STARBUCKS. COWARDLY EXPLOITERS OF CHRISTMAS. IT'S JUST GOOD BUSINESS.

Those confused about Jesus, 2015

Dammit! They're taking Christmas out of the commercialism!

Charlie Brown

I just don't understand Christmas, I guess. I like getting presents and sending Christmas cards and decorating trees and all that, but I'm still not happy. I always end up feeling depressed. Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?

Lucy Van Pelt

Look, Charlie, let's face it. We all know that Christmas is a big commercial racket. It's run by a big eastern syndicate, you know.

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The selling of red cups of coffee is not a war on Christmas as many have claimed, wrongly. To claim that Starbucks execs are waging a war on Christmas is quite the stretch. Never have Starbucks sold a cup of coffee with any depiction of the nativity scene, which is what Christmas is all about — a celebration of the birth of Jesus the Nazerine.

Starbucks Vice President of Design and Content Jeffrey Fields equally lied when when stated, “This year we wanted to usher in the holidays with a purity of design that welcomes all of our stories.” 

Now, here is reality. Since 1997, Starbucks execs have tried to exploit Christmas and the Christmas gift buying season as most retailers in the USA have done for at least 100 years. Through their winter cups, execs have tried to trigger memories about winter, likely, in hopes of increasing sales.

Cowardly, though, no one from Starbucks stepped forward to say that Starbucks seeks to increase sales during the Christmas gift shopping season and for that reason, they seek to attract Christian shoppers into their stores in hopes of selling coffee and other merchandise. Of course, when anyone from Starbucks says, "Happy Holidays," what they are saying to you is Merry Christmas. For more on that, check out SAYING HAPPY HOLIDAYS IS ANOTHER WAY OF SAYING MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Likely, Starbucks execs decided to cut costs by having a cheaper red cup made. Perhaps they shaved a fraction of a penny per cup but over millions of cups, the outlay adds up.

That said, Starbucks execs missed a golden opportunity to market themselves by depicting persons on their cups sharing coffee and other Starbucks merchandise in acts of gift giving.

It's only a cup. If you keep loving, kindness and patience in your heart and let those qualities guide your action, not even red cups will bother you. If you give tolerance to those lost at least some might turn toward you and follow you.


 

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SAYING HAPPY HOLIDAYS IS ANOTHER WAY OF SAYING MERRY CHRISTMAS

If you read the title, you read English. The concepts that words label don't change to suit the needs of anyone. However, when enough misuse a word over time, mistakenly, many believe that word has taken on new meaning. One of those words is holiday.

Adoration of the Shepherds by Gerard van Honthorst (1620)

Holiday is the Old English word haligdæg. To Old English speakers the word meant Christian holy day, consecrated day, religious anniversary; day of rest. To Old English speakers holiday had no other meaning.

When Old English speakers wanted to speak of other people and their religion, Old English speakers would say demonym adjectives prefacing the word holiday.

To English speakers, other people and their other religions do not have holidays. They have days of significance to their religion.

Americans came to say the phrase happy holidays as a Christmastime greeting, which the sellers of Camel cigarettes introduced in advertising to Americans in 1937.

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LOONIE TALK! CANADIANS CAN GET RICHER WHEN THEY CAN AFFORD TO BUY LESS OR SO THEY'RE TOLD!

So today, I came across a persuasion-in-propaganda piece, Weaker Loonie will help the Canadian economy, published by Shaw Communications' Global Canada news.

The piece of deceit is typical. In it, the writer suggests fallacy and what should seem as absurdity to all.

Export growth will boost domestic disposable income and the government’s tax take and will enhance the balance of payments so why wouldn’t Canada want a weaker loonie.

Ask Canadians in what time periods their living standard has risen.

A weaker Canadian dollar does not help almost all Canadians whose jobs consists solely in working in Canada. A weaker loonie means Canadians would need to work more hours to pay for the same products they buy now from foreigners.

Only 4% of Canadians work in primary industries — logging, oil, fishing, mining — which account for 58% of Canadian exports. Primary industry accounts for a mere 6.2% of GDP. Yet, the devaluate-the-loonie jokers would have you believe that weaking the buying power of the loonie would be a bonanza for a whopping 93.8% of the Canadian economy!

Three-quarters of all Canadians work in services, mostly servicing other Canadians.

A weaker Canadian dollar only helps those whose firms export and thus are trying to increase sales against other exporters from other countries. Such Canadian exporters hope to increase sales to foreigners to offset what amounts to lower prices owing to a lowered exchange rate.

If what they say were true, that a weaker loonie would make Canadians richer, giving Canadians more income, then why wait? Why the executives of the Bank of Canada, Canadians central bankers, should double the cash in circulation right now. That should cut the prices of exports in half instantly.

Why Canadians could become the richest people on earth, if merely having less buying power were the key to life. Why would anyone believe the fallacy preached by those who who claim you can get richer when your cash loses buying power? Why would anyone believe that anyone can get richer when that one can buy less for the same hours worked?

If merely cheaper export prices were the key, why don't exporters voluntarily cut their prices in half right now? Why try to force a lower exchange rate, which imposes a burden upon all Canadians who are not capitalists of export products?

Exporters want a lowered buying power of Canadian cash because exporters still need to pay Canadians their full wages, the ones who make those export products. Weaking the Loonie lets exporters pay less in buying power to Canadian workers who work in export.

So why the clarion call for less buying power for Canadians with a so-called "weaker" loonie? Some Canadian businessmen can't compete without bending the rules.

If the Chinese are slowing down, needing less natural resources, it means that Canadian bankers and investors have plowed too much cash and credit into primary industries to produce things for export. Their capital structures are wrong.

Those Canadian primary industries need to shrink. Bankers and capitalists who bet on those industries in what now is clearly over-investment, need to take losses.

Too many unprofitable firms involved in primary industries exports need to go out of business. The Canadian state of trade needs to adjust to the new reality.

What Canadians ought to hope is for a strong loonie that lets Canadians buy American know-how (technology) at favorable prices to Canadians so that Canadians can set the stage for new industries and more employment for Canadians.

Greater buyer power is the essence of what it means to be rich. However, believing that having less buying power against foreign goods leads to trade dominance and enriches everyone through undercutting rivals is to suffer from loonie-cy, er, lunacy.

Weakening the buying power of one's cash against foreign cash puts one's exports on fire sale prices. Fire sale prices might lead to more sales, but it does not follow that doing so leads to higher profit. It is profit whether from wages less living expenses or sales less outlays, which makes anyone rich.

Exports are not an end. Exports are the means to an end, paying for imports. The goal is to work for greater buying power. The goal is not to work for less buying power. If the goal were the latter, then why not enslave oneself to a people of another country?

Never in history has a country failed because its people suffered from having too much buying power. However, the list is long of those countries whose people were ruined by having too little buying power.

Oh, Canada. Talk about daffy, loonie lunacy.

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