When acknowledged, love authorizes freedom: and freedom begets freedom. Just a thought, with the plastic bag ban, in California, how will people on welfare pay for their bags, food stamps only pays for uncooked food items. Also, now that plastic bags will be banned, in California, it will be much harder to spot shoplifters, and the District Attorney’s office will not prosecute theft, unless it is over $950. Furthermore, a lot of people who manufacture plastic bags will not be without jobs, and more trees will be cut down to make paper bags. Stores who have participated in the plastic bag ban have seen sales decrease by -3.3 percent, and some stores were forced to terminate staff, as a result, some reducing staff by up to 10 percent. Also, 48 percent of the stores that purchased reusable bags lost money. Therefore, 29 percent of stores surveyed stopped supplying reusable bags, and 36 percent raised prices on reusable bags. However, most stores also lost money on paper bags. Paper bags are not as strong and  when they get wet, they rip apart and your food will fall on the ground. Some consumers are double bagging and triple bagging them, which leads to more waste in the landfills. Plastic bags also generate 68 percent less greenhouse waste than paper bags, and plastic bags consume 71 percent less energy, during production.

And get this, a reusable baby must be used 104 times for it to be considered less polluting than plastic bags, and not only that many reusable bags are dirt from meat juices or left over food particles and will attract bacteria, pests, and viruses. Now this is alarming, only 3 percent of shoppers with reusable bags wash them, but in 99 percent of the bags tested, there were high levels of bacteria. So people will start bring bags of germs and bugs into the supermarket, which will impact the quality of life for us all and increase the price off food to fight the germs and bugs, and those germs and bugs can make you sick and may find their way home with you. Sacramento, California and other cities have had a bed bug problem in the past, and the use of reusable bags could cause it to resurface.  And think about it, people will keep these reusable bags in trucks on their cars with the spare tire and kids soccer shoes, then take them into the store and purchase food. There are currently Ebola scares going on, enterovirus 68 and the norovirus are surfacing—they are all deadly and can be transported by your shopping bags. The paper bag ban will also cost the state of California $4 Million a year to enforce, and it was discovered that people with food stamps will get free bags, which is not fair to others who are struggling to put food on the table and do not qualify for government assistance, or are too proud.

And food for thought, imagine a young woman or man, takes a reusable bag to a store, buys hair products, then goes home and take the bag directly in the bathroom, sets in on the toilet, removes the hair products, throws the bag onto the floor, then puts it back in his or her car to be used later, who knows what kind of germs are in that bag. Look, the bottom line here is safety, we do not want the grocery store to turn into a petri dish of mold, germs and critters. Governor Jerry Brown of California is very misguided, and I know you see these sad pictures of live animals trapped in plastic bags, but chances are, by the time a photographer saw this animal, it would probably be dead, unless they staged the photo or it was photoshop. All this plastic bag ban does is raise taxes (fees) and generate more money for the State of California. Now, if plastic bags are not being recycled, that is a problem to address with the citizens and recycling plants. Whatever happened to public service announcements, now all we are increase fees and takes and lower wages.

Also, there will be more people taking the option to carry liquor bottles in public and what kind of message is that sending to children, the bags hide the liquor, but people are not going to pay more for them. In brighter news, the United States of America added 248,000 jobs in September, and national unemployment drops to 5.9 percent. The new careers are in the following industries: professional and business saw an increase of 81,000 positions, retail grew by 35,000 jobs, healthcare saw a moderate increase of 23,000 occupations, Internet and technology is cooling off with only 12,000 new positions (but still a thriving industry), mining grew by 9,000 workers, hospitality added 20,000 new positions, and construction is resurging with an increase of 16,000 jobs. The average wage, per hour, is $24.53, little changed in September of 2014, reported by Rebecca Jarvis. Hopefully you got one of those new positions, and your future is looking bright! Liberty is sweeter when founded securely on the law.