Faith Re-soled

I got my dress shoes polished and re-soled at the local cobbler's bench in preparation for the company party this weekend.

The small business is run by a Korean family who frequently have their kids and their dog puttering around the store during business hours -- something that doesn't bother me in the slightest, but actually endears them to me.

I glanced over at the ornaments on the side wall behind the counter and I asked the man:

"Do you go to St. Paul Chung?".

He looked surprised and said, "Yes; how did you know?".

I replied, "Only Catholics have crucifixes on the wall. I'm Catholic and I pass by it every week; I always make a point of patronizing Catholic businesses where possible."

He smiled and told the woman behind the counter, "Take $5 off his order."

Some days it pays to advertise.

It's All About The Benjamins

I hate it when they use our capitalism against us.

By they, I mean the re-architects of the social order. The Universal Health Care Squad is proposing to take our money and create yet another failed entitlement program in the name of "helping" the poor.

The rhetoric has morphed in recent weeks with proponents saying that the "public option" will be much less than originally envisaged and that it will be only an option, etc., etc.

But Hugh Hewitt at the Washington Examiner has got it exactly right. If the government creates a "public option" -- however small -- the big businesses will end up cramming it down our throats at the first opportunity.

[Examiner] "If the government option/public plan" costs $300 per employee per month and private-sector insurance costs $350 per employee per month, the choice to push their work force into the waiting arms of President Obama's new bureaucracy will make itself."

"They will have to "do the math" if the "government option/public plan" makes it into law ... [because] they owe shareholders and investors an objective assessment of what will improve their bottom lines."

"What [employer] will hesitate to fix and shift the cost of health care for their staffs to the federal government?"

The thing I like least about publicly traded companies with "obligations" to the shareholders to maximize their monies is that it rarely leads to doing the right thing and almost always leads to doing the most profitable thing.

Because after all, it's all about the Benjamins.

Fast Food, Enduring Principles

I ate lunch today; most people in this country did. But it's always nice when you can eat a decent meal and feel good about who's getting the money. Ok, it's only $6 but if you sell enough of them it's more like $2.64 billion.

I'm talking about Chick-fil-A and its founder S. Truett Cathy.

Armed with a keen business sense, a work ethic forged during the Depression, and a personal and business philosophy based on biblical principles, Truett Cathy took a tiny Atlanta diner, originally called the Dwarf Grill, and transformed it into Chick-fil-A, the nation’s second largest quick-service chicken restaurant chain with more than $2.64 billion in sales in 2007 and currently more than 1,380 locations. His tremendous business success allowed Truett to pursue other passions – most notably his interest in the development of young people.

I've always noticed that Chick-fil-A is not open on Sunday. Being a day of rest and all, it's almost a dead giveaway that you're dealing with a Christian. (In the same way, Domino's Pizza was founded by a Catholic.) Doubtless there are others.

Imagine if we all carried our convictions to the full in the public arena. It just gives me a reason to smile -- anyone for a chicken sandwich?