Those burgers don’t flip themselves, you know.
Regards,
Shodan
Eh, no cite, as it was years ago (2008), and I am pretty sure I am not even supposed to say what company I worked for on a public forum like this, other than it was a major utility company.
Their gift policy was very extensive, and they took it very seriously. The HR person said that as a rule, you should report everything you receive of value, from anyone, for any reason. She even brought up gifts from family members over a certain value, maybe $1000.
Anyway, point is, why can that not be the case with people with whom we have entrusted the functioning of our society to? Just report everything, it seems pretty simple.
The sad part is that you really think these are comparable. elucidator’s post was trying to be funny, but wasn’t. John’s post was mockery because the claim he was responding to was stupid.
k9bfreinder in post #152 said that writing a law that would cover all these hypotheticals would not be hard, and that corporations had figured it all out. Bricker responds with hypotheticals that are not covered by typical corporate policies around receiving gifts. elucidator then jumps in and tries to tie it back to a public official accepting a gift which wasn’t what was being discussed in that line of the thread.
It’s not surprising you think this was related when it obviously wasn’t given your OP makes this same error trying to connect Citizens United in a similar hamfisted way. Have you been sufficiently disabused of the notion that the current case is related to CU?
Well, just for the record, John has gotten off some pretty snappy lines. And Shodan can type.
That might be believable if the gift limit was $1,000 for everyone, but be serious. When I have a bunch of people over for a party, everyone brings something. Do I need to catalog every bottle of wine and box of chocolates?
If you have voluntarily taken a position of power, then I would say yes. It’s not like it is hard. You take your form, you write “One box chocolates, $25 value, received from John Mace at dinner party.” Done. You submit your reports, and if HR (or an ethics oversite committee) decides that a gift was improper, they can have you return or donate it.
If you have thoughts that a gift is improper, then you should refrain from taking it in the first place. If you don’t want to deal with the paperwork, tell your friends not to bring stuff to the dinner party. If you want to receive stuff from your friends, and not file reports, don’t take a position of power.
I had to submit detailed expense reports every week that were much harder to compile than that, so if this is too hard for someone to do, then they really should not be in a position of power.
That would be pretty stupid, a suggestion worthy of scorn and derision. If you will point out for me who suggested that, I will offer them a healthy serving of scorn and derision!
I will happily take your scorn and derision if it means we can reduce the corruption in our political offices.
Is not being an elected official a voluntary choice? Are there people that are “born that way”? If so, then I may be being discriminatory or bigoted towards “politician-Americans” and I would feel bad about that. But, as it is a choice, and something that is to worked for, something that comes with quite a bit of privilege, and someone who is supposed to be an example to others, I feel that they can be held to a higher standard. If they can’t make that standard, then they shouldn’t be leaders.
Why is that so hard? I truly don’t understand this. I am currently (not) doing paperwork to run my business that is so much more complicated than this. It’s a pain, but if I wasn’t willing to do it, then I would instead be doing something else. If you aren’t willing to report people’s attempts to influence your decisions, then you should not be making decisions that impact the lives of your constituency.
As Eugene V. Debs is my witness, I was not directing that towards you.
Yes. They have come to be identified as “sociopaths”. It is the fact that the rest of us are so inept at catching sociopathic behavior early enough to keep them in check that they have become a problem. They have even managed to convince a great many of us that sociopathic character traits are a good thing. Wily bastards.
A few of us have been trying very hard NOT to read k9befriender’s post that way, but he’ll have none of it! Keep in mind that he’s not even talking about elected officials, in his experience. He’s talking about the company he used to work for, claiming that government officials should be held to an even tighter standard.
Now, if we’re talking about the president… he has people who have people who have people to take care of something like this. Further down the ladder, not so much.
What a stupid policy. No way I’d give them personal info like that.
I am very confident you misunderstood what you were being told, or the HR person misunderstood the policy. I lean towards the former, but I don’t believe you can find any corporate policy that says as an employee you must report any gift of any value. I don’t believe any major company has such a policy.
Why not? He was, in fact, directly advocating the policy. According to,you, it’s absurd. Why shouldn’t that draw the scorn you mentioned?
Why not? Because there is no popular support for this whacky plan.
Well, that’s settled then. After all, why kind of fool goes around advocating positions and policies that are not popular?
Further down the ladder, like governors, you mean? 'Cuase only the president has a secretary? I do not believe that the president is the only elected official with a secretary, I do believe I will need a cite for that claim.
When I have worked for others, I had to report every expenditure. If I needed a new screwdriver for $2, I had to fill out a little form that got sent in to the bean counters. I had to report every tip. I had to keep track of thousands of dollars of equipment and inventory. I had to keep track of client changes to their services. And that was the stuff that was just incidental to my job.
I had the power I suppose to steal and give away hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars in services with virtually no accountability. If I was receiving outside “gifts”, my employer wanted to make sure that I was not being influenced to give away their stuff. Upper management and VP’s had purchasing and requisition powers of hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. I am quite positive that they were scrutinized to prevent inappropriate exchanges.
Now that I run my own business, I have to record every transaction. If I need a new hose connector for $5 at home depot, I have to report that to the IRS if I wish for it to be deducted. If I have an employee work for just an hour, I have to record that. If a client tips, I have to record that. If I buy a pizza for my employees to thank them for their hard work, I have to record that.
I have no one that does that for me. It is not that hard.
It may be hard for someone not used to reporting and paperwork requirements, but people who wish to have political power shouldn’t be afraid of some bureaucracy.
I think the misunderstanding here is that you are hearing “ANY value”, and I am pronouncing it, “any VALUE.” As in, things of value. That dollar value I do not explicitly remember, but it was not that high.
My neighbor has a landscaping company, and I have traded with him a few times. He mows my lawn and makes it look good (better than I can do even if I have the energy), and I give him some free services. I can do that, because it is MY company. If I hired a manager, and found that he was doing the same thing, there’d be a discussion about ethics, and quite possibly directions to the door.
The other day I had a dog lacerating my hand while I scratched it behind the ears and spoke to it in soothing tones. Scorn, derision, even stern and disproving looks from those on a message board have pretty much no effect on me. Have at.
I am not a debater, I am a business person. So I realize that I approached this as more of a negotiation than a debate. I laid out more than what I want, in anticipation to being worked down to merely what I want, what I would like, or at least what I would find acceptable. In negotiating, it is a bad idea to lay these points out for your opponent, but as this is not a negotiation (do you actually have any power to effect any changes here?) but simply a debate for our mutual amusement, I will lay out more formally what I would find acceptable.
$10 reporting is more than what I want. $25-$50 range is what I want. $50-100 is what I would like. I would find anything under $500 to be acceptable. $1000 would be barely tolerable, a move in the right direction, but I would strongly advocate tightening the requirements.
Yes, this reporting is whether or not you are “acting” in your official capacity, because I do not believe that you can really firewall between private citizen and public official. Yes, this is an imposition. No, I do not believe it is an undue imposition for someone who seeks power.
I do not think that it is absurd, wacky, or deserving of scorn and derision to wish for accountability in our public officials. I find it stupid, naive, and utterly ridiculous that you would advocate that people in power have little accountability in the use of their power to those in their jurisdiction.
I don’t think the quote goes “With great power, comes great privilege.” There is a quote about power and corruption though, you remember how that one goes?
I’ve been responding specifically to your posts, where all you mention is “government officials” or something along that line. Yes, this thread is about a governor, but you’ve given no indication that you think the policy should stop at that level. Do you?
Yup, just an issue of emphasis.
I was reading the line you wrote as ANY value.
And you were reading it as “any value above $500,” with the above $500 pronounced silently.
Totally my fault.