It is often said that if you're in debt -- you have a mortgage, a car payment, credit card balances, etc. -- you're obligated to go to work and do your thing and thus can be coerced into taking The Jab because the alternative is that you live on the street.
They're wrong.
Virtually everyone has leisure and entertainment funds. I have two tickets to a Covid-rescheduled concert in November. It's in Illinois. I have a hotel reservation. The State put back in place an indoor tard-rag requirement. If they don't drop it before the cancel deadline for the hotel I'm not going. I will deprive the State of Illinois, the City of St. Charles and The Arcada Theatre my business. If The Arcada does not drop their requirement in enough time for me to decide and refuses to refund my money in full then I will never set foot in their business again. They changed the terms after the tickets were sold and in any sane world that makes the contract void; I don't give a crap what their excuse is. My contract is with Ron and The Arcada, not the corpulent ******* that infests Springfield. They might be able to rook me out of the money I spent on the tickets (that amount of money is not worth suing him over) but I used to show up there at least once, sometimes twice or more a year and sprinkle money all over the local economy; between hotel, food, booze, screwing around and of course the tickets such a trip usually resulted in somewhere around $1,000 - $2,000 being left in the local community. THAT NOW GOES TO ZERO; IF RON ONESTI THINKS I WILL PLAY SHEEP TO SPEND MONEY WITH HIM HE'S GOT A HEAD FULL OF ROCKS AND IF HE KEEPS MY TICKET MONEY IT WILL BE THE LAST OF IT HE, OR ANY FIRM HE'S INVOLVED WITH, ALONG WITH THE ENTIRE LOCAL ECONOMY THERE, EVER SEES.
Likewise every winter prior to Covid I went out to Wolf Creek in Colorado to ski after a friend of mine told me about the place. I especially like the little espresso shack at the top; the staff are friendly and the coffee very drinkable, never mind containing both caffeine and warmth. Then Covid came. Last year I refused to go because I will not wear a mask all over the place, including outdoors. This year they've said "indoors only" and subject to change "upon the whim of whoever they decide to listen to" but again, I will not comply. Between hotel, lift tickets, food, local craft beer and other visits to establishments, which sometimes results in my spending a few extra hundred bucks because I decide (for example) I would like new ski boots that too is a couple thousand dollars worth of money sprinkled around that local economy. THAT NOW GOES TO ZERO AND THE ENITRE LOCAL AREA CAN BLOW ME. I will find a place to ski that does not require same and sprinkle the money there instead.
Every year my daughter and I traveled to Northern Michigan around the Mackinaw City area -- and visited the island. We always dropped a nice chunk of money there, sprinkling it around on various things. The Keyhole bar and grill was one of my favorite places, in fact. It has been an annual tradition dating back to when she was a child. Guess what? Last two years, nope -- I will not wear a ****ing tardrag. If you want my money you will cut that **** out. Until you do **** off and may you all go bankrupt.
I am a Platinum Royal Caribbean "Crown and Anchor" member. That means I have a ****-ton of cruises I (and my daughter) have taken. They now have a vaccine mandate. **** that company and every single employee up the ass with a rusty chainsaw; I have had Covid-19, I'm recovered, I have antibodies and I will not take the ****ing shot to spend thousands of dollars on those or any other cruise ship. Ever.
There are many other examples. There are local establishments in the area here that permanently lost my business over this sort of bull****. I have an extremely long memory and, when it comes business, can be very spiteful. My usual rule is three strikes and you're out but when it comes to Covid-related bull**** the first offense where I am accosted or denied entry is a pop fly to the infield; you're done.
You and your family almost-certainly sprinkle money around in the same way. But do not forget, folks, that it works the other way too when it comes to employment and in fact your leverage is even larger there than it is with discretionary spending. In fact you are ten times or more as effective as The Money God, in all probability, through your employment.
You see, every employee must contribute (on an average basis, of course) more to the firm than they cost. That is, profit is revenue minus expenses and therefore what you cause to come in as revenue, directly or indirectly, must always be greater than what you cost or the firm eventually goes under. This is true for every single private enterprise everywhere, always. Oh sure, there are people who are "dead weight" and in fact contribute nothing (or even have negative value!) but if you're not one of those then your contributed value is even higher than you'd otherwise think because you have to make up for the dead wood!
If you refuse then you may think that hurts you more than them, but you're wrong. It always hurts them more unless you should have been fired months or years ago as being worthless to the function of the enterprise. Assuming you're not worthless guess what: Your refusal and them firing you hurts them more than you! It has to because the common law of business balance prohibits getting something for nothing.
If you organize with others and all tell them to **** off then the multiplication factor gets to be bankruptcy-inducing very quickly because in most firms 10 or 20% of the people -- the smartest ones -- produce half or more of the revenue. Sometimes much more. If any material percentage of those people say "screw off!" -- even as few as 5 or 10% -- the company will be mortally wounded.
If you're not levered up to your nuts then its even better because in that case you are perfectly happy to see an economic dislocation and in fact if your employer blows up you might be able to profit from their demise. You'd think that's nuts, but you'd be wrong. In the 1990s I took advantage of a minor dislocation in the office market in downtown Chicago and got 8,300 sq/ft of office space (1/3rd of the 26th floor, more or less, in 2 Prudential) for $8/foot. That was an utterly insane discount to what Class A space was going for at the time. I could do it because I could write a check for $50 large and drop it on the table at the leasing office in the building as an advance payment to demonstrate that I wasn't full of crap and would be able to meet the lease's financial obligations.
In a serious economic dislocation the deals are even better than that and it is not uncommon to get things for a nickel or even a penny on the dollar. But you have to have cash as during such an event as nobody is going to loan you anything. The old saying "money talks, bull**** walks" is never more-true than during an economic dislocation, whether its local to one company, regional to where you live or national in scope.
No, you won't get rich quick doing that but the odds of you going bankrupt doing that are nearly zero. Contrast this with the other alternative; you take on leverage and, if you're right you make a hell of a lot of money; maybe more or even wildly more than if you do it my way. But: If something goes wrong your "empire" is a smoking hole in the ground and someone like me comes in and gets the assets for a nickel on the dollar.
People think you can't do this if you're the ordinary Joe. Of course you can; it may be at smaller scale but at a return of 20:1 or even more do you care? No. Turning $10 large into $200,000 isn't exactly dog****, is it? Further, when it comes to discretionary spending you are always The Money God and unless you're worthless to your employer it's doubly true there as well.
You are, in fact, The Money God.
START ACTING LIKE IT AND TELL THESE MANDATE HAPPY *******S TO SHOVE IT UP THEIR BUTTS.
From experience: Watching fools and screaming, whining jackasses go bankrupt is very enjoyable and can be the most profitable thing you do in your life at the idiot's expense provided you're prepared to jump on the opportunity.
