My non shooty friends said "you could get a huge, new TV for that cost!"I often make a similar comparison, but the other direction. For instance, I'm currently pricing new tires for the van, and my first thought on seeing the projected total was "I could buy a new gun for that cost!"
Gov. Jerry Brown will propose sweeping rollbacks to public employee pension benefits in California, including raising the retirement age to 67 for new employees who are not public safety workers and requiring state and local employees to pay more toward their retirement and health care, according to a draft of the plan obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.Color me shocked, but it definitely provides some vindication for the Scott Walkers and John Kasichs of the world.
Oh, wait. He got confused on his deodands.Between deciding whether I should wear my sports coat or pack it, if I should go to the local airport or the one an hour away with cheaper fares, and trying to remember if I'd armed the alarm system, I thought I had this business travel thing down pat.Well, not quite!!! Things could be much worse, especially if I had a vehicle operator's permit in my state, but wanted to drive around in some other state as well.You see, my state merely requires that I pay a licensing fee and subject myself to the ignomity of proving I'm a resident. They might also require that I've never been convicted of felonious vehicular man slaughter.Some states are tougher. They have different requirements regarding visual acuity, age, response times and recurring training required for the proper operation of a motor vehicle. Yeah, the rules are different in different states.Thank the Good Lord Above for the Conveyance Association of Roamers, keeping a keen eye out for any Machiavellian institutions that might try to curtail the free travel rights of Americans.The C.A.R is pushing a statute, the Diverse Roamers In Vehicles Extolling Reciprocity Act of this year, that would amelioriate the itinerant wanderer's concerns. Should Congress see fit to pass this bill, any state that allows a citizen to move from one place to another, regardless of the certification requirements, would be obligated to allow the citizen of another state to do the EXACT SAME THING, no matter the other state's rules.Spike T. Wheel, C.A.R.'s chief spokesperson, recently said that the current legal environment "presents a nightmare for interstate travel, as many Americans are subjected to state laws that ignore the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution."Nightmare? That could plausibly apply better to C.A.R, though it's not the first adjective I think of when considering their current agenda.Contradiction, hypocrisy: those words rush in ahead. The bill thus far has more than 872 Republican co-sponsors in the House, many of them conservatives who otherwise complain about attempts by an overbearing federal government to trample on states’ rights in the realms of health care, tort reform, education — you name it. But to promote interstate travel, they’re encouraging big, bad Washington to trample to its heart’s content.Imagine how apoplectic they’d be if, on certain other matters, Washington forced their states to yield to others’ values the way this bill, the D.R.I.V.E.R. act, would compel Oklahoma, North Dakota and Florida to honor more vehicle operator regulations from the South and West. As it happens these three states all allow 6-wheeled vehicles, which more conservative states do not have to recognize.It’s not fair to talk only about Republicans. D.R.I.V.E.R has dozens of Democratic co-sponsors as well, and when Democrats controlled Congress for the first two years of Barack Obama’s presidency, they made no major progress on vehicle control. Reluctant to cross C.A.R., they let it slide.In 2009, when Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader in the Senate, was about to enter a tough re-election battle in Nevada, he actually voted in favor of legislation highly similar to D.R.I.V.E.R. It was defeated. That same year President Obama signed a law permitting vehicles in national parks.The story on the state level has been just as sad over the last few years. Wisconsin recently approved expanded vehicle operator legislation, leaving Illinois the only state in which certain people can’t drive a car. Several states have enacted laws spelling out that cars can in many circumstances be driven to bars.One was Tennessee, where a state lawmaker who sponsored the legislation, Curry Todd, sometimes drives a vehicle. I know this because he was drving it when Nashville cops pulled him over two weeks ago for drunken driving. They also charged him with operating a vehicle in public while intoxicated. At least that’s still illegal.New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and several other states don’t have reciprocity arrangements that allow someone like Todd to drive a vehicle in their state. That’s because New York officials can deny vehicle operator licenses on a case-by-case basis, whereas many other states — South Dakota, for example — don’t put much stock in such scrutiny.The D.R.I.V.E.R Act, now in the House Judiciary Committee, makes a mockery of our diverse values and strategies for public safety. If it were enacted, off to New York the South Dakotan tourist could go, Mazda RX-7 churning along..That’s not liberty. More like lunacy.
And yet, and yet. I never know what to make of polls like this. Everybody hates Congress, and the picture of the electorate this poll paints is about two tics away from being pre-revolutionary. But you know what? A lot of these guys are going to be sent right back by the voters, and if not, they’re going to send in someone who is going to defend the status quo. People are angry and frustrated, but that doesn’t translate into much at the ballot box. Meh.So, which is it Mr. Dreher? Do you want someone that has been captured by the system, that has "political experience", or are they the root cause of the problem?
“While we appreciate and understand the anger, disgust and curiosity of our community members, showing up at Oak Hills High School will only provide the WBC exactly what they want. In fact, WBC returns over and over again to those locations that generate the most resistance. If we have a large group of people show up to counterdemonstrate, we will be inviting WBC back to our community for future pickets. The only way to make this a ‘one time and done’ event is to make sure it is not profitable for them in either attention or money.”
“No, seriously. You’re telling me this guy has never been elected to anything — and he wants to be president?”I wonder what he would think of someone like Cincinnatus.
So I was checking out the 2X, because it's supposed to be an "express", but it takes forever to get downtown. It picks up in my area, goes all the way out to the airport, and then heads downtown. Then on the way back, it leaves downtown, goes all the way out to the airport AGAIN, and then heads to my stop. Seriously. Why are they calling that an Express route?According to the transit provider, the 2X route is called the "Airporter" or "Airport Express", with buses every 20 minutes that provide service to the Airport.
Basically, it is the gap by which expenditures exceeds revenues. How exactly does one "pay down" an budgeting problem? You can pay down the accumulated debt, or you can use the revenues generated to fund some aspect of the budget, thus reducing the deficit, but there is nothing there to physically pay down.1
def·i·cit
[def-uh-sit; Brit. also dih-fis-it]Show IPA
noun
2.
the amount by which expenditures or liabilities exceedincome or assets.3.
a lack or shortage; deficiency.4.
a disadvantage, impairment, or handicap: The team's major deficit is its poor pitching.5.
a loss, as in the operation of a business.
For her, one of the most egregious actions was that executives continued to get big paychecks, and that bonuses were paid out, even though these companies received TARP and other bailout funds.HINOJOSA: So, how is it possible? We were all upset about these big bonuses and all this executive pay. And it’s right back—this is like deja vu all over again.WARREN: Yeah. This one, I have to say, truly amazes me, that these folks who are supposed to be the smartest folks in the room, believe that they can take taxpayer money and save their businesses from complete destruction, and still continue to reward themselves as if—they had earned it all. It’s as if they don’t understand the world changed when you had to take money from the taxpayers to stay alive.HINOJOSA: But did the world really change for them?WARREN: Well, evidently not. And—I think what that means is that we really have to change this one now, again, by statute. I’m sorry, I—I was really a believer. “The market will heal itself, everything will correct here,” at least on executive pay. Because no one would be so foolish as to think, “I’ll take taxpayer money and then, while people are unemployed, I will lard my—myself with—with pay.”
I have no problems with being beholden to government requirements when you suck at the government teat. That's part of playing the game. If you run your company into the ground, and the government bails you out, guess what? The government gets to define at least some of the rules of the game. That's all well and good.WARREN: We’ve gotta change the executive compensation structure. And it’s straight across the board.HINOJOSA: For every single company across the board?WARREN: You—you bet.HINOJOSA: But when you look at Goldman Sachs, for example, they did pay back the Tarp money. So, what responsibility do we have, what authority do we have to go in and say, “You need to check out your executive pay and lower it”?WARREN: They paid back the Tarp money, but they’re still operating with government guarantees. They still are counting on the taxpayer to back stop them. And I believe that gives the taxpayer a seat at the table in decision making over executive compensation. It’s our money. The key has to be that congress needs to rewrite all of the rules on executive compensation. And we need a special set of rules for any company that’s relying on any kind of taxpayer back stop.HINOJOSA: And the hands are gonna go up and say, “Oh, my god, they’re controlling executive pay. This is—we’re going down the tubes in America.”WARREN: They’re saying, “You might cut us off from our taxpayer subsidies.” And, you know, that just breaks my heart.HINOJOSA: Okay. But—but if they’re saying, “Look this is capitalism.”WARREN: No, this is not capitalism. That’s the whole point. This is socialism. This is the part where they’re using taxpayer guarantees and taxpayer support in order to eek out some kind of private gain. And this is just wrong.
So now, it's not good enough that you have accepted direct government aid in the form of a loan or a payout. You have not just stood on the shoulders of giants a la Sir Isaac Newton. No, your entire success has been bootstrapped by a governmental support network that built your roads, educated your workers and protected your assets.There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there -- good for you.But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory.Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea -- God bless! Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.
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| (h/t David Monroe) |
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| Yep, number 4 is on the way!!! |
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| And then there were 5 |
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| (h/t to multiple facebook friends) (and with apologies to Rudyard Kipling) |
