Another Saipan Bozo - the Sweatshop Lobbyist

I must say I agree with Richard Pierce’s assessment of the Marianas Variety, which is definitely losing credibility -- especially among the rich and powerful, the elected and connected, and those whose opinions are for hire. These days I seldom trust newspapers. I only believe reliable truth tellers like politicians, corporate CEOs, public relations professionals, people selling things on late night television and those hundreds of people who email me every day about a new mortgage or all those college aged vixens eager to meet me. This paper has never noted that each garment factory voluntarily includes complimentary drinking water and all the light each worker can use. This paper constantly wants to criticize the garment factories for very old problems, and it never publishes the good news about the garment factories, such as the fact that they are looking out for their workers. Most people probably do not know that the airlines only allow fifty pounds of luggage without penalty, so when several factories closed back before the internet, ipods and color TV in 2005, the factory owners didn’t burden their workers with the money they were owed. Garment workers routinely use heavy paper currency, so by the owners going back to Korea or elsewhere without paying workers, that worker was in no danger of going over the luggage weight limit when they went back to China. Did this paper ever note this thoughtfulness? This paper constantly uses an out of date Interior Department study that indicates the factories cost the local government more than it provides in tax revenue. It seldom mentions the more respected report that notes: “If the garment industry leaves the CNMI for whatever reason in the next few years, it could take with it one-half the jobs in the CNMI including one-third of jobs of permanent residents.” What will all you communist, pro-Bin Laden, cut and run, child molester, atheist, liberal media types say if all those permanent residents lose their $3.05 per hour jobs and can no longer put noodle on their plate or buy grease for their bicycle chain. This paper should realize that the garment factories are broke. Do you know how much it has cost the garment factory owners to buy almost the entire government of a place with as many politicians as the CNMI?
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I was having a drink the other night when one of my “liberal” friends started to argue with me about my support for Richard Pierce, the garment industry and all things Republican. This flaming lefty was trying to say things like, “Don’t you think a guy like Pierce has a hard time looking at himself in the mirror after dedicating his life to keeping rich people rich and poor people poor.” I was like, hold on, you are worse than those people at the Variety. Do you know anything about business? Do you still play golf? Pierce is conducting business the way business is supposed to be conducted -- just like he explained in the Variety the other day. I told him that when the CNMI government took tax money from people making $3.05 per hour to hire lobbyists like Jack Abramoff to make sure these same people never make more than $3.05, that this is how it works in the real world. Do you expect private industry to pay lobbyists out of their own pocket to rig the system – a system that is totally on the level? I even provided a hypothetical on how honest the system is: Do you think a big oil company CEO could become vice president of the United States with less votes than the other guy, help start an unprovoked war against an oil rich country by saying that country had nuclear weapons and might cause Armageddon, all so energy companies could see record profits as gas went to nearly $4 per gallon and power rates doubled? That would never happen I told him. My socialist friend, in his best Swedish accent, tried to argue that the money spent on garment lobbyists should have gone to PSS for more books and more teachers. I corrected him and reminded him that all PSS needed was prayer in the schools and a prominently posted copy of the Ten Commandments, not money. This persistent, liberal, troublemaker then said it was ridiculous for a garment industry mouthpiece like Pierce to be the adviser to the governor on things like the controversial $3.05 minimum wage. This is when I really got upset and told him that unless the governor could get George Bush to give up the presidency to become the chief adviser on grammar and Greek philosophy, I could not imagine a person being more qualified and appropriate for a job than Pierce is on wages. I then dutifully explained that the real problem in the CNMI isn’t the number of people working for $3.05 per hour, but all the homosexuality here and in the world. If all those gay people succeed in converting the straight people to the gay agenda, what will happen to the CNMI strip clubs? The newfound disinterest in boobs, legs and butts would rival the JAL pullout and the WTO tariff rule changes as economic death knells for the CNMI. I started to think more of the economic crisis this island is in, and I came up with a solution. We should hire Pierce to convince the rest of the island to go along with this idea I heard of setting the maximum wage at $3.05 for everyone – except the elected or the immediate relatives of an elected person. A similar exception should go to garment factory owners and their relatives. A $3.05 maximum wage is how we can save this island, and naturally there should be a 10 percent cut from $3.05. The whole three meals a day thing is outmoded pre-9/11 thinking.