W.T. Fallon's Blog, page 5

Donald Trump Reenvisions The U.S. Treasury As A Casino

 

New York, August 27, 2016 – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump announced today that, if elected, he will overhaul the U. S. Treasury department, making it more like one of his casinos.

“Unlike the U.S. Treasury, my casinos never run out of money. Well, except when they go bankrupt, but the treasury doesn’t have to worry about that,” Trump said in a press conference. “We have the best investors ever—taxpayers. They have to keep investing in the treasury whether it’s a sound investment or not.”

Trump went on to explain how his overhaul would work. “The Treasury department will be just like a casino. All U.S. currency will be replaced with plastic casino chips and vouchers. All paper money will be replaced with vouchers for free meals or possibly a Wayne Newton concert at one of my hotels.”

When asked how the new chips could be cashed in, Trump had this to say. “Chips can be used to purchase all necessary essentials—champagne, caviar, hair transplants, and spray tans.”

The candidate believes his plan will reinvigorate the U.S. economy. “Originally I planned to fix the economy by printing more money, but replacing those boring old bills and coins with casino chips will be much better, because it also solves a foreign relations problem. You see, if we start producing tons of our own cheap plastic crap, China won’t be able to steal all our jobs anymore. That’ll save us a lot of money versus building a wall in the middle of the Pacific ocean.”

 

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Note: I realize it’s increasingly hard to discern the difference these days, so I’m just going to tell you that the above is a piece of satire and not a real news article.

Shopping On Tax-Free Weekend? You’re Getting Hosed.

I was in the mall earlier, and it was so fucking crowded I actually had to take my eyes off my phone to avoid walking into people, something I don’t normally have to do. No chance at catching a Pikachu when there’s someone three times your size shuffling forward at the rate of snail on valium in front of you and screaming children running around on the side of them, creating a human bottleneck. It was a nightmare.

I guess I should have expected this, considering it’s tax-free weekend here. Granted, our sales tax is ridiculously high – almost ten percent, and our roads are still full of potholes, and many graduates of our public schools (some of whom teach at our public university) can’t spell at a fourth grade level, so I have no fucking clue what we’re doing with all that money, but okay, let’s say ten percent.

I get it – the chance to buy things without paying that extra ten percent! Who wouldn’t want to run right out the door and buy everything they need for back-to-school or just their ordinary supply run?

A savvy shopper, that’s who. In all the years our state has been having tax-free weekend, I’ve never found a good deal on one. STORES DO NOT HAVE EXTRA SALES ON TAX-FREE WEEKEND. Keep in mind, when stores DO have big sales, they’re usually for at least 20 percent off, often 30 or 40. MUCH better than that dinky ten percent you save on tax, right?

Let’s say, for example, that you’re interested in an item on clearance for $10. Last weekend, Dillard’s had an extra 40 percent off clearance, so you could have bought that item WITH tax for $6.60. But hey, it’s much smarter to wait until today, increase the changes it’ll be gone, and pay that flat $10.

Most stores that have weekly sales start on Sunday and run through Saturday (including office supply stores, where a lot of back-to-school shopping is done). So by Saturday most stuff is sold out. The majority of the clothing stores I walked through today had everything at full-price. Unless you had a coupon, you were only going to save that ten percent on tax. Period. Penney’s had “doorbusters” which weren’t that great a deal and will undoubtedly be much cheaper if you wait two weeks and buy when it hits clearance. Also, that store just has shitty brands. Ever try to resell something you bought at Penney’s on eBay? Good luck, no one wants that crap.

I used to work in an office-supply store. We usually did not have the best deals the week of tax-free weekend, because someone in the corporate office must have known people would spend more anyway due to the tax-free weekend. Oh, we had a few sales, but they were closer to 20 than 40 percent off in most cases. After all, why actually reduce prices when customers already feel like they’re paying less?

Are you shopping on tax-free weekend? Do you actually think you are getting a better deal? Do you have numbers to prove it?

 

The Dumbest Political Argument Ever

I just took part in what I believe to be the dumbest political argument in the history of the world.

I came home and, as usual, my dad was watching Fox News. He’s semi-retired now—he followed me into the internet reselling business, so sometimes he drives around and buys merchandise. But when he’s not doing that, he’s sitting in front of his 60-inch 4K Ultra Curved TV (which is an awesome TV, by the way, worthy of far better than Fox News). He watches two things: The Lifetime Channel, and Fox News. The first one, no clue. It bores the crap out of me. I don’t know what’s worse about Lifetime movies—the writing or the acting. They’re both abysmal.

Then there’s Fox News, which seems to be turning my dad into a zombie. First, he declared Donald Trump the savior of America, come to rescue us from communism and socialiasm and all those other scary isms he hears about on Faux News all the time. Then, he started referring to Trump by his first name, like they’re personal friends or something. “I hope Donald can straighten out this mess with China and get our jobs back. He’s sure going to try.”

So tonight I come home and he’s watching more nonsense from the RNC on Fox News. “I know you like Hillary, but it’s going to be a disaster if she gets elected,” he says to me.

“I don’t like her. I just don’t hate her as much as I hate Trump.”

“Well, you better vote for him, because if Hill-ry gets elected, she’s going to take away the internet. You know she wants to do that, right?”

“Um…what?” I’ve read all kinds of stuff bashing both candidates, some true, some not. That’s one I haven’t heard.

“Yeah, she doesn’t want us to have the internet,” he says. “She wants to take it away from us. Says it’s out of control and we need to shut it down.”

“Actually, I seem to recall Donald Trump saying he wanted to shut down the internet…not Clinton.”

“Ha! Propaganda! Trump never said that, it was Hillary.”

“Yeah…no.” I’d offer to track down an article quoting Trump on that, but he’d just call that propaganda and refuse to believe it too….

“I don’t want to live here if Hillary gets elected. If I could afford it, I’d move to Australia if she got elected.”

I can’t help but burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny? You don’t like Australia?”

“You want to move to Australia?”

“Yeah, if I could afford it, and Hillary got in, I sure would.”

“Um, dad…you know Australia is a socialist country, right? They have socialized medicine. That’s like Obamacare, only worse.” I say that because I know how much my dad HATES Obamacare.

“Yeah, but it’s not as bad as being communist. At least they still have free enterprise.”

“So do we…”

“Not when Hillary gets in! She’s a socialist, like all those democrats!”

I give up. How do you win an argument with someone who doesn’t logic?

 

 

 

Why I Don’t Love “Cheap Thrills” – In Fact, I Hate It

I’m talking about Sia’s new song, “Cheap Thrills,” which plays every five minutes on the radio stations I listen to. I should start by saying that I love Sia and many of her other songs are among my favorites. But whenever I hear a millionaire sing about how they don’t need money to be happy and have a good time, I have the intense urge to punch said millionaire in the face.

The lyrics, which can be found here, include references to putting on lipstick and high heels – those things don’t cost money, right? Well, they don’t cost Sia any money. She’s a celebrity and makeup and shoe companies probably throw free shit at her in the hopes she’ll wear it and her fans will turn around and buy it. But the average broke person does not get free shoes and lipstick. The rest of the song is mostly about dancing, because apparently clubs don’t charge covers. Well, they don’t for celebrities…

I suppose my intense annoyance at this song goes back to childhood, where I used to read these dumb childrens’ books about some poor kid who grew up really happy and some rich kid who grew up miserable. This is just one of many ways that rich people try to convince poor people to be happy with nothing. In my case, it didn’t work, because I wasn’t an idiot and there was a big problem: All those stories portray poor people as having “love” and “happy families.” But what I had was a family constantly screaming at each other about money, parents fighting about whose fault it was we were broke, relatives screwing each other over for money, and a new crisis every time something broke and we couldn’t afford to fix it or buy a new one. So I realized from an early age that you were supposed to have at least one of those things – money or a happy family – and I didn’t get either.

For the record, I don’t write childrens’ books, but if I did I would never set up a happy poor kid/miserable rich kid dichotomy like that. Because I promise you, some kid is going to figure out she got the short end of both sticks and spend her life feeling ripped off. I know, because I am that kid.

Also, despite the fact that rich people have been telling poor people they don’t need money to be happy for thousands of years, studies have shown it’s a lie. After all, if you have money, you can leave the job that makes you miserable. If you’re unhappy in your marriage, you can get a divorce and not worry about how you’ll pay your bills on one income. (And despite all the insistence that love is all that matters, a hell of a lot of people get divorced over fights about money, while others stay miserably married because they can’t pay their bills with one income.)

So why do people insist on telling themselves and others they don’t need money to be happy? Well, poor people do it to make themselves feel better. And I’m not opposed to self-delusion when it helps people. Me, I have this problem of always seeing things exactly how they are, and I’m not really interested in inserting my head in the sand, but if it works for others, fine.

But why do rich people even need to have an opinion about this? Because happy poor people are less likely to steal from the rich or otherwise go after their wealth. Now, if money really isn’t necessary for happiness, why would that matter to rich people? If the poor steal their money, they can still be happy, right? But they do care, because they constantly write books and songs and movies and TV shows that promote a message of, “You don’t need money to be happy.”

See what a bunch of bullshit “money can’t buy happiness” is?

Another line that gets repeated ad nauseum in this song is “I love cheap thrills.” Obviously written by a person who doesn’t spend all their time dealing with cheap crap that doesn’t work right. The fact is, expensive stuff really is better. You can whine about “paying for the brand name” or “inflated costs” all you want, and to some extent, you might be right, but if you actually compare a real Coach bag with a Foach, you’ll see there’s a huge difference in quality, and the Foach will fall apart much faster than the Coach. Is that difference worth an extra $2,000? That’s up to the buyer, and some of that 2K may be brand value, but not all of it is.

Have you ever looked at expensive cars as they drive by you on the road, or admired one in a parking lot? They are actually designed better. I can tell a Jaguar from too far away to make out the little cat hood ornament. I can tell because the lines of the car are very distinctive and nothing like the clunky cheap cars you usually see. I was noticing the same thing on a Mercedes the other day, until someone honked at me because the light had turned green.

The truth is, cheap thrills suck. They’re not as good as the more expensive stuff, and I am simply not delusional enough to convince myself otherwise. So every time I hear that song on the radio, I’m changing the channel.

 

Is 2016 the Year of the Third Party Candidate?

The other day, as I was scrolling through Facebook, I noticed something interesting. One of my friends had posted a plea for all democrats to call the DNC and tell them Bernie should be the nominee instead of Hillary. As I was reading the fairly hilarious comments, I realized that this pretty much parallels many of the things I’ve seen conservatives post.

On the one hand, the presumptive democratic nominee is someone a large amount of democrats can’t stand and refuse to support. On the other hand, the presumptive republican nominee is someone a large amount of republicans can’t stand and refuse to support. If it was just one party that was tearing itself apart with infighting, I’d say that was an awesome opportunity for the other side, but it’s not just one party. But when you have two opposing parties that are both self-destructing, that’s one hell of an opportunity for, well, anyone else.

The previous elections I can remember went something like this:

“I’m a democrat, I’m voting for Obama.”

Or:

“I’m a republican, I’m voting for McCain/Romney.”

Yes, I’m sure there were exceptions, but not as many as there are right now. Because right now, we have something like this:

Democrats:

“It’s Bernie or bust!”

“If you don’t vote for Hillary you’re a sexist pig!”

“If Bernie doesn’t get the nomination, I’m not voting!”

“If Bernie doesn’t get the nomination, I’m voting for Trump. Screw the DNC!”

Republicans:

“I’m a republican but…Donald Trump…I just can’t.”

“Why doesn’t the republican party understand that we don’t want Trump to be the nominee?”

“I’m a republican but I just can’t stand Trump. All those Bernie-loving liberals say Hillary is really a republican anyway, maybe I’ll just vote for her.”

So, since so many people are miserably unhappy with their political party’s choice of nominee, it seems to me this is a golden opportunity for a third party candidate. Not that I can name any off the top of my head, unless that Nader guy is still around. (Sure, I could Google it, but I’m trying to determine if any of these people have name recognition.) The Green Party? Libertarians? Ross Perot? Kanye West?

I don’t know if any of those people would suddenly have a chance of winning this year. Considering that most of them get about 1 percent of the vote every four years, it’s doubtful. But I will say this: There’s never been a better or more opportune time to run on a third party ticket, especially if that candidate can craft some sort of message that makes him/her sound like the voice of reason in a screwball election year.

Plus, think about this: If Kanye actually did run for president, he’d be so busy he’d have to stop making music for a while!

Target, Toilets, and Tantrums

Tonight I had a funny conversation with my mom when I came home with a bunch of bags from Target.

Mom: Aren’t you going to boycott Target? Don’t you know they let men in the womens’ restrooms now?

Me: Hell no, I’m not boycotting Target. They have stuff there I can buy and resell at a profit. See all these bags? I’m going to make a couple hundred bucks off this shit.

Mom: But what if you have to use the bathroom?

Me: Then I’ll be glad I’m in a Target and not a Walmart, because Target has nice, clean restrooms. You know I was sourcing at Wallyworld one day and had to pee, so I went to the women’s restroom, and I walked into a stall and discovered someone had taken a shit on the floor. ON. THE. FLOOR. Because why shit IN the toilet when you can shit NEXT TO the toilet? Now there’s a horrifying thing to encounter in a public restroom.

Mom: But what if some pervert goes in the next stall and takes pictures of you?

Me: Well, since there are no armed guards at any bathroom I’ve ever been to, I’m pretty sure that was always a possibility. And if it does happen? That’ll be my lucky day! I hope they post that video on the internet and it goes viral, because the second that happens, I’ll be getting my lawsuit on. I’ll sue Target, I’ll sue the pervert, I’ll sure anyone who profited from distributing the video. It’ll be just the sort of big lawsuit I need to finally get back on track for meeting my financial goals of being a millionaire by the time I’m 30.

Mom: Well, if you’re going to Target, can you pick up some toilet paper when they have it on sale?

My mom, unfortunately, is one of many people who mistakenly think perverts spying on women in restrooms, or assaulting women or children in restrooms, is somehow a new problem that will be introduced by people using the restroom for the gender they identify with. But no one polices bathroom entrances. Anyway, if we insist people use the bathroom for the gender listed on their driver’s licenses, what’s to stop a guy from walking into the womens’ restroom and saying, “I don’t want to be here, but I was born female so I have to be.” Sure, you could demand to see an ID, but we all know those can be faked. Either way, if someone wants to enter a restroom to do something criminal, like video voyeurism or assault, they’re probably going to find a way to do it.

If you’re genuinely concerned about violence against women, you should stop calling Target, throwing a tantrum, and vowing to never shop there again (I know a few people who have done this), and start demanding your legislators make tougher laws regarding domestic violence and sexual assault. If you live in Arkansas, you might question why 11,809 registered sex offenders are likely living near you instead of in a jail cell. (Especially if you live in Pulaski county. I don’t know what the hell is going on over there, but there are 1,268 registered sex offenders in that county alone, more than double any other county.) If you’re concerned about child predators, you might also wonder why Justin Harris, a guy who “rehomed” his adopted daughters to a man who sexually abused them, is still serving in the Arkansas House of Representatives. If you live anywhere in this country, you should put some thought into why 97 out every 100 rapists receive no punishment and what we can do about that.

But if you still feel the need to boycott Target over their bathroom policy, go right ahead. More stuff for me.