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Chameleon Arnold now says ‘simple ways’ of Austria made him a green fanatic
By John Seiler Ex-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger used to give an inspiring stock speech about how he grew up loving America’s freedom, and longed to live here. He contrasted that with the stultifying ways of Austria, where he grew up and opportunity was scarce. I heard the speech at least five times, beginning with a Reason Foundation dinner around 1989. The speech obviously worked, because he kept giving the same one and it catapulted him into the governorship. The best known version was the one he gave at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City, when he was riding high in the first year of his governorship. Now he’s changed his tune. It turns out that his upbringing in austere Austria made him a green fanatic: “(Reuters) – Arnold Schwarzenegger credited his simple upbringing amid the lakes and hills of Austria for a recent conversion to fully fledged green activism, the latest stage in his varied career. “The former body-builder, star of the “Terminator” action films and governor of California grew up in Thal, a small village in the Austrian province of Styria, and emigrated to the United States at the age of 21. “‘Growing up in my house, we knew about sustainability before it was hip. We called it ‘necessity’,'” Schwarzenegger told an environmental conference he hosted in Vienna this week. “‘We didn’t have video games, televisions or iPhones. We had the rolling hills, the castles, the ruins, and the beautiful lakes,’” he said. “‘Even after I made it big and became governor of California, I held on to this love of nature.’”
Echoing his stock speech, Arnold just said: “When I was a little boy in Austria, all I could think about was moving to America, to become the greatest bodybuilder champion in the world and make millions of dollars and be an action hero. “My dream became reality. Who knew my greatest achievement would be in the real world fighting for a green energy future? Green energy wasn’t even in my vocabulary.” In other words, he used America’s free-enterprise system to make $700 million. Now he’s using his money and political clout to make sure Americans no longer have that opportunity, but are reduced to the socialist poverty of Austria in the 1950s. He also didn’t point out that, after about 32 years of socialism beginning with Hitler’s National Socialist Anschluss in 1938, Austria in the early 1970s (after Arnold had left) switched to capitalism and now is rich. Austria’s per capita GDP now is $49,668, above the $48,328 for the United States. Austria is fortunate that Arnold exited to promote socialism elsewhere. Not so fortunate have been America, especially California.
Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bentley, John Seiler, Mercedes Comments(25) |
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June 18, 2013
I wish I could do something simple that the world’s elite would celebrate. How about expressing my support for a $100+ billion high-speed rail? Taxpayers can sacrifice for the good of the Earth.
Clown Hair lost all his credibility his his second term when he caved to the public unions.
Whoever pays the bills at the moment gets the speach. He will allways do what he needs to do to get paid.there is no love lost, I lost all respect for the man when he acted like an idiot and put his familly in the public circus of the gosip media. Shame doesn’t affect him and his children have a lifetime to adjust to the follow up of his actions .
Austria is a much smaller country with fewer people. If he likes it so much, he should go back there instead of trying to make our country over in Austria’s image.
I hope Maria does not take this clown back….BTW his recent movie, “The Last Stand”, BOMBED like a rock at the box office.
Jerry Brown did not cave, Rex. He was simple being pragmatic regardless of whether or not he believed, himself, that collective bargaining should be allowed by all public sector groups, to be fair. The local and county groups already had the priviledge, courtesy of Republican Governor Ronald Reagan.
Forner GAS threw his acting career under the bus at its peak, to become a failed Governor of CA. He is now paying the price for his greed for power, and his failure to disclose that he was not qualified either professionally or personally. He threw the State workers under the bus when the economic collapse, courtesy of the private sector, hit in Sept. 08. Turn-about is fair play.
Jerry Brown did not cave, Rex.
)caved on pension reform. His JOKE “pension reform” is basically useless.
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Jerry Clown (him and Arnold are both clowns
You have facts thrown right in your face, Rex. All you are able to throw back are opinions that, therefore, according to you, show that you are right! We were talking about Jerry’s tenure in the 70′s, when he signed the Bill to extend CB rights from the locals that already had it, to the State workers. We were not talking about his current pension reform. Something was passed–it is not a joke!
Yawn……………
SeeSaw says:
You have facts thrown right in your face, Rex. All you are able to throw back are opinions that, therefore, according to you, show that you are right!
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Put these FACTS in your trougher pipe and take a few hits seesaw
Here is the most recent information, drawn directly from the annual reports of Cal STRS and CalPERS:
From the CalSTRS Annual Report, page 135:
CalSTRS participants who retired during the 12 months ending June 30th, 2010 (the most recent data), earned pensions as follows:
25-30 years service, average pension $50,772 per year.
30-35 years service, average pension $67,980 per year.
35-40 years service, average pension $86,736 per year.
From the CalPERS Annual Report, page 151:
CalPERS participants who retired during the 12 months ending December 31st, 2009 (the most recent data), earned pensions as follows:
25-30 years service, average pension $53,182 per year.
30+ years service, average pension $66,828 per year
CalPERS and CalSTRS pensioneers are guaranteed 7.5% rate of return, by the taxpayers, and this if after the taxpeyers foot the bill for the pensions. In The real world we contribute 100 percent to our retirement plans, and must live with profits and losses. Those are the facts SeeSaw. Only someone living on a taxpayer-funded pension ever defends the system.
Katy
My pension was funded by fees received for providing services to the public, just like you fund your own 401k with money you have received for providing goods and services to the public, which includes me! I also have a 457b which was funded by me, out of the salary I earned by providing services to you. With my government pension I am also supporting a private sector spouse who had his own private sector pension frozen, due to the greed of private sector developers and builders who loved that cheap illegal immigrant labor. Which system do you think has worked best Katy? The retirement security for the public workers or the retirement insecurity for the private sector workers?
Cherry picking, is cherry picking, is cherry picking, Rex. You will see a very small group of retirees in each of those cherry-picked groups–while right beside them are many thousands more beneficiares who are receiving the most recent average retirement amount of $3025/mo.
SeeSaw says:
Cherry picking, is cherry picking, is cherry picking, Rex.
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I was WAITING for your dumb “cherry picking” comment seesaw, and wala! here it is. I kNEW you couldn’t stop yourself.
seesaw, you can pick ANY 30+ year SS pensioner and compare it to ANY trougher pension with the same # of years worked, apples to apples sweety pie, post up YOUR numbers, you won’t because your scam won’t work with an apples to apples comparisons.
BAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In The real world we contribute 100 percent to our retirement plans, and must live with profits and losses. Those are the facts SeeSaw. Only someone living on a taxpayer-funded pension ever defends the system.
Katy
Well, see Katy, the problem here is that seesaw does NOT live in the real world, she lives in the Fantasyland of gov employment/welfare, and has her blinders and rose colored glasses on so tight it hurts her…. in fact they are permanently attached to her head
You are both very jealous. Trying to make it appear that I some some alien from outer space! I am a citizen with the same credentials for citizenship as you, and I also live in this real world! I also live with profits and losses with my own 457b and other investments. You are jealous and you would be lying if you said you would refuse a DB pension if you had access to such! And, writing opinions for a living is more in the line of, “good work” than providing actual services to the public? Better think about that, before you make yourself look any sillier!
SeeSaw, it is the private sector that is providing you with services, citizens are recieving very little in return for the taxes we pay.
Baloney!
Donk, seesaw made me cry AGAIN!!
Why does she bully me so much
SeeSaw, stop picking on Rex, he is going through a tough time right now!!
What I wrote is the truth SeeSaw, most of our tax dollars goes to pay, pensions, perks, and benefits for RAGWUS feeders, the private sector recieves little in return, we have an evil tyranny upon us, an oligarchy of government workers stealing the nation and enriching themselves.
Donkey, Rex loves to trash talk. He is the cause of most of my strife on these boards. I try to put the truth out there and he comes back with insults. I don’t wish a tough time on him or anyone else.
You seem to have been all over the world, yourself. You surely must think of the costs of keeping up the infrastructures, alone, of those places you visit. I think about such things whenever I am traveling the length of this magnificent state of CA. I wonder how there could ever be enough tax monies to maintain it.
You don’t seem to realize that I pay the same taxes as anyone else in my income bracket. There is no situation where you pay taxes and I don’t. I prefer to look at the half-full glass. All I need to do is view what is going on all over the world and the suffering that other people are going through. In comparison, the privilege of being an American is worth paying taxes.
You can only lose so much of your own money to pay for these pensions and perks you rail on about. Pensions and salaries for public employees are line item amounts on the public budget sheets. If you pay $20,000 in property taxes and I pay $500 in property taxes, we each still have the same amounts go into those accounts from our respective personal funds. If you drive a fancier car than I do, you pay more in registration fees. If I go into a store and buy a piece of clothing that is similar to the one you purchase, we both pay the same amount of money to support that respective business. Its all pretty elemental when it comes to the economy. We are all the same players–doesn’t matter whether we come from one working sector or the other.
SeeSaw, I now know why it is that you have no idea what the RAGWUS is doing to the nation, it is because you have no idea what it takes to create wealth. The governemnt does not in anyway create wealth my dear, it can slow wealth creation or even stop wealth with its policies, but it can never create wealth by taking my money and others like me and funding huge bureacracies of RAGWUS feeders. You make the claim that you pay taxes, on what SeeSaw? You pay taxes on money that was taken from a wealth creater and taxed again, you have created nothing and paid tax on nothing but taxes, hence no wealth creation. What you are missing in your equation is that private sector business and workers pay all the taxes on real wealth my dear, RAGWUS feeders pay faux taxes on private sector workers stolen wealth. I hope you have learned something from this lesson my friend, I still love you all the same.
Stop with the lectures, already! Government employees create weatlth! Everyone who puts one penny into the GNP every day creates wealth…….period. Stop!
No SeeSaw, RAGWUS members do not create wealth, you are mistaken my dear. All a feeder does is spend the wealth of private sector citizens. As you will see in the near future, the financial system in our nation will collapse due to the number of parasites attached to the government teet, this is history repeating itself, just like every empire where the people working for the oppresser seek to live off the labor of the oppressed.