I am happy to see the Republican wave swamping liberals nationwide. However, here in California it is only depression for conservatives. Barbara Boxer won reelection, and Jerry Brown is back in as Governor Moonbeam. The state will continue its downward spiral into insolvency, unemployment and high taxes.
Other downers are that Harry Reid and Barney Frank, two of the vilest members of the far left, also won reelection. Needless to say, I won't be joining those who have left the state for Nevada.
I am going to bed and watch the election returns on Fox until I fall asleep. Tomorrow I will think about my continuing future here in the Land of Fruits and Nuts.
All in all we did much better than Calif. Good luck with that idiot Jerry Brown.
ReplyDeleteBut he will chase a lot of business over the state line to the sane part of Nevada.
All areas in Nevada voted for republicans in the house. Las Vegas is the reason harry Reid is still here. May their real estate continue to go down until all those idiots in las Vegas are sleeping in their cars.
Calif is a sea of red except for the coastal areas. Those areas are the liberal cancers for you, like Las Vegas is for us.
Harry Reid will find more than a few democrat senators will not follow him. They can see when they come up for re election in 2 years, what will happen to them. There has to be at least 3 democrat senators in the southern states who can't stand that little rat either, and will vote with the republicans.
True America is back !!
ReplyDeleteBro, yes, wherever there are large cities there are Democrat strongholds. I don't know why this is. It would be interesting to study it. The rural areas in California are all Republican.
ReplyDeleteWe have defacto control of both houses. They should be glad we voted them out, now a civil war might not be necessary.
ReplyDeleteBro, don't say that... I'm already underwater in my house and that is really saying something in the desert. My wife and I both voted against Reid. He is a survivor. He beat John Ensign 6 years ago by less than 1%. And the unions are strong in the city. But we did dump Dina Taxus and we have a Republican Governor in Sandoval. So we're not complete id10ts like Cali is.
ReplyDeleteStogie I answered your teaching question in the thread below...
It seems like, years ago, I heard a lot of idle chatter about Californians wanting to split the state up in to 2 or even 3 new states. While there's no precedent for something that radical, it would seem to be the only solution for the semi-sane parts of California to survive at all. Is there any talk like that going on now out there? I would think that, if it could ever happen, the impending unavoidable state bankruptcy/default and likely 30% unemployment would be the trigger that would be needed for it to get some legs.
ReplyDeleteBro, I think you may be right about avoiding a civil war with this GOP victory.
ReplyDeleteVegas Art Guy: Thanks for the info on teaching. If I move to Nevada I will look into it.
EM - There is precedence for a state splitting up. Virginia did it during the Civil War, with the new state being West Virginia. WV wanted to stay in the Union.
People have been talking about splitting up the state for years but nothing serious has ever been done about it. The northern parts of the state feel abused, since they are rural and their tax dollars go mostly to San Francisco and Los Angeles (or so they claim).
The example with Virginia had occurred to me, but I don't really count it as a precedent since I'm hoping Cali manages to do it without a Civil War involved (assuming BRO is correct about us having avoided it). I'm assuming that both halves of Cali would stay in the Union, but if the Left half wants to leave I won't shed a tear.
ReplyDeletecheck out:
downsizeca.org
EM, I wouldn't shed a tear either if the left half leaves the Union. Let the parasites eat each other.
ReplyDeleteActually most states have a program that is similar to that. So if you move to say TX or FL or GA ect... check with them as well.
ReplyDeleteI voted for Whitman... but had to hold my nose while doing it. Her entire campaign was attack ads... plus the typical generic platitudes. She spent $140M of her own money, and did nothing to inspire the voters. Along with Carly the Republicans didn't give California Independents much to get excited about.
ReplyDeleteYes Boxer is enemy #1, but Carly... come on! The Compaq/HP/Deutsche Bank deal was just plain crooked. I was a trader in Compaq at the time; Carly and Deutsche pushed it through ignoring a large host of naysayers. The deal flopped... leaving HP in the lurch. She walked away with her $20M parachute... the stockholders got stuck holding the bag.
pjm, I too voted for Whitman but did not vote for her in the primary. She was a RINO and uninspiring. Her attack ads, however, seem mild compared to the venom generated by Jerry Brown.
ReplyDeleteI don't know anything about Fiorina's business deals, but have never seen them mentioned as crooked...if so, why hasn't she been indicted? It's easy to criticize with the benefit of hindsight and second guess old deals gone bad, so I don't take your criticisms here too seriously.
Carly Fiorina, like Whitman, is a RINO, but if she had mugged a priest and kidnapped a bus load of school kids, I would still vote for her over the repugnant Barbara Boxer.
The Fiorina Compaq deal might be better described as "weasely" rather than crooked, as crooked implies that laws were provably broken. It doesn't seem to me to be particularly out of the ordinary in the corporate shenanigans department, but I think the point to be taken from her example is that while people with business experience tend to make good candidates and leaders (a concept the current administration completely ignores) it seems to me to be also true that corporate executives tend to make horrible candidates and leaders. Why? For one, they come across usually as genuinely personally unlikable people. They don't resonate with the voters. They are not "one of us". Those of us who work for large corporations know this all too well. Two, their corporate exec history generally consists of weasely behavior which looks bad in campaigns. And three, corporate executives are generally selfish, unprincipled people and come across that way, even to those who might agree with their platform. They give the "vibe" of running solely out of a desire for power rather than a belief in principles. They inspire no loyalty or enthusiasm in the base. I am most certainly not anti-capitalist here, but I am anti-corporatist. A number of the RINOs who lost out in this past cycle were of the corporate exec variety, and it is not a coincidence that they did not catch on the way that more genuine, likable candidates did.
ReplyDelete(Yes, if she were a serial killer, she would still be better than Boxer, but I blame her for the fact that we still have Boxer, so that doesn't make her much better.)
EM, I don't think it is wise to draw sweeping conclusions about corporate people on the basis of two examples. Corporate execs had to be smart and talented to get where they are, good communicators, able to deal with risks and uncertainty, manage people and projects and create wealth. Those aspects seem to me to be favorable characteristics for holding office.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do agree that neither Fiorina or Whitman represented well the conservative philosophy. Being successful corporate executives means they also had to swallow and parrot a lot of PC propaganda.
Corporations are a sound method of organizing a business, and there is nothing in that form of organization that is inherently evil. Without corporations a lot of business activity would be difficult or impossible.
Désolée pour la Californie Stogie ...mais en 2012 cela changera certainement .En France nous aurons aussi les élections en 2012 ,et j'espère que la gauche ne passera pas ,ce serait catastrophique !
ReplyDeleteIt's not a conclusion about all corporate execs, it's a generalization, but, I think, a fairly accurate one. It can have exceptions. It's certainly not based on only two examples. The part about the nature of corporate execs in general is based on a great many examples (including but not limited to my personal dealings with such individuals), though there are obviously fewer examples to go on of corporate execs in politics. Of the top of my head, I might mention Rick Scott, who did just barely manage a win with 48% of the vote but was hammered severely over a criminal investigation and massive fines against a company he had been CEO of, or Linda McMahon (though not a typical Corporate CEO exactly) who, in no small part due to hits over past business practices, managed to lose by 10 points to a guy who publicly LIED ABOUT HIS WAR SERVICE. Now, of course, I can pick and choose my examples to prove almost anything, and I'm not saying that no corporate exec could ever be a good candidate, but most come with a LOT of baggage and do not represent the new Tea-flavored Republican party (partially because of all that PC propaganda you mentioned them swallowing).
ReplyDeleteI realize that corporations are not inherently evil, and are a vital part of the economic system that has made this country free and prosperous. I do, however, see that there has been a trend over the past few decades, primarily among the leadership of the largest corporations to be "in bed with" the Federal and State government bureaucracy in a way that makes them far more an agent of Socialism than of Capitalism (maybe call that form of Socialism "Corporatism") Essentially, the leadership of the largest corporations tend to cooperate with the entrenched political bureaucracy, through laws and regulations, for their own financial benefit and to grow the government in a way that subverts our democratic process. Again, not ALL of them, but more and more. In the olden days, it seemed that corporations tended towards the conservative - now it seems that they tend far more towards the Liberal/Socialist or at least the RINO type republican, and I think that this is because they have a vested interest in the Statist/Big Government/quasi-Socialist model.
Again, just to qualify that, I am not saying this is true of ALL of them, but it is a strong trend. I do hate to sound like a conspiracy-minded anti-business lefty, but I'm not going to give big corporations a pass just to avoid sounding like one.
Kate said:
ReplyDeleteSorry for California, Stogie, but in 2012 that will certainly change. In France we will also have elections in 2012, and I hope that the left will not succeed as it would be catastrophic!
EM said:
ReplyDeleteI do, however, see that there has been a trend over the past few decades, primarily among the leadership of the largest corporations to be "in bed with" the Federal and State government bureaucracy in a way that makes them far more an agent of Socialism than of Capitalism (maybe call that form of Socialism "Corporatism") Essentially, the leadership of the largest corporations tend to cooperate with the entrenched political bureaucracy, through laws and regulations, for their own financial benefit and to grow the government in a way that subverts our democratic process.
Okay EM, I see your point on that. Others have noted the same alliance of big corporations with government, for the purpose of squeezing out the smaller competitors (through oppressive legislation that the big guys can afford but the little guys cannot).
Yes, individual corporations often seek gain at the expense of the rest of us. Some good examples are those corporations who will benefit from global warming legislation even though AGW is a fraud and the legislation will kill jobs and economic growth overall.