Wall street journal article by Peggy Noonan

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... #printMode

Note the line

The executive said of Washington: "They don't understand that people can just stop, get out. I have friends and colleagues who've said to me 'I'm done.'"

Sounds like something right out of "Atlas Shrugged"

So do you think that many will look for exit ramps?

Article does make some good points, like
Pack it in, go elsewhere.

Sort of like what they do when a business sets up a call center in India or outsources manufacturing to China.

Its nice to know that big business doesn't understand that their customers are people, human beings who don't like their pets eating poisoned dogfood or their children playing with lead-painted toys.

Its nice to be rich and have the flexibility to pack up and go when you aren't raking in enough money for a new hummer.

It is less nice to be one of the workers that has to continually retrain at his own expense every few years because an executive somewhere decided he needs a new yacht, and ships jobs to Asia to cut labor costs.

We're in a sinking ship regardless, and while the little people will find themselves trying to bail out the ship, not doubt the rats will abandon it (after having steered the ship into the iceberg)

Ranger:
It does seem like the "rich" are the ones with all the options. The middle class has few, but is not totally SOL. If the gov't succeeds in squeezing out the middle class, we are back to feudalism. The rich will have to become mega-righ to support all 300 million of us serfs.

That or wage fake wars among themselves to kill of some of the 300 million of us serfs. Lots of justifications, maybe one rich guy was kept up by another rich guy's dog barking 80 miles away.

Don't laugh, from history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seqenenre_Tao_II
(Thebes to Avaris = several hundred miles)

Unfortunately, we are governed by ourselves. It is we who vote who choose our representatives, and it is we who do not vote who allow a minority to choose. Most voters have somewhat narrow agendas, and we who see a broader view do not have the passion to get to the polling booth unless everything is convenient.

I truly do need to come up with a Real-World-Democracy-Politics FAQ to save me a lot of trouble.
Vote for McCain you get more war.
Vote for Obama you get more war.

Most people who don't vote are probably not apathetic, they have simply figured out that our system is governed by the political parties and hence by money, not the people. The people that vote still believe the cr@p they were taught in 7th grade.

If you genuinely want to govern, become a corporate lobbyist.

I too think we are governed by ourselves. Where I differ is that I think we have been sorely mistaken about who we are.

I agree, we get the government we deserve. "They're all the same" is a cop out.

I truly do need to come up with a Real-World-Democracy-Politics FAQ to save me a lot of trouble.
Vote for McCain you get more war.
Vote for Obama you get more war.

Most people who don't vote are probably not apathetic, they have simply figured out that our system is governed by the political parties and hence by money, not the people. The people that vote still believe the cr@p they were taught in 7th grade.quote]

+1
Nothing to add.

My thought exactly (Atlas Shrugged) when I read this in the WSJ.

They'd deserve it if ALL the really successful people refused to work in protest. Ironically, with all the debt/doodads even the rich base their lives on, many can't leave - even the "rich".

I left at 48, partly on principle. Mainly because of how big business (IBM) treated its white collar workers - but also because I realized the futility of it all. (What good is a formal retirement if you're sick or dead from stress?)
Also, less taxes for our "great" leaders to do stupid stuff like fight wars. Living a simple life does have real advantages (choices) in the end.

Agree completely.

I left banking and went into teaching, an area that I might actually make a difference. Took a pay cut to do it. Then my wife and I decided we had paid enough taxes which went to supporting government actions we didn't agree with, so we moved overseas to teach. About the last way to legally reduce one's tax liability. We have yet to regret the decision.

When deomcracy becomes tyranny, I still get to vote.


At least that's the slogan. Everybody knows nobody in Canada owns firearms.

Sweet looking hardware. What caliber? 1/4 MOA?

I don't know. I'm Canadian. We don't own guns. But it looks like a Remington 700 (.308). Someone once told me they had pretty good stopping power.

If you look at the properties of the image, it is indeed a Remington .308.

Not as nice as my Tikka T3 Stainless. But I guess they all shoot, and a zombie doesn't really care what it was fired by.

Note to the Feds. I have no intention of shooting zombies. They don't exist.