diverborg

Seems as of lately we've been doing a wonderful job of pissing off a once strong ally in the region.

Like I said, its in the best interest of the company and its board to ditch an incompetent CEO. Although one doesn't normally achieve that position in a company based on incompetence. Yes, thats a big part of it. You need to reward merit, but you can't add more responsibility to a person, without expecting to pay them more.

If they set a cap at $5m, what is going to inspire him/her to expand the business if he's not going to get paid more. Businesses need to grow if you want the stock to grow and more jobs to be created. With more responsibility comes more pay. I'm not going to be very happy with my company if they put me in charge of 3 more airplanes and not pay me anymore regardless of my performance. Much of a corporations profitibility is beyond the control of the CEO. You are assuming that if a corporation is suffering its always because of the CEO underperforming. Govt subsidies of ethanol and soy-diesel almost drove us out of business because of rising grain prices. We have lucked out through the worst of it while Pilgrims Pride and Tyson (our biggest competitors) can't say the same. The boardmembers of a corporation choose their CEO. It is in their best interest to choose a CEO that will make the company turn a profit. If they screw the company up they will probably get fired. You seem to demonize all corporations and CEO's because of a small handful that have screwed their employees and shareholders. I think even Fox news is calling these a$$holes out. It is in the best interest of the corporation to determine if their CEO should be rewarded or fired, not the govt. It seems you want to pin all the blame of the current economy on the CEO's. Often times these "evil" corporations are victims too. A free market can be a tough market, but its great for the consumer.

If corporations didn't reward their CEO's for operating profitably and expanding the business, what incentive would the CEO have to operate profitably and grow. The reasons CEO compensation has increased is because simply business has expanded. If I work in a plant butchering chickens, my responsibility does not increase or decrease as the business grows and hires more people. If the CEO does a good job of keeping a corporation profitable, then it will most likely expand. With that expansion comes more jobs and responsibility and rightly so should include more pay. Somehow many people have this theory that the market is going to grow without the corporations growing. Or somehow we're going to be able to expect CEO's to expand these business and employ more people without paying them more for the extra responsibility. This world would be a better place if we quit coveting what other people have and work for our own. I work for a reputable corporation as a low-end salaried employee. I'm very thankful that I have a job and I give them my best, because my raises and bonuses are directly related to the companies profits that year. You want to make it more difficult for corporations like mine to profit so you can hand that money back to people like me. Well what happens when you start handing that money to people like me and take it from the corporations profitability in an already struggling market where corporations are struggling to stay afloat. Well my bonuses and raises go away for sure, and I'll be lucky if my job doesn't too. They are not obligated to employ me. A CEO's salary is hardly a drop in the bucket for a companies expenses. Our company grossed over a billion in sales last year. A couple pennies difference in grain prices will affect our profitibility for hundreds of millions of dollars. Our CEO's salary is less than $750,000. The wealth gap naturally increases with capitalism. So what? What does that mean? You may get a smaller piece of the pie as the pie grows, but the pie has grown enough that your smaller piece is still bigger than it was before. You cannot make the rich poorer without making the poor poorer. Do you know how lucky we are to live in a country where even the lowest paid person in the country can own a vehicle or save his money to further himself. Most countries owning your own car is for the wealthy of the wealthy. This country will get what it has coming when we try to tear down the rich. Wow, so were all even now, but were all broke or unemployed. Phew, sorry for the long post

I'm not really disagreeing with you on this, except on where we are blaming Sarah Palin for this and accusing her of spending recklessly I agree with you that I wouldn't like seeing govt funds going to stadiums and such, but in this case it was voted for by the citizens. I would much rather this sort of thing be privatized, but nobody had done it and there was enough cry for this from the citizens that they voted to spend their tax dollars on this. I'm sure there will always be exceptions like your example, but I think if the time is right for the city, a stadium/convention center will usually pay for itself and then some. So although I would rather this sort of thing be privatized, the citizens wanted/voted for it and Sarah Palin decided to listen to the people and that fiscally it will pay itself off, thus the point of her spending is kinda mute.

Well, I think the idea is that it will pay off the debt itself and then some, so it doesn't cost the taxpayers anything, then the extra revenue as well as what they have already will still be used to fund libraries and such. Anyway this is really irrelevant to her spending habits considering the sportcenter is something the people voted on rather than a few govt officials wasting our money without our say. If the govt did invest its resources properly, whether that be education, NASA, urban development, then we wouldn't have the national deficit that we currently have. Therefore either we are investing in areas we shouldn't be, or we are investing improperly in the areas that we should be.

I think were missing something here Bill. This spending isn't considered wasteful. Its considered an investment, because the tax revenue gained from having a sportcenter will more than pay for its cost and the city/state will profit from it. Wasteful: taking out a loan on a brand new car that will depreciate to nothing Smart spending: taking out a loan for a business or house that will appreciate in value and give you a return in more than the loan amount Its not necessarily all about the amount spent as to what its spent on, which I think you don't need me to explain to you.

***If the Republicans considered health care a right, and not a privilage for the wealthy.Health care is not a commodity. Making a profit from the sick,dying,and disabled is disgusting.*** Yeah, those damn evil doctors. Can you believe that they would actually take out a half a million in student loans to learn how to take care of our bodies and actually expect to be able to pay them off and have some money to retire too. I know what you're saying, it just disgusts me too. Maybe you would like to volunteer your services and lifelong investments? And, oh man those damn insurance companies. Can you believe that they don't just give their money away. Maybe life would be better without them and we just use the little charity money given to only help those that really need it. Or, we can do like you say and assume like everything else in this country the government can run it better than private entities. Just like our wonderful public school system, and our God blessed social security money. It sure would be great if everyone else's tax money paid for our broken femurs from our own stupidity. Sorry Mike, I didn't mean to get off topic. That statement just rubbed me a little the wrong way.

OMG, tell me thats photoshopped.

Oh, cmon, I was just trying to be funny by putting a twist on it.

Considering most of the world has come to very much dislike the U.S., it doesn't suprise me that more than 80% would like to see our country fall apart.

Well, before I make my wife out to be a monster, I should clarify a few things. She knew she had debt, she just didn't know the amount. The debt does not include credit cards thank heavens, its a vehicle she owed money on that no longer existed and a new one that we have (hence $15,000 net) and student loans. So the debt is easily manageable. She does like to spend, but its not out of control like some women. She just simply didn't know how to be financially responsible because her parents never made her be. Her parents are the ones that dropped all the bills on me after the wedding. I fault them partially for that, but I can't really complain because they've done a lot for us as well as they paid for the entire wedding which was quite the bash I must say.

This thread I've put on is a bit uncomfortable really. Can I be rude, and ask; is this causing any problems of significance in your relationship with your partner? Well, I had my tantrum after I found about it all soon after the wedding, and still worked up a budget and got over it. We are making some headway and still putting some money away. In order to do that though it involved some serious lecturing and some bitter arguments till she finally got on board with me to understand that she has to listen to me if she wants to keep the house or ever retire. We still have our struggles but the worst is over. I just had to accept that I'm not going to be able to make some of the investments that I wanted to and retire early. It's always the same! Mentalist wife has to buy designer shoes every 3 hours, or what have you. I've tried lecturing my Missus and ended up with a frying pan approaching my melon with a speed close to that of light. Should've gone to freecreditreport.com, I'd be a happy bachelor with a dog and a yard. jk, I really do love my wife p.s. its from a commercial over here in the states in case you hadn't heard it before.

This thread I've put on is a bit uncomfortable really. Can I be rude, and ask; is this causing any problems of significance in your relationship with your partner? Well, I had my tantrum after I found about it all soon after the wedding, and still worked up a budget and got over it. We are making some headway and still putting some money away. In order to do that though it involved some serious lecturing and some bitter arguments till she finally got on board with me to understand that she has to listen to me if she wants to keep the house or ever retire. We still have our struggles but the worst is over. I just had to accept that I'm not going to be able to make some of the investments that I wanted to and retire early.

Not counting my mortgage, well before I got married 8 months ago my debt was nothing. Since I got married, well lets see, I just inherited about $60,000 of debt and only about $15,000 of that has any net value.

yes he was in uniform

, thats a great post. So true and yet so sad.

Hmmm, interesting read. I thought he was in trouble because he was in uniform and used his position as a police officer to endorse a candidate. I didn't realize this was a law, and although it seems kinda dumb maybe there's a good reason for it. What I don't understand is if this is a law, then does that mean our military men and women can't wear their uniforms to a political rally or nobody holding a civil job can endorse a candidate, WTF? However the article does make an interesting point on whether or not any of this would have came up if he didn't call Obama by his full name. Guess I don't know.

I'm with ya on this one. I hated the fact that McCain supported the bailout before it even happened. I may have considered voting for Obama if he opposed the bailout and didn't scare the crap out of me with all his additional spending ideas. At least McCain still says he's going to cut spending and not push for another trillion in spending right after taking office. For that reason, McCain will still get my vote. For some reason I just wanna write a big "I TOLD YOU SO" post on here about the bailout.

Well, as much as I dread Obama taking office for economical reasons, I think our foreign relations would be one benefit of him leading. He may not have the experience McCain has, but Obama has our old allies respect much more than McCain. Although, I don't understand why the rest of the world dislikes McCain so much. I think just because he's Republican they associate that with Bush's foreign policy. I will admit that I'm a little concerned with McCains stance on Iraq, but I think overall he's the best bet for the country.

I completely agree with a union of states, and I'm all for more power to the states and less to the federal govt. States do elect their own govt which is the way it should be, but we are electing a president to run the country on a federal level and not a state level, so I see no problem with a popular vote. If anything, the electoral college has the potential to hurt state powers more than help. It has shifted more power to just a few states at the suffering of others.

It has nothing to do with whether my guy wins the election. Even if it worked in the favor of my candidate every time, I wouldn't like the system. Of course your vote does affect which side your state goes to, but when that state is not a swing state, your individual vote is pretty much irrelevant to the outcome of the election, unless by chance, enough people have changed their stance in the state to make it a swing state. I understand the principal of it, I just don't think its necessary anymore.

I'm with quade on this one, what benefit does the electoral college have. It just plain sucks no matter what your political views are. Tell me any good reason that a president with the popular vote should not get into office because of a technicality. I'm not attacking you, I'm just curious as to why anybody would defend the current system. So lets say you move to Texas, and you plan on voting for Obama. Why waste your time going to the polls? I can't understand why somebody wouldn't want their vote to count nationally if they lived in a state where the majority of people didn't agree with them. I'm sorry, I'm very passionate about protecting the second ammendment as are some that would like to destroy it, but are there really that many people out there that think the electoral college should be preserved?

Wow, I didn't even realize that I wasn't voting for Obama because I'm racist. This is absolute horse poopy! I guess come to think of it, I would probably vote for him if he was a white man.