Six months ago, our local CVS drugstore had a manager, a handful of employees answering customers’ questions, checking them out at the cash register, stocking shelves, etc.

Last month, I noticed that most of these employees were gone, and the former manager was now stocking shelves. I also noted long lines of customers waiting for an automated checkout machine to become available.

Last week, I saw the former manager working at a nearby grocery store.

Also, the pharmacy is now closed for an hour for lunch.  When I asked about this, I was asked, “Don’t you think we employees deserve to eat lunch?” I responded, “Of course I do. But can’t CVS afford to staff the pharmacy so customers are not inconvenienced?”

This is certainly not a unique–or even rare–occurrence; it seem that CVS is like most large corporations, driven by cost-cutting, while abusing their employees and their customers.

Corporate Greed from the Consumer’s Perspective

Barack Obama read the actual GOP agenda to a roaring Atlanta crowd Wednesday: a $1 trillion tax cut for millionaires and billionaires, paid for with higher health care costs and Medicaid cuts. Plus a war in Iran that everyone warned would push prices up. “(Democrats will) ban hamburgers and make everybody eat tofu,” he joked.

This is certainly not the only baseless assertion one hears today. I love this one: Democrats will bring you the freedom of North Korea and the affluence of Cuba.  I suppose this is what happens in political rhetoric, especially when it’s addressed to our country’s least educated people.

In actual fact, Democrats, if empowered to do so, will bring you the affluence, healthcare, and education level of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, New Zealand, Iceland, Costa Rica, and the rest of the world’s social democracies.

Honesty in Politics Is Rare

The meme here makes sense–until you realize that the most productive, happiest people on Earth live in Scandinavia and the other social democracies scattered around the globe.

Providing everyone with the opportunity to succeed seems to work quite well in the real world.

Fallacies Re: Social Democracies