Americans - not just the rich ones - used to be able to afford to eat steak every now and then. America is becoming a place where most people can't afford to buy a hamburger - or a burrito - at a fast food chain. That's how it was in the movie Demolition Man.

Now, it's how it is - in reality.

It's not so much because the cost of beef has gone up  - or that the buying power of money has gone down - although that hasn't helped. What's made it so expensive to buy beef at a fast-food burger joint in states like California is the cost of paying people to make them.

Gavin Newsom - the Leftist (there are no "Democrats" anymore) governor of California - recently signed into law a mandatory minimum wage of $20-per-hour for flipping burgers, making tacos, or ringing up customers at fast-food restaurants such as McDonald's and Chipotle.

The result is that regular people increasingly can't afford to eat at McDonald's, Chipotle, or Taco Bell anymore.

Interestingly, Newsom, who is rich enough to eat prime rib for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day, exempted restaurants that make and sell their own bread. This just coincidentally includes Panera restaurants, which Newsom has an interest in protecting from the business-killing policy he signed into law.

According to the Orange County Register, "Panera has 24 locations in California, all owned by Gregg Flynn, Newsom's friend and billionaire campaign donor. Newsom denies carving out the exception to help his friend, despite a Bloomberg article reporting that he and Flynn have a long business relationship, with Flynn apparently bragging to colleagues that he is on a texting basis with the governor."

So Newsom is aware there's a problem when the cost of labor exceeds its value.

Leftists get upset when such evaluations are pointed out. But the market is indifferent to how Leftists feel about how much a fast-food worker's labor is worth. They insist that fast-food workers - who used to be generally teenagers working part-time after school and on weekends - be paid as if these entry-level/first-time jobs were careers rather than learning experiences. Fast-food jobs used to be precisely that. A first-time job you accepted in order to learn how to show up on time, meet someone else's expectations, take pride in your efforts, and hopefully, the value of the money earned. Few, if any, saw a job at McDonald's as a career - unless they wanted to move up to being an assistant manager, then a manager, and (one day) owning their own franchise.

In which case, the minimum wage was a temporary/entry-level wage.

Now that it costs so much to hire entry-level workers, it's no longer worth it to the restaurants to hire them. Despite the initial costs, automation is a far more cost-effective alternative. (McDonald's isn't the only fast-food chain working on automating entry-level/first-time jobs.) Because a Quick Service restaurant doesn't have to pay a computer an hourly wage to take your order or a machine to prepare your burger, they can reduce their overhead costs (which does affect the product's pricing). Automating more is the only way to keep fast-food burgers - and burritos - available at fast-food (rather than steak) prices.

And to keep fast-food restaurants from being pushed out of business.

But there is another cost: the human cost. This is the lost jobs of the people who do them (or did them). It's a hidden cost to those not directly affected by it but no less expensive to those who are. High school kids and other young people no longer get the opportunity to earn money after school and on weekends or to learn how to show up on time, deal with customers, and be good workers. Many of them remain dependent on their parents for money—and remain as children well into adulthood.

Because they never learned how to grow up.

The California Business and Industrial Alliance (CABIA) says "10,000 jobs have been cut across fast food restaurants" since Newsom signed the $20 mandatory minimum wage bill into law last year. Southern California Pizza Co., which owns multiple Pizza Hut stores, announced layoffs of around 841 delivery drivers across the state. Another restaurant chain - Rubio's Coast Grill - recently announced it would be closing 48 of its restaurants across the state.  

More such layoffs are all but certain because a $20 hourly wage is not sustainable - to use a word beloved by the Left. To understand why it isn't, ask why not raise the minimum wage to $100 per hour. That would be a "living wage" - another favorite term of the Left. The problem, of course, is that few businesses could afford to pay it - so it might as well be no wage at all. 

The same applies to the $20 mandatory minimum. It's only paid if the business can afford to pay it and is making—rather than losing—money. 

Leftists like Newsome can afford to be seen as "caring" for the people they drive out of work, who can't afford to eat a beef burrito, taco, or burger at a fast food joint that can't afford to pay staff to make and serve them. 

CABIA president and founder Tom Manzo is right on the money when he says, "Governments, unlike private businesses, have options when they run out of money." By this, he means that governments can take as much money as they like out of taxpayers' pockets.

Leaving those taxpayers with even less money for fast-food burgers or burritos.

All the more reason to buy beef - at affordable prices - by not buying it at the drive-thru. It's not going to do much for the people who've lost their jobs to the $20 minimum wage. But it's a way to avoid paying $20 for a beef burrito, taco, or burger. 

   We often discuss government efforts to control the behavior of the governed. We talk about censorship of the media (including social media and platforms like Amazon) to control the information available. We speak about lawfare weaponizing the judicial system against those who believe differently than the political agenda of the regime in charge. But we often overlook what is perhaps the most insidious form of crowd control, "the Nudge."

   I first started talking about the psychological attempt to control people's behavior back in August of 2013 when the Obama White House accidentally publicly admitted to forming a "Nudge Squad" when Maya Shankar, a White House senior adviser on social and behavioral sciences at the time, sent out recruitment e-mails to fill positions on their "Behavioral Insights Team." The goal of the group being to subtly influence people's behavior and "experiment" with various techniques to "tweak" behavior so the general public will do the things that the powers-that-be determine to be acceptable. (And just as an FYI, the group was modeled on a similar nudge group in the U.K. that was already in operation. Most developed nations now have publicly acknowledged Behavioral Insights Teams.)

   The World Economic Forum is an organization that is no stranger to controversy. The WEF has a political slant toward globalism with zero concern for individual liberty. This is why so many conservatives take issue with many of their "recommendations," and so many so-called progressives stand ready to champion their policy agendas. Many on the left, including legacy media, are ever-prepared to defend the WEF by calling anyone who points out the explicit threats to freedom that the WEF pushes... (wait for it) a conspiracy theorist. The WEF started an initiative named The Great Reset; Klaus Schwab writes books titled The Fourth Industrial Revolution, COVID-19: The Great Reset, The Great Narrative (The Great Reset), and Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy that Works for Progress, People and Planet, each pushing the ideas of changing (using technological advancements and any excuses that present themselves) all of the economic systems that allow for class mobility and recognize individual human rights; and it is the people who point out the stated goals of the global elites (in the own words) who are "spreading disinformation" and engaging in trafficking of conspiracy theories. 

   The WEF has for some time been promoting the "man-caused" climate change narrative and, as an off-chute of that narrative, made claims that how we eat in the world's developed nations "must" change. One of the "recommended" changes is how we consume protein. They say that cattle ranching is especially hazardous to our environment due to the land and water requirements and the expelling of methane gas from the cattle. But don't worry, they have the solution to your protein needs after they put an end (that is one of their stated goals) to farmers raising animals for meat... bugs. 

   The WEF, along with other globalist organizations, has talked about substituting insects for more traditional meat sources for some time now, but they really caught the attention of a lot of people in July of 2021 when they published an article titled Why we need to give insects the role they deserve in our food systems, on their own website. They estimated worldwide population growth by 2050 and insisted that insect farming as a food source for people and animals is "environmentally friendly." Since the time "the nudge" has been on.

   The effort has been a two-pronged approach, with energy being spent trying to convince the consumer and various forms of pressure (often in the form of ESG scoring and "cancel campaigns") on food suppliers and manufacturers. Recently, the effort to change the manufacturing practices of food companies to include insects as ingredients has been stepped up via media like magazines and newsletters (both physical and digital) directed at the chief officers of food companies and quality and safety control officers. The idea being that if the companies start using insects, the end consumer only has two choices; eat the product or don't. And if enough food companies use insects, the choice for many becomes to eat or starve. By successfully nudging those who bring food to market, they no longer need to nudge the public; you are rich enough to go around the typical supply chain channels or settle for what's available.

   Much of the focus is on trying to convince manufacturers that the public will see insects as "normal food" soon, so the current customer's reluctance to consume insect protein will be overcome by introducing more products featuring those proteins. Food companies are also being told that other organizations (Universities, behavioral scientists, NGOs, and governmental "Behavioral Insights Teams" in Europe and North America) are working on nudging the consumers' attitudes toward insects as a food source. The overall message is to start making small changes now that most consumers won't notice, and before long, insect proteins will be more widely accepted than plant-based proteins. On that day, food companies can go full "bug burgers," save tons of money, and they will have helped the WEF save the world. (At least, that's what the WEF wants everyone to believe.)

   Look, insects are a significant part of the diets of large numbers of people around the world. But that is primarily due to a lack of options. If you want to eat bugs and worms, enjoy them as long as you follow safety standards. If you are a food company that wants to accommodate that niche market, then figure out how to make a profit and go for it. Just don't let the WEF, or anyone else, "nudge" you into it. As for me, a scorpion will never replace a nice thick steak. But you do you.

   The real issue here isn't what you eat or climate change; it's control. The WEF has told us that we will own nothing and that we will like it. (What they meant is "like it or not.") They are the elites, and we are just using up their resources. We must stand for individual liberty and against the "Tyranny of the Minority" (HT to Ed Brodow for using his phrasing but not the way he used it.) that the global elites represent.

   P.S. If you were to read Gregory Wrightstone's (Executive Director of the CO2 Coalition) books Inconvenient Facts: The Science That Al Gore Doesn't Want You to Know and A Very Convenient Warming: How modest warming and more CO2 are benefiting humanity, you might not be as easily nudged when they try to scare you with climate change.