political rant
Why does it bother us when companies spend bailout money?
I was adamantly opposed to the original wall street bailout now known as the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program), which gave away around 800 Billion dollars. I was disgusted by the whole concept. I even went so far as to send out a massive amount of emails begging people to call their representatives and senators. And we were tremendously successful in showing our disgust and distaste. Of course our representatives didn’t listen to us because they knew we wouldn’t follow through with our threats and we promptly re-elected the clowns who shamefully gave away our money.
So now that these banks are given a fresh infusion of capital what do they do with it?
They spend it.
They spend it on corporate jets.
They spend it on corporate jaunts where they arrive on corporate jets.
They spend it on the naming rights of baseball stadiums where they can sit in luxury sky boxes.
They spend it on redecorating their offices.
They spend it on salaries for top executives.
And we have a problem with this because???
Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican in the Senate Banking Committee tells us why we have a problem…
“But where you’ve got federal money involved, taxpayers’ money involved, TARP money involved, and the way they have spent it, with no accountability, is getting close to being criminal.”
And so now Obama and his newly appointed tax cheat, treasury secretary say that we should limit the executive pay of these banks to 500K per year.
Idiots.
I hated the bailout but now that we’ve given away money I say there should be no restrictions on how it is spent.
Why?
Because when it is spent it comes back to me.
When they buy airplanes California makes money.
When they visit San Diego for a week Sand Diego makes money.
When an executive gets paid 10 million dollars he spends millions of dollars. When and executive gets paid 500,000 he can’t spend millions.
Spending money is what gets the economy going.
The idea that the government can limit the pay of the successful is down right horrifying.
What have we become?
“It’s not fair that these guys make so much money!”
Evidently you don’t understand the meaning of the word fair. Would you think it “fair” to have your salary cut by 10%, 50%, 100%, 500%?
“500,000 is more than enough money to be able to live on.”
Granted. I will never in my life earn 500,000 a year (well maybe with inflation going the way it is I might). But think about people accustomed to earning millions per year now earning 500,000. What are they going to do? Make dramatic lifestyle changes. Meaning they will have to cut out of their budgets all kinds of things. You know what the number 1 thing people cut out of their budgets? Charitable contributions.
Remember getting that check from the government last year for 600, or 1,200 dollars? I didn’t ask for that check but they gave it to me. They gave you one too (assuming you’ve paid taxes). What did you do with that check?
I don’t care if you invested it, paid rent with it or put it on the spin of a roulette wheel, what you did with it is your business.
The government shouldn’t have given you it, but once they do they can’t tell you what to do with it.
“He’s gonna spread happiness. He’s gonna spread freedom.”
Freedom? Freedom? Freedom?
In another unrelated quote Obama said yesterday regarding the Senator Daschle debacle…
“We can’t send a message to the American people that we’ve got two sets of rules — one for prominent people and one for ordinary people,”
hmmm if we are all going to be held to the same standards then when are we all going to have our pay determined by the governement?
ANSWER: When the governemnt controls all the jobs.
And the unimaginable is now not so far fetched is it?
He’s gonna spread happiness.
He’s gonna spread freedom.
Obama’s gonna change it.
Obama’s gonna lead us.
He’s gonna change it and rearrange it.
He’s gonna change the world.
2008 Elections: What I care about. part 2
Way back in January I wrote a post about what I care about in this upcoming election. Well that election is in a few hours so here is the scorecard of my issues and how the top 2 candidates rank…
Be Cool. Vote for…
With just a few short weeks of election mania to go we can now prepare for the inevitable onslaught of presidential endorsements from celebrities! Read the rest of this entry »
Terrible Times… (not a baseball post)
If you are anything like me you get really excited and really interested whenever something local makes national headlines.
Lately it seems that I’ve had a lot to be excited about and interested in.
First it was the shark attack at Solana Beach. I’m interested in that because I swim in those waters (well maybe not that far north, but close enough to scare the crap out of me).
Then it was the pipe bomb at the federal building downtown. This is interesting to me because I had passed by that exact location almost daily for a month while on jury duty.
This week though things got really close to home when last week it wouldn’t have really been that big of a deal to me. Read the rest of this entry »
Holy Global Climate Change Batman!
Today’s Foxnews.com headlines had a very religious and a very environmental tilt to them.
First there was this headline Recycle or Repent which describes the Catholic church’s updating the list of mortal sins, adding such things as “ruining the environment” and “carrying out morally debatable scientific experiments” to the list of Mortal Sins.
My favorite line from that article quotes Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, the Vatican body which oversees confessions and plenary indulgences…
He said that priests must take account of “new sins which have appeared on the horizon of humanity as a corollary of the unstoppable process of globalization.” Whereas sin in the past was thought of as being an individual matter, it now has “social resonance.” Read the rest of this entry »
If the clothes make the man does the flag make the country?
February 17th 2008 the “Nation” of Kosova was born. Read the rest of this entry »
Why I will not vote for Barak Obama.
Secret provided this link to a very well made, very inspirational, very moving and energizing Barak campaign video. The only problem with it is that it is also very shallow…
I kept waiting for the blank to be filled in, “yes, we can ______________”
And then it came… “Yes, we can, the opportunity and prosperity.”
um ok? Don’t we have that? Don’t we have limitless opportunities and prosperity that is the envy of billions of others?
But wait, then the song breaks into a chant of “we want change, we want change!” So now we don’t want opportunity and prosperity?
It sounds like we want to change away from opportunity and prosperity.
Inspiration can only get you so far. Give me substance. Read the rest of this entry »
Why I’m voting for Ron Paul
The 8 things I cared about and Ron Paul’s platform on them… Read the rest of this entry »
What I learned from the CNN debates and my CC poetry class
In my entry, I consider myself reasonably intelligent, I stated that I simply don’t understand Haiku. Well after you read this post you’ll agree; and you’ll probably think I don’t understand politics either.
Enjoy…
2008 Elections. What I care about.
With Super Tuesday looming on the horizon and the subsequent political events that will only snowball from there I think it’s about time for me to put out a nice juicy political post.
Politicians are panderers. If you haven’t discovered that yet you probably haven’t been around too long. I freely admit I haven’t been around too long, in fact the November elections will be just my third time voting for President of the United States.
In 1996 San Diego hosted the Republican national convention. I remember because I got a cool T-Shirt out of it. I also remember as a 16 year old actually taking an interest in politics for the first time. All that I knew then was that Bill Clinton was bad and that I should do all that I could to make sure he wasn’t elected president. Being 16 I couldn’t vote so instead I put a bumper sticker on my car that said “Dole*Kemp”.
They lost.
4 years later however a new face came onto the scene. The son of a former president, the former governor of the second most populated state and a former owner of a professional baseball team. All these terrific qualities under one ten-gallon hat calling himself a “Christian” and I was hooked.
I say that to make it clear that even then, as a 20 year old, I had no idea what I actually cared about in electing my leader.
Now I do. And I have categorized what I care about in a convenient, easy to use top 8 list. Read the rest of this entry »
