Starbucks CEO- no money for Politicians

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/ ... 5520110817

I like it, I hope it catches on. I don't know if he is Dem or Repub, and I don't even like the coffee, but I like his style. FU Washington, no money for Politicians until you get back to work and fix this debt mess and give some confidence to the economy again. SOBs! Hit them in the pocketbook, maybe they will wake up.

Howard Schultz: Obama, Congress Should Not Vacation During a Crisis

"Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said he has been “stunned” by the response to his call for a boycott on political donations in response to Washington’s poor handling of the debt-ceiling issue.

“We’ve touched a nerve,” said the CEO of the coffee behemoth on Wednesday in an exclusive interview with TheWrap. “There’s such a groundswell of disappointment and concern with regard to the leadership in Washington and crisis of confidence that we have.”"

I love this idea and I hope other CEOs, small business owners, and private citizens all adopt this idea; the current administration is failing and the citizens are suffering. QUIT FUNDING FAILURE!!!

Watched an interview with him on CNN --- fantastic segment!

(after the flop of an interview with Christine Odonnell).

I wish there was no private funding for politicians....ever.

archer wrote: I wish there was no private funding for politicians....ever.

:thumbsup: Something we agree on archer!

I wish there was far less public financing as well.

Microsoft tried that about a decade ago and guess what happened? Their competition that did give out political donations got the Justice Department to go after them.

Sometimes I wonder if we are just as corrupt as a banana republic, but just a little more discreet.

American government is every bit as vulnerable to corruption as any foreign government. The corruption is simply more elegant.

True enough bb - which is why the solution to the problem is a decentralization of power rather than centralizing it more. Corruption is not something you can eliminate with laws, or oversight, or restriction of rights. By its very nature, corruption is something that is done outside the confines of respectable and honorable behavior. The trick, then, is to confine the damage that can be done by corrupt officials, organizations and individuals and the only way that can be accomplished is by limiting the amount of power they wield. Would it matter so much if the perception that Republicans were in league with corporations and Democrats with public unions were true absent the ability of DC to tell you how many acres of wheat you can grow, whether or not you can sell the milk from your cow to your neighbor or what segments of commerce you were required to participate in? Of course not. That DC has been allowed to circumvent the confrontational nature of 3 separate but equal branches within the framework of the government is the source of the problem we have of corruption within the government.

We no longer have a bicameral legislative body seeking to limit the power of DC over the states and the citizens, instead we have 535 legislators who are complicit in the desire to accumulate as much power within the DC government as possible. The 100 Senators are no longer representatives of their state legislators or even of their state. They are now representatives of their party. The 435 elected officials in the House of Representatives are no longer there to represent the citizens of their district, they too are there to represent their party and its agenda using the full force of expanded DC power and authority.

Does anyone really believe that it was the intent of the Constitution to stop an Amish farmer from selling the whole milk from his cows to natural food consumers in New York City? Isn't making a federal crime out of that commerce a corruption of the Constitution itself? Do you really believe the federal government should have the authority to tell you that you can't grow wheat on your private property for the benefit of your own family? Isn't forcing the destruction of that wheat and compelling someone to pay a fine for growing it for the benefit of their family a corruption of the Constitution?

Before you have any hope of getting rid of corruption within the government, you must first undue the corruption of the government that has been allowed to occur. The best remedy for corruption is to deprive the persons any benefit for participating in the corruption. If you want to stop the corruption resulting from hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions, you must first get rid of the ability to have those hundreds of millions of dollars purchase power and control over the citizens of the states. No one is going to spend thousands or millions of dollars getting a specific someone elected if that specific someone lacks any power to grant them an even larger benefit by spending that money necessary to get them elected. Reduce the power of the DC government and you will reduce the corruption that it harbors by default. Continue to increase the amount of power DC wields and the corruption will also continue to increase.

One huge reason to support Starbucks if you have not, like me.