Questions from a confused Californian

[Mezzolla]

Hello there!

I am a 40ish small business owner and have pretty much kept to myself for the last 20 years. With all the current events, my attention has turned to our government. I have these questions and hoped someone could explain or verify some things for me.

Is this true?

There are over 100,000 California State Employees that make over 100k a year. We pay them that amount and also more after they retire. Many of them get paid 3X that of private sector workers. We also pay more state employees to manage their retirment.

Why is it so difficult to find detailed information about how the state or fed spends our money?

I see alot of commercials on TV about how state services will be cut. Who pays for those? Do I? Who benefits from commercials like that?

Why would we agree to overpay people? Who agreed to that?

Can some of these people be fired? Who can fire them? The Gov?

I have learned that the most powerful lobbyist work for state employees. Do any of you have a problem with that? If so what can be done about it now?

 

[random3434]

Google is your friend!

 

[Metternich]

"The man who builds himself a factory, builds a temple: the man who works there worships there."

There's many people who feel the way as you do, and not just in the Mid-West. In California as well. That frustration, it’s here - it’s there - hell, it’s everywhere.

On one side we have large business interests aligning themselves with an established elite who doesn't give a damn about the rest of the country. GM and Chrysler screw their bondholders; who cares, they get golden parachutes and the poor saps who make money get stuck with the bill. Health Care? Medicare and Medicaid are down the hole a few trillion, let's add some more benefits; after all, it's just money! Then look at the new league of health care providers joining in with the government's new initiative to expand on their policies which have done nothing; by my eyeballin', then raise prices for those people who don't get a free ride on Uncle Sam.

A Uncle Sam, I rush to say, is not the Uncle Sam I recognize anymore. Instead of vibrant, steady, confident and assured; telling the American people that they are not free from responsibility but for more responsibility - he is now a baby-sitter. A weak, castrated and emancipated figure handing out increasingly worthless pacifiers to the electorate as they trundle off to dully elect another round of the same old song and dance.

Which doesn't even begin to cover the other side of mobsterist-unionism and holier-than-thou socialist pseudo-intellectuals crowding in wherever giant business isn’t kissing their ass. The former seems like it is getting a fresh wind with a willing, insulated, power base in Washington and companies increasingly more regulated, subsidized or otherwise victims of government interventionism. Look at Chrysler, their union hedge-fund/Political Action Committee is getting half the company. While the pseudo-intellectuals are making it hard to keep their decadent life-style going; especially in California though. Hell, with a EPA and Californian legislature all the more willing to classify everything, and anything, as pollutants; so far as it is endorsed by a man whose movie even his own side admits is wrong, at best: exaggerated; there’s no where to go but straight down. Fancy all those Austrian economists are turning out to be right with state interventionism, there’s no other state with more interventionism and there’s no worse credit rating then California’s.

Case in point with the eco-freaks: a good story from my old man. Whose, not very surprisingly, a old general contractor who received his first paycheck as a wheelbarrow boy for his father; who truth be told, was less of a general contractor then a outright developer but the ideal stays the same - family familiarity within a profession. The old man has done his job, paid his taxes, built himself two houses (the latter of which he owns, the first of which is now my Aunt's) and thought he had seen everything the government could throw at him: too bad he forgot about the EPA.

With the Municipal Generic Safety Officer #9482 (I honestly can't remember if it was Zoning, Fire, Health, Human Services, Safety or otherwise) striding through the new halls on a small private school's construction project - he had one question for my father: "where did you get that cinder block?"

Cinder block, as you know, is something like cement something like brick and mostly like rock. It's the modern equivalent of the medieval stone; easy to make, easy to buy, vanilla and by everyone's calculations: not anything worthy noting. Keep in mind, not just anyone can make cinder block - it, like everything else these days, must be certified by some power hungry government behemoth; that you must buy from them is assured, that you must have receipts stating as much is assured, that to ask for much more beyond the receipts for cinder block - it's a sad reflection that even something like cinder block needs a stamp of approval lest us pesky citizens start doing things independently (read: dangerously) - from the general contractor is awkward. Oh no, not in California, in California... Cinder block need to be environmentally friendly ‘plus.’

So I don't exaggerate this, I will say it as clearly and succinctly as I can: rock in California needs to be environmentally friendly, better yet - it has to be Californian environmentally friendly, better yet: EPA guidelines have allowed for states that agree with them more power to extend their notions of what's best: to more states. Which is to say, the cinder block -certified by the state - my dad - certified by the state - bought from his wholesaler - certified by the state - who had bought it - certified by the state - then brought it - certified by the state - in from a mine - certified by the state - in Arizona - certified by the state - was not to be used for any reason. It was, essentially, "spiritually unclean" because it did not follow some sort of Californian - technicalities handled by the EPA - version of environmentalism. Truth be told, it’s still operating to this day; it wasn’t a last bunch of block out of mine pouring radiation into a grove of Sequoias, of which the rare Spotted Owl nested in, it’s just that California law (more importantly, made possible by truly, the Imperial Federal Government) is affected by a deep, horrible, malady.

Now if that doesn't say what's wrong with California, and the United States in general right now; nothing does.

In short, to answer your question, such thinking is heresy; the Christian spiritualism of God and heaven has been replaced by the secular spiritualism of "hope" and "change-" the omniscient and omnipotentence of the state to come together with imperfect minds to make perfect plans. To say for one second that you, one man, has the right to apply justice to the law - is not, and has not, been a possibility for some time.

 

[WillowTree]

Google is your friend!

 

[code1211]

Hello there!

I am a 40ish small business owner and have pretty much kept to myself for the last 20 years. With all the current events, my attention has turned to our government. I have these questions and hoped someone could explain or verify some things for me.

Is this true?

There are over 100,000 California State Employees that make over 100k a year. We pay them that amount and also more after they retire. Many of them get paid 3X that of private sector workers. We also pay more state employees to manage their retirment.

Why is it so difficult to find detailed information about how the state or fed spends our money?

I see alot of commercials on TV about how state services will be cut. Who pays for those? Do I? Who benefits from commercials like that?

Why would we agree to overpay people? Who agreed to that?

Can some of these people be fired? Who can fire them? The Gov?

I have learned that the most powerful lobbyist work for state employees. Do any of you have a problem with that? If so what can be done about it now?

I believe that in California, you have the right to put refendums on the ballot. No? Pass a balanced budget refendum and your problems are over. Of course, there will be no government after the pay cuts go into place. You are right though, and I feel your pain.

You're in a world of hurt and the people who have brought you there are the people you are relying on to get you out. They continue to do exactly what they always did in the past, but are hoping that you believe that the result will be different.

Hoping the same action will produce a different effect is the clinical definition for something. Let's see, what is that something...

Why do I care? Because the current group in DC uses California as a template to model their actions.

{{{{{{{{{{JARRING CHORD}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

 

[DamnYankee]

Google is your friend!

Really.... Sheesh....