Posted on 09/17/2002 12:12:03 PM PDT by wallcrawlr
Many times, I've noticed the Club Fed men milling around drink machines in the BX parking lot...the ones dressed in Navy Blue Dockers with pressed white shirts..:~)
I think they were supposed to be doing hard labor, picking up trash in the parking lot.
sw
The real culprits of inflated stock values were Bob Rubin and Alan Greenspan. Why aren't you calling on them to be investigated, or sent to prison? The ratio of dishonest to honest people is the same as it's always been. That's why capitalism evolved in a way that allows risk to be diversified. Most new businesses fail. That's always been the case, but the few good businesses that survive more than make up for it. Our capitalist system can handle that high level of risk. It always has. The only times it's appeared to fail is when the government got too involved.
The current attitude in this country, as evidenced by our post, is going to end up punishing the good businesses, and the good investors, while the government, more than willing to satisfy your lust for corporate blood, will continue to flourish more than ever at the taxpayers expense.
But the government is growing, and spending more money than ever, so it must be healthy ;-)
I have no problem with expensive shower curtains as long the funds were legally obtained. That shower curtain creates jobs and wealth for people who make and sell them. As long as our government fails to implement pro economic growth and pro investment policies, people will have to work harder for the same or less money. Be careful of policies that punish the rich. For each unit of suffering they endure, the middle and lower classes will endure several times more.
I just can't imagine what kind of political repercussions are going to result, can you?
I can. More regulations, more government debt and more taxes. Each day the private sector gets villified, the closer we get to totalitarian government.
I don't think you're getting the point I'm trying to make. We Americans have been hearing a drumbeat from Corporate America for the last twenty years, telling us that we have to work harder for less or else they'll ship our jobs overseas. There are engineers who spent eight years in college who are having their salaries driven down by imported H1-B labor. Meanwhile, the people in the executive suites are buying things like hundred million dollar mansions, $6,000 shower curtains, $2,200 wastebaskets, and $450 pincushions. Can you see the potential for popular resentment?
Let me acquaint you with a little bit of history. Do the words "Let them eat cake" ring a bell? Remember the unpleasantness that came shortly after those words were spoken? I'm thinking that what's about to come will make that look like a tea party. Stories like these only add fuel to the fire.
Yes, I can. I've worked for corporations run by A__holes. And do you see that the reason corporations do that is the high cost of government and regulatory compliance that everyone has to pay? The other major factor is the myth that full employment and higher salaries cause inflation. They don't, but they do give more clout to the working class.
No, we were stationed at Hurlburt Field.
The guest housing at Eglin is by the water, very close to the prison (which is also by the water)..Yes, these guys have it rough.
We vacation in the Emerald Green Water Paradise every year, tho...:~)
sw
Ha ha ha.
This country is based on the free market and not some mythical "fairness" doctrine.
That means if you choose the wrong employer and are not able to make that employer stick to their word, then it's your fault and your fault only (unless under contract). If you are being screwed, that's why we have the civil and criminal courts, which you may petition.
Personally I don't give a hoot that anyone bought a $6,000 toilet seat. I only care that the deal I make with an employer or client is legitimate and enforceable, and that I'll get my money. If the company goes bad, well, it was my fault for not doing due diligence on that company (whether as an employee, contractor, or vendor).
We live in a country where that is the case. You agree to pay me at the 31st of the month, well by gosh you'd better have the money.
Yet if I screwed up in my assessment of whether you could or would do so, that's my bad. Not "the system".
Your arguument is entirely based on jealousy. No if, ands, or buts about it.
Absolutely right! Another federal country club. They even give the inmates time to go off Maxwell to play golf at the local courses!
In over a decade of international travel and reading, the views you espouse are held mainly by avowed communists, socialists, and statists.
Most recently that mantle is being held by psychotic Islamists (read the PLO founding documents or thae statements of bin Laden). Plain and simple. They are murderers and socialists.
Americans and their supporters are being murdered out of jealousy Plain and simple.
That is the way of totalitarians, whether named Hitler ("the Jews") Arafat ("the Jews") or Amin ("the Indians") or Mugabe ("the Whites") or bin Laden ("the Americans, the Jews").
Now, if you allow the legal system to become corrupted by money, and if you allow the political system to become corrupted by money, then you have VIOLATED the social contract that we all live by. That violation will result in anger on the part of the average person. I do not advocate it, I fear it, because I know the want and despair that is spread by Communism.
That having been said, perhaps now you can understand my concern about the activities of some of the ruling elite of this country. I've personally been seriously shafted in some of my dealings in Silicon Valley, I've seen things that would make your hair stand on end. You see, I believe in property rights, including intellectual property rights. I also believe that people who create wealth should partake of some of that wealth. Do you disagree with that premise?
What I DON'T believe in is the sort of "lassez-faire" economy where rule of law is circumvented via corruption and the political system of redress is totally short-circuited by big money contributions.
What is really funny about the "jealously" argument you are making is that I'm rather well off, thank you. Twenty-five years of frantic workaholism has paid off for me, and I now have some free time. I like private enterprise, I like the free market. I don't like corrupt greedheads who lie, cheat and steal at every turn perverting the whole idea of the free market until the average lemming is SCREAMING for socialism! I don't want Communism! I want free enterprise, with a functional legal and political system that can act to curb the excesses of the free market. I hope I have made myself clear.
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