Ingineers Ramblings

So the big bonuses are okay with you? You want what Bush did which was give it all out and don't ask for anything in return? No accountability just like with the Iraq contractors and Katrina? You are generous to the rich, if not the poor!

As for the uniting, the bill is probably more democrat than Obama; so I suggest you be writing your congressmen as I have done and tell them what you want. I said more infrastructure. Hopefully you did the same thing!

As for Limbaugh, he always sounds good. It's his job. Be sure you check his facts though because they are often fudged, jockeyed and taking pieces of this or that rather than the whole story. You can make anything look one way or the other if you want to play around with it for awhile.
 

Well again Obama is trying to micro manage something that he knows nothing about. While I agree the guy from Merril Lynch should have a pound or two of flesh removed from his body with an ax. A good portion of the $18 billion in bonuses are not a bad thing. Over the last several years the compensation system on Wall Street has changed. All the way down to mid level employees their pay scales have been changed so that only 10 to 20 percent of their pay is salary and the rest is bonuses based on different performance levels. So unlike in a union shop where every body gets paid the same whether they are terrible or wonderful on Wall Street everybody gets paid for doing good things. Much like is becoming the practice in the NFL except in football only about 30 to 40 percent of the salaries are bonuses. So if Obama blocks all these bonuses in a year or so you will be reading about how all the salaries of all these Wall Street people went way up because they will have to change the pay structure to back like it was 50 years ago.
I know it sounds good to bash $18 billion in bonuses on TV, but is he bashing the pay that all the UAW members are getting for sitting at home on standby? No that does not score points with the people that bought the White House.
 

You are a right winger and you see it as right wingers. Those bonuses are decided by other CEOs who all agree they succeeded-- even if they failed. The issue with the bonuses is how do you say you did good when you want the feds to give you billions in bail outs? What success exactly did they have?

Nobody is saying they can't do it if a company has had big profits (like the oil companies for instance). That's a different question of ethics or even economic sense than asking for my tax money to give some millionaire more millions for failing. And if they didn't fail, why do they need the bail-out?

We will never see this the same way. You see the poor as at fault in this and as for the jet, Obama wasn't the one who said they had to do that. Bad publicity decided that. It was cabinet level who said they should. Nobody micromanaged. They said if you can afford it, buy it with your money. I think I'd like a new Highlander. Mine is getting old. I guess you'd like to buy it for me?

The wealthy have not been helping this country just by getting huge bucks. It often means a lot of lower levels got laid off (that's how HP's CEO got credit and his $40 million bonus by laying off the lowest levels and it looks good-- for awhile.

I will never understand why people who work for a living, who often are barely getting by and yet go right wing all the way as they support the wealthiest gaining more and more money and yell bloody murder if a poor person gets anything from the government. Socialism for the rich? What on earth are you thinking it will gain for the country?

I also find it irritating that you are talking about Obama's responsibility to bring this country together and failing when he only got inaugurated 9 days ago. That's nuts!

I don't know how pathetic the jet was that they needed to replace but they are asking for my money to buy the new one. Is it kind of like the guy who had an inadequate office and had to redo it for a million dollars? that's a lot of decorating but it's important since he was rich, not poor to start, right?

You trust the rich so much that it's amazing. No need to ever oversee them. They wouldn't cheat anybody....
 

I had another thought about this and that is that I doubt Obama cared much about the jet. What he cared about was the tsunami developing over it which might swamp the stimulus package. He knows how to work an issue and what is bad publicity. He wanted it out of there fast.

Also if you looked at the actual stimulus, a lot would go to states, free to spend it how they most needed, which could use it for additional infrastructure projects. A lot of states are at risk of going bankrupt which could mean their government jobs disappearing, pensions kaput, roads and bridges not repaired, and loss of services like police and fire. Maybe all of that should go down but I don't know how it would actually end up if that kind of thing started.

We are in a mess without a doubt and that came at least partly thanks to Bush and his tax policies as well as a war he never did pay for.
 

Sometimes it is not the act but the timing. It is difficult to justify a new jet when the government is bailing your company out.

It is difficult to assign bonuses when a company is going down the tubes.

It is the fault of the governemtn that certain types of housing loans were mandated, but what logic is there to a company that gives away bonuses whether the executive is successful (makes money for the company) or not?

It seems like the executives are getting the exhorbinent amounts of money because their contrats were negotiated up front rather than their performance.

And then, there is the topic of the ponzi barons who seem to get released after they have been arrested due to politics or money influence.

I think that they should be barred access from their monetary and non-monetary assets until the trials conclude.

Oh well, they are rich, I am not. figures
 

Hey Bernie, nice to see you. Thanks for commenting. I know it looks bad to be buying a jet right now, but also look at the folks in Little Rock that are going to get laid off because that jet got canceled. I am just saying there are two sides to every story and the President of the United States should not be telling private business what to buy or not buy. It is not the American way. If the company does not make money then the CEO or the managers lose their jobs or get demoted.

And Rain I may agree with you on how the war was paid for or not paid for, but I will never agree that the Bush Tax cut was bad for the country. Lower tax rates bring in more money to the treasury and if you look at the reports the top income earners in this country actually paid more taxes under Bush than they did under Clinton.
And by the way I am not rich, but I beleive that the rich pay most of the taxes and the poor pay none or very little taxes. And the poor certainly do not open very many factories or hire very many employees. So I do not see a reason to bash most of the rich. Except maybe the entertainment industry. I have no problem taking pot shots at somebody that makes $10million a year or more for shaking their butt and pretending to sing on stage.
 

The jet was being paid for by us through the bail out. Nobody interfered in private industry but once private industry comes with hands out, they then should have some responsibility. You never did mention if you'd mind sending a contribution to my buying a new, more energy efficient hybrid maybe Highlander? It would also help the economy but I need a wee bit of help with it :)

And we've discussed the tax cuts before; so won't go on with my opinion on that as we know we don't see it the same for whether that helped or led to the current mess.
 

I believe there is a Federal Tax credit to help you with the purchase of the Highlander and also there is probably a state tax credit in hippy green Oregon. I know we have one here in Cali.

Make sure you really research that hybrid. Personally I would not buy one yet unless I lived in the big city. Their biggest benefit comes when you are sitting in traffic. They do not do well in mountainous country as the mileage drops way off. We have an old Prius in the fleet that I drove for a month.

Also the Ford Escape hybrid that I looked at could not tow a trailer and the regular Escape can. And if you are running the AC in the summer the motor has to run anyway. For my money I would stick with a small SUV for much less cost until the technology gets a little better.