Report due on LANL coalition spending of taxpayer funds on personal items such as baseball tickets and expensive liquor
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/guzzlers-of-whiskey-and-wine-fear-special-audit/article_3a623524-175e-56d7-9364-a78cd8e2ac24.html
11 comments:
This is a horrible article, it is chalk full of the worst toxic elements of the Western world, it implies that the local people who need the money and can use for the most benefit do not deserve it because some other "privileged group" needs it. The problem with capitalism is the lack of humanity. The lab can and should give back some money to the local community, after all it is just the tax payers money, does the lab need to pay its works even more money, is it really winner take all, who decides who "deserves" money and who does not. Disgusting.
Funny, but the lab gives away over 2 million every year thru the United Way. Half is matched by LANS, the other 1M donated by employees. The LANL foundation funds 4M every year for local scholarships, school grants and other educational outreach opportunities. While LANS contributes 250K seed money every year for scholarships, the remainder is donated once again, by employees. I believe the Board of Governors give 1-2M/year for this foundation as well. The lab also sponsors employee giving drives. For example, last year, enough food was donated for 23,000 meals during Thanksgiving, 1030 local community members received gifts for the Holidays, 650 backpacks full of school supplies provided to the less fortunate in 13 different school districts including tribal. Lets not forget the 10's of millions of GRT taxes that went into the state. But you are right, we are capitalism at its worst!
10:20 PM may be attempting to be clever, however, the fleecing of taxpayers for politicians extravagant expense accounts is not a funny topic.
10:20 appears to be brainwashed. Capitalism works better than Socialism even when the measure is how the poor are treated. Look no farther than Socialist Venezuela where many of the poor, non-ruling class people, are now starving. Look at Nicaragua where they're taking poor kids out of school to work in the fields. Look at Spain where they hit 26% unemployment, 50% for young people, under their Socialist Government. Look at France where they recently ejected their Socialist President, François Hollande, after just 5 years in power during which time France started heading toward a Socialist decline with unemployment hitting 10%.
August 8, 2018 at 12:29 PM
Look at Sweden, Norway and Denmark, they have vastly higher standards of living, do not allow racism, are much more equal in terms of women and men in pay, do not have to build walls to keep people out and do not elect Russian shills for their president.
As for Venezuela and Nicaragua it is the US interference that how not allowed those countries to flourish. True socialism has to have a global presence. America is changing and this change is for the better, tell me how does giving money to a community that needs it more by taking that money from another community that has more than enough a bad thing?
I'm not being clever 5:02 or funny. I certainly don't condone local government officials milking and abusing expense accounts. They should be held to the same standards as lab employees as far as reimbursable travel expenses. However, 10:20 jumped to some strong conclusions over this article- i.e. capitalism lacks humanity and the lab "can and should give back money to the local community." With that said, I was replying to and disagreeing with the original poster by reporting actual facts. As you can see by the facts, the lab and employees do give back a significant amount of money.
8:35, Just 5 problems with your post, four lies and one misleading statement. If you Socialists have an honest point, then why do you lie all the time?
1) Sweden is NOT a Socialist country, they're Capitalist. Lots of welfare, for sure, but all paid for by Capitalism. You're probably so confused because the largest party in the Swedish Parliament is the Social Democrats with 113 of the 349 seats. What you probably don't know is that they're not a Socialist party, the Socialist party is called the "Left" party. The Lefts have only 21 seats. 5 other parties have more seats than the "Left" Socialists, including the Moderate Party, the Centre Party, Sweden Democrats, and the Green party.
2) Norway is NOT a Socialist country, they're Capitalist. Are you catching on yet? The Labour Party has 49 of the 169 seats in Norway's Parliament followed closely by the Conservative party with 45. The Conservative party actually leads Norway's Government. The Socialist Left party, the 5th largest party, has just 11 seats.
3) Denmark is not a Socialist country, they're Capitalist. Even if you're a hard-of-thinking Socialist, you probably saw this coming. The Socialists have just 8 of the 179 seats in Denmark's Parliament. The Venstre party (center-right) leads Denmark's Government.
4) US interference most certainly did NOT create the situation in Venezuela. What DID happen is the Socialists nationalized the oil industry, the cement industry, the steel industry, rice processing, and supermarkets. The socialists were NOT able to operate these assets because, well... Socialists are very stupid. In addition, because of the risk of further nationalizations, private investment dried up in Venezuela. No new businesses. No jobs. Would you invest if your assets would just get taken away? Well, YOU might, but intelligent people with money won't invest.
5) The US did interfere in Nicaragua but that interference dropped dramatically over the last few decades. Why? Interference isn't needed, the Nicaraguan Socialists are running the country into the ground all by themselves.
August 9, 2018 at 2:00 PM
Your Jedi mind tricks will not work on me boy. Sweden, Denmark, and Norway and not communist but they are socialist and my argument still stands that by every measure they are much better than than the United States and even not of Europe. On the whole Western Europe is much better than the United States with far less poverty and way less hate crime and discrimination. They point is that having ore socialist like countries is better and they way of the future. As for US interference in Venezuela that most certainly did happen, we stopped trading with them or talking their oil. Not to mention that the United States manipulated global oil prices to enhance its own profit, something only a capitalists society would do. If oil prices where fixed at a humane level for all Venezuela would have plenty of money. You are joking about Nicaragua right, we have irrepairably damaged that country by over 50 years of interference, don't you think this could have lasting effects on their ability to succeed in the long term. In many ways it is the United States moral obligation to help them out in at least one minor step of reparations.
8:36 AM. You cannot change the fact that Sweden, Denmark, and Norway are NOT Socialist countries by declaring that they are. Anyone who thinks they can declare a falsehood and it will become true is seriously mentally ill. What you clearly don't understand is a country cannot be Socialist if they're Capitalist. The two forms of government are mutually exclusive. Look up "Nordic Capitalism". Pay special attention when you get to this quote "The Nordic model is underpinned by a free market capitalist economic system that features high degrees of private ownership." Norway is less free than the others, but still Capitalist.
You are NOT telling the truth about Venezuela.
First, the US did not "manipulate" global oil prices to enhance its own profit. You lied. What the US did do is reduce the amount of oil we use by becoming more efficient and by using more Natural Gas. That's a good thing. We also dramatically increased our domestic oil production and that's a good thing too. We now produce more oil than we ever have at any previous time in history. We increased recovery fractions from existing oil fields using horizontal drilling and fracking and we developed oil production in oil shale formations like the Bakken. What this decreased use and increased production did is dramatically reduce the net amount of oil we import. That lowered the US price of oil (Cushing, WTI) below the world price but also helped to lower the world price of oil (Brent). Almost everyone worldwide benefited except the OPEC sheiks and the despicable Socialist ruling classes in Russia and Venezuela. A few other despots in oppressed countries suffered too. And that's a good thing.
Second, the US DID NOT stop talking (sic) oil from Venezuela. You lied. In 1998, before the ruinous Socialists took over, Venezuela produced just over 3 million barrels of oil per day and the US imported about 1/2 of that. This year, Venezuela produced about 1.5 million barrels of oil per day, far below the amount produced before the brain-dead Socialists ran production into the ground. Still, the US imported about 1/3 of that. In fact, last year Venezuela was fourth HIGHEST on the list of countries we get the most oil from.
Third, the US did not stop trading with Venezuela. You lied. In 1998, before the Socialists ruined Venezuela, we imported $9.1 billion of goods from Venezuela. Imports INCREASED during the Socialist's rule to a HUGE $43 billion. It has recently dropped to $10 billion in 2016, but that's because the Venezuelan Socialists killed their production of goods.
August 10, 2018 at 8:36 AM
OK, Scooby deleted my listing of the problems (grammatical, logical, and mental) with your post, but they are still there for all to see. No need to belabor the obvious.
Your comment included name calling, which is against blog rules .It only takes one word .
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