Thursday, June 25, 2009

A Moral Dilemma

There I am at Jack in the Box after class. It's some time after 10:00 pm. I'm eating my chicken sandwich minding my own business when three people come in to buy food. A woman, a man and a boy. The boy was probably about ten years old or so.

I was the only non-employee in the restaurant when they came in, so I could hear them as they ordered their food. The boy ordered a hamburger deluxe, a shake and a lemonade. The woman, whom I assume was his mother, told him he could have one drink or the other, but not both. He took the shake and a cup of water. The adults ordered their food as well.

A few minutes later when their food arrived, the man said, "Watch this." and walked away from the table. He went into the lavatory, and came back out moments later. At this point I see that he has the boy's, now empty, water cup. He proceeds to got to to the soda machine and serve a cup of lemonade. He then came back to the table, said "Here you go." and handed the cup to the boy.

There is the moral quandary. What is the correct response to this situation? Confront the man for theft? Tell the manager? Ignore the situation? Or something else entirely? What do you think? What what you have done, and why?

Thankfully I did not have to make a decision because the woman complained to the man, 'He can't have all that sugar. A shake and lemonade is too much!' The boy chimed in that he was fine with water. The man said he thought the boy/woman was just being cheap and he wanted to make the boy happy. He then apologized to the boy, dumped the lemonade in the lavatory and refilled the cup with water.

I finished my sandwich and started the drive home.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

The Dollar

President Truman was once known for using the phrase, "The buck stops here." He meant it in a positive light; no more passing the buck, no more shifting of responsibility, etc.

The way the Obama Administration is headed, it looks like he will be able to use the phrase in a literal sense:

Inflation just from the years 2000 to 2008 was between 22% and 45% depending on how it's calculated. (link) And that was before...

Chairman Bernanke said the Fed is funding bailouts using a process “more akin to printing money than it is borrowing.” (link) Which is leading to...

Russia to push for new "World Currency" (link )