or five nights ago.  I sleep like a baby, knowing that Mr. Ed is out there, and a restless sleeper. 

Barack Obama is going to raise taxes so he can keep spending.  No one has been able to plug the hole in the Gulf.  Our soldiers are still getting shot in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Nancy Pelosi is Speaker Of The House. 

But I don't think we have to worry about that guy breaking into any more trucks. 

When seconds count, the police are just minutes away !