John Boehner begins his term in office by cutting the budget to run the House by $35 million dollars. He decided to skip the party put on by one of the freshmen representatives and begins the day by vacuuming his apartment.
By contrast, outgoing speaker Nancy Pelosi, the one who commuted from Washington to San Francisco on a luxurious government C-32 (757) jet, treating the Air Force like her personal airline, spent her last days at a $10,000 a night Hawaiian resort.
“We gather here today at a time of great challenges. Nearly one in ten of our neighbors are looking for work. Health care costs are still rising for families and small businesses. Our spending has caught up with us, and our debt will soon eclipse the size of our entire economy. Hard work and tough decisions will be required of the 112th Congress. No longer can we fall short. No longer can we kick the can down the road. The people voted to end business as usual, and today we begin carrying out their instructions.”
Let us hope so.
John Boehner comes from a vary humble background. He understands the worth of a dollar.
10 grand a night? isn’t that what the captains of industry, the present day J P Morgan’s long for? the tangible indicators of wealth and success?
didja see elsewhere in the MSM that the highest paid CEOs in Canuckistan make as much by 2:30 in the afternoon on the first Monday as the average earner does the entire rest of the year?
that’s capitalism for ya !!!
Considering that I don’t want the responsibility of being a CEO, I’m fine with that beagle.
Yes, Beagle, and they didn’t take single cent from my pocket without my volunteering to give it to them. Ain’t capitalism grand.
hi louise.
what did you get for all that money you ‘freely’ handed over?
beagle They are non-union.
beagle,Go get an education, join a corporation,and work your way to the top,then you too can become a highly paid CEO,that’s the beauty of capitalism.
Your success is entirely dependent on your dedication to HARD WORK,something that is anathema to socialists.
Pelosi is right in step with fellow lefties Jack Layton and Olivia Chow,who talk the talk, but fail to do the walk, padding their expense accounts at our expense every step of the way.
Beagle, we “freely” hand over our money in exchange for a service, product or other tangible item that we willingly pay for. CEOs are voted in by boards of directors and share holders. As such they are accountable to them. It is “private” enterprise not the public teet that these folks are being fed by. By the way I do feel that 155 times what I was making is obscene but the govt. has no business controlling wages in the private sector.
It seems to me that far too many on the left are the product of outsourced parenting. That may explain the attitude of “cradle to grave”.
Our beagle knows that if she wants something, she has to work for it.
But John Boehner cries too much! Isn’t that the real story?
Wonder if Botox comes with that $10 grand?
dmorris…
From what I have read of beagle’s comments getting an education and working the way to the top is the farthest thing from his/her narrow little mind.
speaking of compare & contrast . . . Barry in March 2006:
“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that “the buck stops here.” Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.”
But Nancy is entitled to her entitlements. And beagles typically are pretty yappy dogs. All bark no bite. Oh and don’t the British aristocracy use them to chase down foxes? To the hunt with you beagle.
But, but, liberals are entitled to their entitlements.
The CEOs by and large at least earned their money by providing a product that that we need or want.
Bonner says: “What they [the people] want is a government that is honest, accountable and responsive to their needs. A government that respects individual liberty, honors our heritage, and bows before the public it serves.”
Well, maybe. But when voters have become addicted to entitlements, a public servant owes them more than obedience. He owes them candor, no matter the political cost. I doubt a sufficient number of Republicans are willing to risk losing power in pursuit of principle. But we shall see. Among young people, I suspect there is a growing awareness that the welfare state is a Ponzi scheme played at their expense. If reality tightens the screws gradually enough, there may be time for this segment of the electorate to provide politicians with enough support to do the right thing.
Beagle:
Capitalism is indeed grand. Unlike you, I am not so jealous of successful people that I am ready to brand as undeserving a CEO who can blow 10K a night at a resort. Denigrating well-paid people doesn’t quite sooth your envy, does it? And take my word for it: covering your envy with a cloak of supposed concern for “fairness” and “justice” won’t be too effective either.
It’s not just Pelosi. The leaders of the so-called “Party of the Working Class” actually live like the reincarnation of Versailles.
Here’s what I wrote about one of Obama’s parties:
Versailles on the Potomac
What is it about the Obamas that causes people peering through the glass at the White House to start seeing flashbacks to the excesses of life under the French court before the Revolution? I don’t mean casual “dates” via Air Force One to catch a Broadway show in Manhattan, inconveniencing the country’s largest city. And I certainly don’t expect the American President and his wife to have leftover meatloaf for dinner. But the image we see of the Obamas via the besotted press is one of wretched excess.
In a time when nearly a quarter of America’s population is either unemployed or underemployed, the Obamas can’t seem to help themselves….
From the Torrington, CT., Register Citizen: No Taco Bell for this in-crowd
Maybe it wasn’t quite the equal of Versailles in the heydays of French monarchial extravagance. But the White House state dinner in honor of Mexico’s president certainly impressed the courtiers of the media. And why not? The gala social event did, after all, attract the top glitterati of Hollywood’s limousine liberal community.
And as if that weren’t more than sufficient cause to ooh and ahh, First Lady Michelle Obama made her regal entrance garbed in — the gawking, star-struck media chroniclers tell us — “a one-shouldered, sky-blue gown by designer Peter Soronen, cinched at the waist with a sparkly crystal-adorned belt.” For the occasion, her hubby was smartly decked out, of course, in a tux. Tables for the 200 guests were covered in triple-striped linens in “hues of Mayan blue,” and centerpieces were “handmade woven baskets gilded and filled with bouquets of fuchsia and purple gray roses, orchids, geranium foliage and prickly pear cactus.” The vittles were whipped up by guest chef Rick Bayless and included “Oregon Wagyu beef in Oaxacan black mole.”
You get the picture. No corn chips and dip out of the supermarket jar for this in-crowd. Meanwhile, President Obama and Mexico’s Felipe Calderone took a moment to offer appropriately supercilious remarks regarding the increasingly restless Tea Party peons in places like Arizona. They have turned to “potentially discriminatory” measures out of their “frustration,” said the president north of the border. This frustration apparently stems from their unschooled belief that their government ought to make at least a half-hearted effort at enforcing the nation’s immigration laws rather than ignoring these laws as a gesture of pandering to the growing Hispanic portion of the electorate.
beagle I will explain it as I explained it to civil servants. If the CEO makes me a buck and a quarter on a stock, do I begrudge him 3 cents a share? If his peers lose 25% in a bad market and he loses 20% do I begrudge him 3 cents a share?
For some people they feel the profit belongs to the company. It doesn’t, it belongs to the investors. A corp. like Exxon may make billions profit but they trade about 20 million shares a day. Last time the left noticed it was 87 cents on a 70 dollar share.
Godspeed, Mr. Boehner.
From what I have read of beagle’s comments getting an education and working the way to the top is the farthest thing from his/her narrow little mind.
Posted by: Rob C at January 5, 2011 11:13 AM”
uh, seriously wrong on that rob; in september I will be clearing out some prerequisites and then working towards my M.A.
paid for by taxpayers like me of course seeing as tuition is free at the local edjukashun institute when you turn (drum roll) 60 years of age.
further to CEO salaries, howcum they aren’t geared towards stock performance, bottom line, number of patents acquired etc etc instead of those stock options and huge asset sell offs disguised as ‘success in the marketplace’?
http://www.socialfunds.com/news/article.cgi?sfArticleId=546
and
http://www.stanford.edu/group/knowledgebase/cgi-bin/2010/09/17/sensitivity-of-ceo-wealth-to-stock-price-a-new-tool-for-assessing-pay-for-performance/
An interesting factor is that Boehner, like Sarah Palin, is a member of the proletariat when seen from the eyes of leftist perspective.
Boehner’s dad owned a bar and Boehner, along with his 10 or 12 brothers and sisters, worked in the bar as a kid. (I don’t have to mention that a young man growing up in this environment is a bad man to try and bully.)
All of the leftist heroes down here are part of the bourgeoisie. Nancy Pelosi was wealthy even as a kid. (Her father was mayor of Baltimore, and her brother was also mayor for a period.)
Obama has been living on the government teat all of his life, and he was raised by a woman who was regarded as prominent since she was a bank vice president. And of course the left loves people like John Kerry.
Ergo, the left has flipped the script. The rise of the leftist idea through the labor movement was at least superficially an attempt to enfranchise the working man and working families.
Now the left has become an indirect attempt to enfranchise the elite and create dependency among the working class and working class families.
The left is so unprincipled that it cannot even remain consistent to its own fallacious ideas.
In all fairness, I see what Beagle is getting to. However, if a private corporation is dysfunctional at the top (and having worked in one, I know first hand), then it is up to the owners – the shareholders – to clean house. Problem is, shareholders are like voters: the majority don’t give a damn. Blaming CEOs for large salaries not geared to realistic performance benchmarks is like blaming the dog for tearing through the whole bag of kibble accidentally left on the floor by the human. Shareholders who are involved and willing to take the time to vote their shares for a board of directors which will be more than a rubber stamp for the CEO & his minions can make the difference. Just like the 60%+ of Canadian voters who don’t bother with the municipal elections and then biatch loudly at the pack of scoundrels running the burgh.
Everything works better with a system of checks and balances – when that is out of whack, the solution is not more government (talk about checks and balances out of whack…) but cleaning house.
It’s competition beagle. How many people can tighten a lugbolt? How many can run a project like a new fighter jet?
A good CEO can run ANY company. Some do better in lean times, some save the company, some lose the company but keep the jobs. They are in demand and if you want one of the top thousand out of 34,000,000 you pay for it. Head of PCS earn his bonus this year?
The reason they are well paid is to keep them. The stock options are to encourage management to make money and the golden parachute is for when they get fired if only for change and lack of growth.
I have mutuals with a company that used to allow management to invest in the company. No outside investments allowed. They played the market for the investor as well as themselves.
Hey Jay,
What’s stopping you from writing a few extra cheques to the IRS?
Nancy Pelosi is about as dirty as they come in politician land.
She succeded in not only breaking the financial back of America but killed its heath-care for pay offs to fellow Marxists. Under her the biggest tax theft in history happened while she waltzed around the World living on others labor & sweat.
A human Leech, with the morals of a praying mantis.
That its all a disaster means nothing to this fiend, only her socialist agenda & to hell with people.
JMO
Say Beagle, what alternative is superior to capitalism? Socialism? If so, why does the socialist world import all its technology, including advanced medical technology, computers, and everything else from capitalist countries? Where, specifically, were essentially all the modern technologies developed? While you’re at it, take a look at standards of living in the capitalist vs. non-capitalist countries. Relatively speaking, WANT for the material necessities of life is magnitudes greater in non-capitalist countries.
If you can’t specify a superior alternative from history, all you are selling in your attack of capitalism is an imaginary alternative; one that exists only between your ears.
Funny how the leftwing bloggers like beagle ALWAYS appear when their servants, the Democrats, or any of their leftists allies are examined under a bright light on this blog.
What leftist cause are you affiliated with, beagle? Tell the truth.
Witness the ‘tax the rich’ philosophy so apparent in the U.S. Democrat Party. They fail to understand the law of unintended consequence.
Aside: (not unlike the B.C. NDP who under their ‘gender equity’ constitution, will have to have their President or Treasurer step down in order to allow one of the six (white) males who have declared for their leadership to run).
They fail to consider such questions as: would the American citizen be well served by having confiscated (through taxation) anything above say, a million dollars from Bill Gates when he was starting MicroSoft? Too ludicrous? How about at $5 million or ten?
Had they done so, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of direct or indirect jobs would never have been created. Nor would billions of dollars in real money have circulated through the economy. All of our lives would have been less ‘rich’ in both monetary and non-monetary ways, if Beagle’s income envy had been given full rein.
I also wonder if Beagle bears the same resentment towards the Bono’s and Spielberg’s of this world. Or the Kennedys, Kerry, Kucninch and Gore clans – all of whom are independently wealth without indivdually adding much of anything to the common weal.
tanker has the best take on this so far.
In a perfect world, the CEO’s of companies that go bankrupt would be forced to pay back some of their bonuses (bonii?). In a perfect world, people like Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs would no longer have companies to run; GS would have gone bankrupt. In a perfect world, CEO pay would not be so far out of line with that of their workers (a point underscored by any episode of Undercover Boss).
As Tanker pointed out, far too many shareholders (often pensions or mutual funds) pay far too little attention to corporate governance and executive pay. CEO’s get to pack boards with log rolling pals who routinely approve ..er.. generous.. pay packages. And yet study after study, from such heinous institutions as Harvard Business Review, shows there is no correlation between CEO pay and corporate performance.
Eventually, however, the market does work. CEO’s who get huge packages while asking for restraint from workers eventually reap what they’ve sown – the performance of the company falters as workers’ morale plummets. The best people in middle management leave for better opportunities, meaning upper management is eventually filled with living, breathing examples of the Peter Principle. Companies totter and fall – viz Nortel – and the lax shareholders get the return they deserve. Unfortunately, the process can take years.
As Keynes once observed, “Markets can stay irrational longer than you or I can remain solvent”.
What leftist cause are you affiliated with, beagle? Tell the truth.
Posted by: small c conservative at January 5, 2011 7:44 PM”
uh, none small c. none of them.
what I’m waiting for is a party that supports a robust and well resourced regulatory infrastructure so that when millions of individuals invest their finite cash in a company, they don’t get the rug pulled out under them because of yet another insider trading scandal.
what I’m waiting for is a move by politishuns of ALL stripes to use increased self-criticism and do some much needing and totally absent devil’s advocating to look for loopholes and defects in their legislation before they become law. is it too much to ask of parliament after 2010-1867 frickin’ years? far too much ideology in the process especially amongst the left.
what I’m waiting for is an edjukashun cystem that TEACHES USEFUL SKILLS alongside the fluffy stuff. feel free to contact your local board of edjukashun and ask if the single most important rule when purchasing a house is taught in any of the courses. go ahead. hint: it has to do with being a first time buyer.
there is as much unearned thievery in the board room as there is in the socialist camp.
etc etc.
for further details on my view of the correct economic structure for Canuckistan look to tanker and kevinb.
beagle
Actually when Canada’s business environment is compared to the US’ and the EU, let alone the failed Soviet system, it appears quite successful.
If it works…don’t fix it.
from the socialista beagle:
“10 grand a night? isn’t that what the captains of industry, the present day J P Morgan’s long for? the tangible indicators of wealth and success?”
Maybe. But JP Morgan et al didn’t pay for their nights out from mandatory public trough cash, did they? And I could care less how private industrialists or business owners reward themselves for their business; I wasn’t forced to pay a penny towards Tim Hortons founder ron joyce’s $40MM yacht, so more power to him. US taxpayers all had to pony up for nancy pelosi’s gradiose “night out”, not to mention funding her swanning around the country in a chartered military C-141 Starlifter for her loathsome self and her family. Beagle, are you so far gone that you don’t see the difference?
“didja see elsewhere in the MSM that the highest paid CEOs in Canuckistan make as much by 2:30 in the afternoon on the first Monday as the average earner does the entire rest of the year?”
“that’s capitalism for ya !!!”
What is it about CEO salaries that drives the leftards insane? You never hear any of them b1tching that Brad or Angelina are making $30 or $40mil for a new picture, or that A-Rod’s contract was for $200MM. It’s just a monomania against business, which is on par for the left: Business = Bad. Q.E.D., eh, beagle?
If somebody working for a company doesn’t like the fact that they only make a tiny fraction of that company’s CEO, then they have choices to make, freely:
1. upgrade their skills and seek a better position in that company
2. quit and work someplace else for more dough
3. start up their own business, and make as much as they want
That, indeed, is “capitalism for ya”, beagle. Oddly, you have none of those options in the socialist workers’ paradise of which the left is so enthralled, but there you go. Of course, for beagle and the left, the 4th option is:
4. puke and whine about how “unfair” it is that they make less than the CEO for their toils in the mailroom or sweeping floors, and demand government legislation to restrict CEO pay. Maobama and his marxist slime have opted for #4, but change is coming any day now in the House.
from the pearls of wisdom of economic colossus jay forbes:
“So we’ll act like blackmailing terrorists and deny them unemployment payments until we get tax breaks for the billionaire overlords we spend our lives sucking the ases of.”
Ahh, the sounds of more disgruntled leftoid class warfare moaning. Here’s the thing, Brainiac. US federal unemployment requires states also contribute in their General Assessments. So while Obumble is paying people not to work for 3 years, the states must also pony up to fund the ridiculous extended payments. Care to guess where all that dough comes from, O Wise and Brilliant Forbes? Yes: business. So they pay more to fund people extending their time not working, rather than expand business and actually hire anybody, and the thing keeps spiralling out of control. As was proved by Bush 43, Reagan, and even JFK, lowering taxes drives the economy upwards and creates jobs. But that doesn’t fly with the boilerplate socialist meme, does it, jay-tard?
“So let’s repeal the affordable health care act at the behest of the billionaire overords we spend our lives sucking the asses of.”
More class warfare nonsense, and one of the biggest obama lies to-date: that obamacare will be “cheaper”. Large companies are being granted exemptions from obamacare as the increased costs had them ready to jettison healthcare coverage for their employees, something never needed before the menace at 1600 pennsylvania entered the picture. Not only that, but the people in immediate jeopardy of loss of coverage from obamacare are the elderly, as half a $trillion was transferred from Medicare to obamacare. Ahh, well. They’re just oldsters anyway, right jay?
“Clinton years: record surplus. Bush years: record deficit. Brought on by two pointless wars, not paying for them, and being the only country in history to cut taxes during a war – of the billionaire overlords we spend our lives sucking the asses of.”
Mmmm, the sound of revisionist leftoid history. If one cared to check before weeping about “billionaire overlords”, one might find that bush’s hands were tied on budgets by a democrat house. The dems rejected all initial budgets/bush proposals in favour of more spending. And the dems have run the entire show since 2006, forbes, so WHO is responsible for the mess that the US finds itself today? But don’t let the facts stop a good rant.
“Billionaire overlords”. Gawd. Tell me, forbes, are you a public sector unionista? I’d bet my house on that; your screaching, jealous class warfare monomania reeks of it. Of course it’s understandable that you’d detest anybody successful from the fruits of their own steam rather than by union contracts, but it makes it no less agreeable to read. You must be a hoot at neighbourhood parties.
And, indeed, I “Fixed it for ya”
“Wonder why he so weepy? *Cough*..alcoholic dementia…*cough* ……..”
This is why forbes and his detestable ilk are truly disgusting: the politics of personal destruction and ad hominem. They did the same with Sarah Palin, with Michelle Backman, Bush, and anyone they fear. Not that the left would have anybody of questionable character in their ranks, would they? Of course not. They’d not have, say, a bootlegger and viral anti-semite as head of the democrat party, who’d need to be banished to a european ambassadorship to get him out of the US (joe kennedy). They’d not have a senator so bereft of moral fiber who’d leave a woman to slowly drown in a car, rather than seek help to rescue her and risk his political career (ted kennedy). They’d not have a man lie about his military exploits and throw somebody else’s medals at the white house, claiming they were his (john kerry). They’d not countenance a tax cheat as head of the treasury dept AND the IRS (geithner). And they’d certainly never have a KKK alumnus as a member of the senate (robert bird). And, like as not, they’d not have as their country’s leader a vocal anti-american who slandered his greatest neighbour and trading partner on numerous occasions, couldn’t string together a coherent sentence in either official language, and talked about imaginary meetings with pretend homeless friends (guess who).
But keep up with the politics of slander, forbes. It’s the only way the left can make their case; if they were truly honest with the population about their goals, rather than sneaking them through incrementally, they’d be banished.
mhb23re
at gmail d0t calm