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But on the upside, we'll all be in great shape once these people are running our healthcare completely and deciding what out cars should be like. ;-)
Don'tcha know? Magical things happen when someone is elected to higher office. They become enlightened, more than human, able to effortlessly guide the lives of others. They are indeed able to make our medical and automobile decisions better than we can ourselves.
And if that turns out not to be the case, it's only because we haven't elected the *right* people to higher office!
Now we know another reason why democrats oppose the death penalty. This kind of public disregard is the perfect application. Of course everyone knows that Congressmen are for sale any way, so is it really different?
Chicago is a happy town today. I'm just waiting for the next "reformer" to come in and bless us with his skilled, principled governance as Blago did. Here's to hope that Rod and George Ryan will be cellmates!
I used to think that America was pretty much free of political corruption. That is only true compared to more controlled economies. But just in the last few months, there have been a number of government corruption scandals here in Cleveland. A number of government officials have been accused of using government contractors to get free work done on their homes, one was just accused of taking a $500 bribe, and my brother, who is a real-estate agant, explained to me how he often needs a $10 handshake just to get paperwork done in a timely manner.
And people want to trust these scheisters with their health care and retirement savings?
I say make Blago a poli sci professor. He understands politics.
Greed is part of human nature; ask any economist, she'll confirm it. The salaries of public officials should be quintupled at the very least. The public wants elected officials to act in her interest over that of special interests, so the public should do the bribing by paying a low "sports figure" salary to these guys and gals who are our governmental leaders. They will still seem poor compared to what the creatures on Wall St. are making. That is where we should be focusing much of our attention, toward cleaning up the greedy mess in the CEO boardrooms and penthouses. That is far more sleazy and costly to society than is selling a senate seat. Lobbying, of course, should be made illegal right away, too.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/black_conrad/
I hate it when billionaires, like Martha Stewart or Conrad Black feel the need to lie, cheat and steal to try to satisfy their insatiable greed. Now THAT is truly inexcusable. The death penalty is what they deserve, so they can't pass on their greedy genes to the next generation.
Quote from TrUmPiT: "The salaries of public officials should be quintupled at the very least. The public wants elected officials to act in her interest over that of special interests, so the public should do the bribing by paying a low "sports figure" salary to these guys and gals who are our governmental leaders."
A classic statist response. Rather than recognizing the true source of the smelly problem, you'd rather pick up the turd, shine it and give it some garnish, rather than flush it down the toilet.
As long as the people in government have broad powers to do basically whatever they please, this will continue to happen. You stated it yourself: "Greed is part of human nature; ...". Do you honestly think that paying politicians bigger salaries will reduce the greed?
You keep shining that turd and let me know how it works out.
They will still seem poor compared to what the creatures on Wall St. are making.
Ahhh...the left. So, politicians are "people" and human beings who work on Wall Street are "creatures". I will have to give Muirdiot and Trumpit one thing - they don't hide their viciousness and ignorance behind euphemisms.
And, Trumpit, you can pay your politician anything you want. I won't touch the silliness of your argument that a high salary will provide a lack of incentive to make even more money by taking bribes from special interests. It's cruel to destroy all your fantasies at once. But if you try to reach into my pocket to pay him what you desire, you will draw away a bloody stump.
If every politician that sold out their position went to jail, the standard career path would be office followed by prison. Maybe they could determine the sentence based on how much money the politician spent above some minimal percentage of their jurisdiction's GDP.
"The public wants elected officials to act in her interest over that of special interests, so the public should do the bribing..."
The assumption here is that government is an inherently corrupt enterprise and I do not disagree. But I see no reason to believe that my paying a bigger bribe would work to my benefit as there is simply no reason to place my trust in a corrupt enterprise.
Politicians have been selling their own seats since time immemorial. What's the difference?
Steve
If you want a better class of politician then your going to have to pay her more. Most of you guys and gals think that CEO's deserve their outrageous pay. That it's an arm-lengths transaction strickly on the up and up. So why do you object to high pay for politicians? Don't you want the creme de la creme for your senator or congresswoman? Would you seek out a brain surgeon who was making minimum wage? Do you object to uneducated jocks making millions of dollars as professional football players. Do you begrudge recording artists raking in millions of dollars from record sales and endorsements? Why don't you want politicians to be well paid. They're working for YOU. Your hatred for politicians is unfounded and unwarranted. You guys and gals only like well paid private sector people, and hate the pols. Then you deserve the crappy, venal representives that you've been getting. Stop your complaining!
This is very normal politician behavior. Blago is just the most inept politician of his generation at hiding his criminality.
If you want a better class of politician then your going to have to pay her more.
Won't that just result in even more opportunistic, greedy money seekers running for office?
If they are competent, then let them earn their dough through voluntary exchange.
Maybe we should elect businessmen who have demonstrated their competence at successfully running a business.
Or maybe all government salaries should be tied to median or average income.
Bush and Cheney had it made in the business world, why do you suppose they were willing to reduce their income for 4/8 year terms?
Trumpit,
Why don't you want politicians to be well paid?
Because they don't produce anything of value to me. I don't want to have to pay them at all, and if they didn't force me to pay I wouldn't.
They're working for YOU.
Absurd. I pay. They collect. How could you possibly reach the conclusion that I'm in charge?
Russ, you seem fired up. Me too. I want EVERY WORD of this plastered as widely as possible. There is little to be inferred here, just look at the transcripts and watch how quickly folks fall over each other to disassociate Obama.
"Maybe we should elect businessmen who have demonstrated their competence at successfully running a business."
That happens to be the reality that we live with now, and I object to it and the concept. Why is Mitt Romney qualified to be president because he was born rich? Why does that ego-tripper want to be president? The answer is contained within the question. The senate is a millionaires club, and I find that very distasteful. Ordinary, educated people without vast fortunes deserve to be able to run for office. This strikes me a good case for campaign finance reform. We must end the oligarchy. If you're successful in business what are your motive for becoming a politician? EGO! POWER! And if your sucessful business ventures no longer require you to be at the helm, then your company should be nationalized and sold off to people who will take a concerned interest in it. That would be better for growing the economy. I think I've made a cogent case to EAT THE RICH. Their money is funkily fungible. And so are they: funky, and fungible.
"They're working for YOU. Your hatred for politicians is unfounded and unwarranted... Stop your complaining!"
Posted by: TrUmPiT | Dec 9, 2008 6:30:15 PM
...Tell that to the Japanese that FDR placed in internment camps.
Tell that to the people who have been spied on by their own goverment.
Tell that to the victims of Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.
Tell that to every black person who was alive during the 1950s in the US.
Tell that to the Duke lacrose players.
I could go on, but really, what's the point?
It boggles the mind that anyone still trusts politicians...
Being born rich wouldn't be a qualification.
However, the comment was made in jest.
Explain why anybody would want to hang out with the gang in D.C.
I can understand people who run for office wanting to change things for the better, but the people who are most successful at it are like car salesmen, except they are selling themselves.
Can you believe this idiot? There has always been corruption in politics and these guys just don't get it. Too much EGO and assumed power! No wonder there is a recession.... morons in positions of power and influence. Join OJ in the clink!
Quote from Trumpit: "Most of you guys and gals think that CEO's deserve their outrageous pay."
No, I would expect that most people reading this blog think that what a CEO gets paid by their employer is none of their business. It's typically only envious busybodies that go around worrying about what other people are doing.
Quote from Trumpit: "Why don't you want politicians to be well paid. They're working for YOU."
If they're working for me, then I don't think they should be paid anything.
Of course if I stopped "paying" them, they would have me arrested and confiscate all my property, all to the cheers of people like you.
So your whole premise is a farce. You keep shining that turd.
Trumpit,
Pay them what you want out of your own pocket. I'm not obligated to pay CEOs because I'm not obligated to be a shareholder of any company - unless politicians force me to be as a taxpayer, as they currently are. And only politicians have that kind of power.
Politicians, on the other hand, are paid out of the public till to which I have to contribute whether I want to or not. I may dislike a politician as much as I dislike a CEO, but unlike a CEO, I'm forced to pay him.
See the difference, Sparky?
For once I actually agree with Trumpit, though probably for different reasons - higher salaries for elected office would probably be a good thing. Some other non-moonbats such as Alexis de Tocqueville(in Democracy in America,Volume 1 Part II Ch.5 if you're interested), and Thomas Sowell(Ever Wonder Why, p.249 ) have advocated the same.
I agree that you get what you pay for, and you can demand a higher standard of governing officials when you've paid them an ample wage.(i.e. higher standards against corruption, more responsible spending, longer hours, fewer perquisites, etc.)
That said, do you really think that only the successful people run for office because of ego and power? That no one ever repeatedly ran for Congress because of his complete inability to succeed in the private sector?
If you really want the special interests to go away, there's an easy way to do it. Cut government spending and regulation. Massively. They don't lobby their governments out of patriotic love, they're in it for the money(or worse, the desire to interfere with other people's free choices).
Incidentally, Mitt Romney earned his money. You don't become a near billionaire just because your dad ran a marginal and declining automaker. His work with the SLC Olympics established his competence in the public arena long before you allege he bought offices.
Chris,
The amount of power they have in office is a form of compensation. They are also bribed all the time - another source of income.
Let's make a deal: I'll agree to pay them more if we can permanently cut their power by about 90%.
First of all Romney was given a multi-million dollar head start; it helps a lot to have seed money. Second, what one truly earns is a matter of opinion. If I put a dollar in the bank and receive a nickel in return, did I earn it in any real sense? If I buy a house and it double in value over a 5-year period, in what sense did I earn the capital gain? If I buy the winning lottery ticket and become an instant millionaire, did I earn it because I lucked out? Really, I'd like to read your philosophy paper on what it means for Romney to have "earned his money." You can e-mail it to me a trumpit@aol.com to save on the paper and ink. I'm sure he put in long hours just like the minimum wage workers who labor under hot lights and steam. They make my tacos for me, so I'm partial them.
If I put a dollar in the bank and receive a nickel in return, did I earn it in any real sense?
The bank used your money to lend to others and compensated you for it.
If I buy a house and it double in value over a 5-year period, in what sense did I earn the capital gain?
By taking the risk of investing in an asset.
If I buy the winning lottery ticket and become an instant millionaire, did I earn it because I lucked out?
Again - risk. Of course, you'd just be a lucky idiot because, unless the jackpot is high enough, the ticket you bought for $1 ticket $0.51. It's negative expectancy.
Of course, Romney did none of those things. He ran a business profitably. I got seed money from my investors. Does this mean I had a million dollar head start? I also toiled 100 hour weeks drenched in stress and surrounded by 24 bright, eyes straining screens to run my business extremely profitably. That's what it means to "earn money". How the hell else so you suppose I'd be able to buy my tacos and provide a reason for the taco dudes to show up and make tacos every day?
You don't think very well, Methinks. Romney INHERITED a large fortune and didn't earn it. A lot of people EARN their money by getting a minimum wage salary. Tax the rich dude and lay off the poor people. Why don't you get it? Because you're a greedy dude, who comes on this blog and pretends to be a female. Woman are not generally violent and anger like you are. Who are you kidding? FAKER! I want to see the DNA results. Go on the Springer show and pull your pants down!
Because someone risks losing an assets doesn't mean they deserve or earned a damn thing? I risk my life every time I cross the street. Should someone pay me for it?
Methinks,
How do you treat your employees as LIFO or FIFO. To you, they are just an inventory item. You are Mr. Scrooge and Mr. Grinch all rolled into one. That's right, MISTER. You don't fool me one bit. I feel sorry for your employees; always in fear of losing their job if they don't jump as high as tell them to. I hope you get whats coming to you: a walloping tax increase by Obama, to pay to heal the sick society that people like you create.
Just finished reading Hegel's "Philosophy of Right". He's the all time champion of propagandists for the state. Seriously, he actually refers to the "divine state". Where he fails miserably is in his assumptions about the type of people who actually make up his "universal" class (the political class). He imagines scholars and saints. What we actually get are people like Blagojevich and Trumpit.
Go on the Springer show and pull your pants down!
I generally leave that kind of activity to halfwit rednecks like you. Besides, even if I did, it's pretty clear you lack the intelligence to determine something as simple as my gender even if the evidence were staring you in the face. You don't strike me as a man with much experience with women.
How do you treat your employees as LIFO or FIFO.
Neither. I prefer to treat them like people.
You are hilarious. And obviously fired a lot for incompetence.
Sorry, I'm just too amused by Trumpit's posts.
Trumpit, your chances with the ladies might improve if you quit demanding they strip to prove they're really broads. Just sayin'...