Fair enough, now just how do you go about doing that?  Keeping in mind the modern day rule of 'He who has the gold makes the rules.'  The people in power, with the authority always make the rules.

How about we fill the positions of congressman/senator the same way we fill the positions for jury duty...and pay them the same as we pay people for jury duty and make a rule stating that if they are recipients to bribes/donations/gifts from lobbiest, they go to jail.  Of course, nothing will get done in government, but our taxes should go down a little bit.

A noble thought k10w3, it would get the regular citizen back involve, but unfortunatelty in this day and age not a real practical soloution for the problem.  I like asking the question, when did being a Politician become a career choice.  I know the answer and why.

He who has the gold may make the rulesto a large extent, but without the consumer they have nothing coming in to bolster their profits... from which they take the exorbitant salaries and bonuses.  Furthermore, many ordinary people are shareholders, so the way to curb the excesses is for ordinary people to hurt them where it hurts most.... boycott the products and services, firstly, then offload the shares and invest where they're more deserving.  The point is, it is we the people who provide the source of their incomes, and if we let the board members and directors know that we are not going to tolerate corporate excesses anymore but sustained refusal to provide the funds.

OK, nobody said it would be easy, but a concerted effort to deny them the funds, with a clear message as to the reason why, is going to get the board members and dirtectors thinking.  For example, oil company A is spending to excess... so everybody goes to company B and/or C for a week or two.... profits dry up to the tune of billions.  Once company A gets the message and adjusts its remuneration policiy, move on to company D, E, F, G, etc, etc.

In some cases, it wouldn't be necessary to boycott or dump shares,,, they'd see what happened to those before them and adjust spending accordingly to avod the huge losses.  The problem with the idea would be getting everyone/enough people involved... and then not have them whimp out because they don't want to drive an extra five minutes down the road.  People like that, however, deserve to be ripped off in my opinion... because they're not prepared to do the hard yards to improve their lot, or anyone elses, in the long run.

Me, I'm more determined and downright stubborn.  About 8 months ago the local hardware store manager short-sold me on 6 metres of coaxial antenna lead by a metre, then accused me of cutting it off so I could return it to get an extra metre.  Right!  He effectively called me a cheat and a liar, thus he got a few choice expletives (lucky for him I'm non-violent) and a promise that I nor any of my family or friends would do business there again.... and we've stuck to it.  Although the store is just two minutes drive down the street, my nephew and I drove half an hour to the next nearest hardware to get more coaxial cable on Wednesday.... not that it was enough without rubbing salt into the wound.

We tallied up what we had all spent on hardware products comined and dropped it to let him know that his filthy treatment of me had cost him $14.700 over the last 8 months... and would miss out on another 9.5 grand my landlord would have spent there on roofing insulation, had it not been for me.  It won't get me the extra metre of cable I paid for, but he's learned a valuable lesson... don't f**k with me.

ah...thought it was 'necrothread superior'...but no....'twas a spammer....;p