Pio,

I also hate cigarette smoking. Hate the smoke, the smell, the stains - everything about it. It is well documented that smoking is bad for you. Still, many people smoke. I think they should be free to do so. Does it raise health care costs? No question. Does obesity raise health care costs? Undoubtedly. So does skydiving, hang gliding, hot air baloons, driving cars, etc. It is not - nor should it be - the government's job to protect us from ourselves.

As for the incredible rise in health care costs, whom do you think bears the primary responsibility? Doctors? Hospitals? Drug companies? Nah. It is the government. Again, I have a hunch that I can demonstrate a positive correlation between government intervention into health care and health care costs. How? Through Medicaid and Medicare. Name one thing the government has not botched.

I recall years ago, a politican in Illinois who sponsored a bill to make it a law for motorcyclists to wear seat belts. Can you imagine?

As for prostitution and STD's, again, it is not the government's job to protect us from ourselves. You know the risk going in. Besides, more get STD's from people they know. What's the difference? In the former case, you pay to get it. Why do we need government to intervene? Now, if a group of women hold me down, and take turns raping me and I get an STD......forgot what my point was.

Hi Todd,

You wish huh! I can just picture you struggling to get up too.
Okay I am leaving that topic alone now!

I thought all the men would be sitting in front of their television sets today. Are you a College football fan Todd?

I came here actually hoping to find that Larousse had posted. If you are out there Larousse will you please contact me? My email address is on my posts.

Hope you all have a good day. Beth.

Hi Beth,

I am a college football fan but I have been spoiled by the quality of the SEC. I have no time for the Pac 8, the "Big 10, the east coast, etc. Ohio State is rated no. 1 but look at their schedule. They play Bowling Green, Slippery Rock, Indiana, etc. Any team in the SEC has the capability to beat any other team on a given Saturday.

2Regret - You live right near me!!!!

On education - I think parents are responsible for teaching their children. I taught both my sons to read before they went to school. That way I KNEW they would come out of school knowing how to read. They both also learned Spanish in the home, and went to bilingual classes the first 3 years.

Going in or going down?

2regret? You live in Bahrain? You live near me too!

Todd,

I think you misunderstand the nature of the question. What I can't understand is why the govt took up anti-smoking as a cause. What was the motivation? I can't see that it was financial unless the govt views people dying as reducing the tax base. That is just too much of a stretch. If you leave humanitarian issues to the side (and why not? the govt does), who benefitted?

Helmets and smoking - My guess is that they cost lots of money, because folks end up with lung damage or brain damage, and don't die for years and years. They collect social security, use medicare, get expensive nursing home care, etc.

Separate post so Todd won't evade my smoking question.

Regarding education, one thing I have felt for a long time is that people (especially in the USA) no longer have a sense of self-responsibility. Everything is somebody else's fault. I'm fat? McDonalds is putting the wrong kind of oil in their french fries. The govt. should do something about it. How dare they use cheap oil for profit? Oh, BTW, can you supersize that for me?

I'm not getting a good education? The govt should spend more money on teachers' salaries. Don't make me study. It's not my fault.

The woman burns herself with hot coffee as she pulls out of the drivethru when her cellphone rings and she tries to answer it. There should be a law against hot coffee or at least put warning labels on the cups.

My favorite is the farmer who broke his leg while painting his barn. Starts painting in the fall. Weather gets bad and he doesn't finish. A few nice days come along. He paints a bit more. Of course he keeps moving the ladder. One fine spring day, the sun comes out and he decides to paint some more. The ladder slips, he falls, breaks a leg. He sues the manufacturer of the ladder and wins. Turns out he had the ladder in the pig pen and, according to the court proceedings, the ladder maker had neglected to warn the farmer of the viscosity of pig manure relative to temperature.

We are becoming a nation/world of people no longer responsible for their own actions. Infidelity? Not my fault. It was the fog.

tell me this can't be real

Have I mentioned my problem with reading comprehension?


I think the motivation was to simply save us from our ourselves.

Precisely. I was at a business luncheon years ago and someone asked me the question what did I think was the number one problem facing our country. I said the erosion of self-responsibility. Unfortunately, the more the government takes over, the more the masses look to the government for “help”. I’ve seen countless souls interviewed on television who say they expect the government to protect them. Good luck. With national defense, yes. Otherwise, you had better look out for yourself.

Senator Joe Biden announced that the Democrats will “negotiate” drug prices for Medicare. I speak Congressionalese. Allow me to translate: he means that the government will stipulate to the drug companies the prices they can charge the government. Mark my words: five years from, after adjusting for the number of people on Medicare and for inflation, the amount that the government spends on drugs will be higher than it is today.

Maybe I have a slightly skewed perception on this but it seems like there are two types of democrats: 1) the democrat who is very wealthy and wants the govt to "give back" to assuage a sense of guilt for being extremely wealthy (e.g. Kennedys) or 2) those who are poor and want the govt to dole out so they will be less extremely poor. The former rely on the latter to give them elected offices where they can then go and negotiate higher prices because they have never actually had to earn anything before and don't really know what the word "negotiate" means but understand it makes a good sound bite.

Has there ever been a study to compare the increase in net worth of the average congressman while in office in relation to his salary? Surely the GAO has some stats. I have difficulty understanding the concept of "public service". It is my feeling that anyone who wants to run for elected office should be automatically disqualified. At what point in history did the words noble and nobility diverge?

Todd,

I missed your point on the mass exodus of CEO's. I can't see what is illegal about back-dating stock options. it is a bit unfair in that it is not applied equally to all levels of the organization and only a select few can benefit from the practice. Actually back-dating is a little counterproductive in terms of employee retention. The worst thing you can do is hand an employee a bundle of cash. Assigning stock options at current trading prices is brilliant because they are worthless yet the employee cannot resign lest he lose his worthless options.

To be honest, I have an entirely different theory on the greater stock trade. After the IPO where the company does generate cash, let's say that a company retains 1,000,000 shares and 1,000,000 shares are publicly traded. The share values go up and down but, assuming the company never buys any shares back nor sells any of its retained shares, what does the company really care about the stock price? Oh sure its net worth is affected but what really matters is cash flow. Maybe the company's credit rating suffers and it costs more to borrow but that is not huge. The only people on the company who care about the share price are the ones with stock options. Their decisions are based on personal gain.

I worked for two companys that went from being closely held to IPO. We went from a 5 year business plan to a 90 day business plan. We lost market share, we lost revenue but we increased shareholder value. We were never allowed to invest in future business because the returns were deferred beyond the quarterly earnings report. So stocks, while good for many fledgling businesses, can hinder more established businesses. I view the NYSE and NASDAQ as legalized gambling. How can somebody be for stocks but against the lottery?

Depends Beth - Public Schools are essentially free or a small nominal "voluntary" contribution with all text books supplied.

Private schools are user pays. Some of them provide text books, some don't. Some provide textbooks up to senior school.

Varies.

How are you anyway Beth and all other TKO'ers?

This is hands down the funiest post on this thread for a while. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Well I have to admit that it has reduced the stress level in the house. Mama hamster had been a serious problem for quite some time. I thought it was post partum depression but she has been very agressive and viscious for quite a few weeks. Initially I thought she was just protecting her babies but she got to the point where she was mean to them as well. Two weeks ago WW was handling her and mama bit WW really hard. WW was surprised by how hard mama could bite so she stuck her finger out in front of mama's face. Duh! Mama got a jaw lock on WW's finger and it took three of us to pull her off. Since then we have been afraid to go near the cage. If she sees anyone, she runs at the cage door and leaps and does a spread eagle all the while hissing, snarling and gnashing - yes she did indeed gnash. (I'm talking about the hamster - not WW) No mistaking a gnash when you see it.

So I guess I'm not too upset about the cat incident. In a certain sense it is justice. Live by the fang - die by the fang I always say.

Interestingly this has changed the whole balance of power in the community. We took troublemaker out of the cage with the brothers and put him/her (haven't looked under the hood yet) in the cage with the six babies. It will take on any one of the babies but the others quickly come to the defence so we have detente for the moment.

I also have a cat permanently installed outside my garage I can't seem to get rid of. I've tried water hose, taser gun, blow torch and pepper spray. No luck. Any other ideas? Wait a minute ... maybe I should have tried those things on the cat!

Pio,

So funny, I laughed until I cried. You could be writing for a living.

BigK,

So good to see your post. I'm okay thanks. Came here crying from reading the post Steph. did on her thread and now I am leaving laughing. Hope you are heading in her direction...

Todd,

You have disappeared tonight. Hope you are out having fun.
I'm a very old Bruin (UCLA) so I have been celebrating today. It's been a long wait!

Nams,

We need all the good teachers we can get.

Pio - perhaps this idea could help with the hamster problem...

Squirrel Melts

Poor Steph. I will stop into her thread Beth.

Pio,

Here are the headline and the first two paragraphs of the story.

Record number of US CEOs depart executive suite

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A record number of US chief executives have left office so far this year amid a growing government investigation into stock options fraud, according to an industry survey.

A total 1,347 American CEOs have departed the executive suite so far this year, surpassing the 1,322 chief executives who exited their offices in 2005, according to outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray and Christmas Inc.

This tells me that 1,347 CEO’s left office because they had committed stock options fraud. And there were 1,322 the year before. Very alarming.

But, then the French come clean and tell us this:

The majority of CEOs left office due to retirement or a resignation, but a rising number are being forced from office due to probes into stock options backdating.

Hmm…..now we read that the “majority” left because of retirement or resignation. Wait, different story.

This is what the press does over and over. The press hates business so they slant the verbiage in such a way as to make corporations look as poorly as possible.


Ah, my friend, the same mistake the press makes. First, the company cares about the value of its retained 1,000,000 shares. Don’t forget, the company is not the “company”, it is owned by its shareholders. If you are a CEO, you work for the shareholders so you want the shareholders to be happy. It would be no different than if an investor comes to you and says he will back you financially to start an engineering consulting business. For your efforts, he will grant you 50% ownership. Would you care how well he thinks the company is doing? He can replace you at any time.