Give Them What They Want And Dr. Obdrama

On a cab ride into Soho, we had a Punjab taxi driver who decided it was a good idea to talk politics. Among many things, he said something that really caught my ear about the political direction of the USA. "Communism is already here" was what he said. Specifically, he was talking about the socialistic policies that are found in Canada. "It's what the people want."

Right then and there I knew, for those of us on the the skeptical side of government welfare, we were fucking screwed. As we got out and headed into Dean & Deluca's (after hitting Trader Joe's), I looked at my wife and nodded, "we're fucking screwed."

She had no clue what I was talking about only concerned with picking up a jar of curry for my sister.

Giving what the people want is key here. Why is it when we expand the welfare state it's seen as positive but when companies use resources to study 'what people want' it's seen as preying on hapless consumers?

If anything, seems to me, companies spend an incredible amount of time and energy perfecting the art of what consumers want. Left-wingers seem to think it's companies that force demand when in fact it's the other way around. Always was, always will be. In the end no one forces anyone to buy anything. The most powerful tool in its arsenal is the power of persuasion. That's it.

The government doesn't need to figure out what people want. It just coerces through fines, taxes and jail time. People vote, sure, but don't forget, when it comes to voting the winners DON'T speak for millions. People who are ignorant of small-business needs, for example, out number entrepreneurs and so the laws or policies will generally move in that direction.

Private takes on the needs of consumers eliminates that. It's a much more accurate guage.

Yeah, 'capitalism killed Mars. Yeah, yeah.

What a douche he was.

***


Speaking of small business. Was listening to Fran Tarkenton's radio show. A perk of having moved to Sirius radio. Best thing we've done. Such a big world out there.

It's so nice to have a show that discusses like adults the needs of small business. Absent was all the doom and gloom, childish 9/hr stupidity that can only come out of a mouth of a politician who is clueless and indifferent to small business.

President Obama has been most disappointing on this front. What part of 'shut up and let business build confidence in order to hire' doesn't he get? He doesn't have to say anything anymore. He spent four years setting an anti-business narrative. People know where he stands. Now he can step aside and let the economy actually do what it does best, fix itself without intervention.

He'll look like a hero.

Rather, he's into all this cynical game laced with hyperbole and dramatic rhetoric with the GOP on sequestration.

***

Mentioned we signed on to Sirius. Adam Corolla, Jay Thomas, all the ESPN channels, Radio Disney etc. - it's like coming out of a drab forest and into a world filled with wonderful gnomes and dragons dancing and singing by a waterfall.

Were listening to Howard Stern's Toronto Conference from 1997 when he came into Canada.

Holy crap, I know Canada's reaction to Stern was stupid and immature, but man, I didn't realize it was that bad. It was embarrassing the questions. That's when I realized to how Montrealers view Plattsburgh, that's probably the view Americans have of Canada. The nice, quaint, parochial country that should be a state - like Minnesota.

No kidding.

We just sat there face palming the whole time. We could picture the journalists in their dunce hats, bucked-teeth while holding hockey sticks as they stood to ask Stern questions.

The contrast was stark.

Stern absolutely obliterated and schooled our "journalists" on how things work in art, business, radio and basically all things related to freedom of expression and speech. Stupid former PQ boob Serge Menard threatening to sue Stern for 'hate-mongering.' Fucking idiots. If anything, someone should sue the effen PQ. They do more to suppress civil rights and incite 'hate-mongering' through language laws, than anything Stern could ever do.

A god damn Disc Jockey.

You know things are bad when Stern is a voice of intellectual reason.

Alas, after complaints and censorship took root (something the CRTC like its crappy brethren the FCC in the USA, is all too happy to engage in), Stern was taken off the air in 1998 in Montreal and 2001 in Toronto despite strong ratings that were likely to go up. Pathetic.

In the end, he was right. It was the competition the Canadian market was most afraid of. He was going to eat up all the advertising coin.

But we Canadians are so in love with ourselves thinking to be so much more civilized and sophisticated, we can't see beyond the fact we're asshole-gazers.

And the quality of our radio entertainment reflects that.

The truth is the Howard Stern's and Don Cherry's of this world give and understand more about what the people want than any nanny-stater, paternalistic, complaining dweeb could ever do. Too often journalists are on the wrong side of that coin.

Yet, all they have to do is, you know, CHANGE THE FUCKING CHANNEL.