Shhh, you'll ruin the story.

oh man, I'd need a new monitor had I had a cup of coffee when I read that. That statement is just too funny for words.

always cracks me up when people whine about the ACA and "rationing" health care and "death panels" - look around, we already have them and have had them for decades - controlled by corporations out to maximize profit.

No, if they think you might have lied....or more often just because your treatments were going to cost them some money. The history of health insurance rescission is rife with cases of folks getting dropped due to the diagnosis of an expensive to treat ailment, not the discovery of some undisclosed pre-existing condition.

My last vacation I took the train (Amtrak Autotrain, Lorton VA to Sanford FL) it was a wonderful experience. Excellent service and food on the southbound trip. Northbound was...okay - I would say very good, except that the southbound trip crew was awesome.

That said, even the "okay" service on the northbound trip was FAR better than any airline experience I have ever had- even when I've flown first class.

The location I live in has "choice" for natural gas and electricity - want to guess on how much we consumers are saving because we have that "choice"?

On the other hand we do reap the benefits have having far less reliable electric service that takes far longer to recover from an outage

I love those feel-good bullshit stories about line crews from other areas going into a storm hit location to help repair the outages....the electric companies have to do this because they have laid-off so many line crews that they can't keep up with maintenance (for companies that still bother with preventative maintenance) let alone storm damage repair.

You'd think the British people would have noticed by now.

You forgot the third option, which may or may not be available to Exxon depending on how they work with subsidiaries and/or sub-contractors: declare bankruptcy leaving the clean-up to the taxpayers.

When times are bad the state cuts education funding because, well, times are bad and money is tight. When times are good state cuts education funding because fewer people are going to school so we don't need the schools that badly. State takes it out of education no matter what.

So tuition goes up in good times and bad, it goes up faster than inflation since the schools are not only hit with inflation, but hit with shrinking state support

I've watched this go on for decades

But there always seems to be money for a new vice president (and their staff) position even while lay-offs are rampant elsewhere.

so, other than that, how do you like Texas?

Unhappy with what the union leadership and/or negotiating committee did? Then run for a position and/or be part of the negotiating committee next time. Simple solution.

When Hostess began to face financial woes, the company’s CEO got a 300% salary increase from $750,000 to $2,250,000. It was discovered that the former Hostess CEO tripled his salary in early 2012. Meanwhile, a number of top executives saw massive pay raises, some nearly doubling their salaries. The new CEO blamed union workers for the company’s bankruptcy filing—yet it's the workers who were the very ones who gave concessions multiple times in the past few years. In December, a staggering $1.8 million in bonuses were awarded to executives AFTER the bankruptcy filing. In late 2012, Hostess Brands admitted to The Wall Street Journal that money taken out of workers' paychecks—intended for their retirement funds—was used for company operations instead. Hostess is one example of executives' blame-the-worker and blame-a-union game.

I could've run the company into the ground for far less money.

Think someone likes to paint all unions with the Hoffa-era Teamsters brush.