More Greedy M.F.-ers

Read this.  Just read it.  Go on, I'll wait.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is someone double dipping, being greedy and playing politics all at the same time.

How is this double dipping?  He's planning to charge his customers a 5% surcharge on the price of their meals to cover the "increased costs of ObamaCare".  I'd love to see a breakdown of his revenues and expenses, I'd be willing to bet 5% is WAY more than the increased costs imposed by ObamaCare.  Just look at the recent kerfuffle with Papa John's saying it's going to cost just under 15 cents per pizza to cover the additional costs, and unless Papa John's is charging just $3 per pie (which I highly doubt), that's FAR less than 5%.  Turns out it's less than 1%, and already according to the math people have done represents about twice the increase Papa John's actually needs to cover the additional costs.

So, Mr. Metz is now going to increase his profit margins significantly, using some small part of that increase to cover increased costs of ObamaCare and pocketing the rest.

And then... he plans to sit his employees down and tell them that he's cutting their hours back to under 30, also because of ObamaCare additional costs.  This means that for a significant number of his employees, he will no longer be paying ANY health benefits.  Which represents not merely an offset of the existing costs of ObamaCare, but an actual savings to him over and above that offsetting...

Which means the question "how is this greedy" is also answered.  He stands to save money by shafting his employees, and then shafting his customers by charging them a surcharge for an increased level of costs he's not actually incurring.  This is simple marketing, he's BLAMING ObamaCare, but that's blaming a relatively small increase in his costs to justify much larger savings and higher prices.

How is this playing politics?  Because he's hoping to blame the whole thing on ObamaCare.  *HE* is a greedy little pig, taking the opportunity to rake in additional profits on the backs of his employees AND his customers and foisting all of the blame off on ObamaCare, hoping not merely to defer the blame off of himself for his increased profits, but to actually make ObamaCare unpopular with his employees (who will see their having been shafted in hours and benefits as the result of that program) and his customers (who will see their increased cost as directly the result of that program).

It's also playing politics to do it the way his is doing it.  At least Papa John's said they could do it by just raising the cost of the pizza.  I don't know how often you go out to eat, but lately restaurants have been upping their prices a lot.  There have been some food shortages, there has been a higher transportation cost for the food due to higher gas prices, there have been lots of reasons, but the end result is that most places I go out to eat cost 10-15% more than they did even just a year or two ago.  Another 1% increase wouldn't even be noticed, but instead of just increasing prices as a cost of doing business, like with every other increase, THIS one he decides to put a face on.

Does he charge a "fuel surcharge" for the increased cost of getting his supplies?  Or a "food shortage" surcharge for the increased price of food due to poor harvests of one crop or another?  No, that's just the cost of doing business, you do not get an itemized bill for the cost of your meal.

So, to sum up, this is a man finding two different ways to well more than offset his additional costs, either one of which would likely stand to make him HIGHER profits, now implementing BOTH and thus double dipping, increasing his profits by screwing over both his employees and his customers, and trying to make them all hate ObamaCare for that screwing, rather than the actual greedy pig, which is he himself.