Thousands of salespeople are pounding the pavements today, tired, discouraged and underpaid. Why? Because they are always thinking only of what they want. They don't realize that neither you nor I want to buy anything. If we did, we would go out and buy it. But both of us are eternally interested in solving our problems. And if salespeople can show us how their services or merchandise will help us solve our problems, they won't need to sell us. We'll buy. And customers like to feel that they are buying - not being sold.
There shouldn't be budget problems. There is so much money that goes untapped. If every athlete gave 5% of what they earned, there wouldn't be any budget problems.
One of the problems I have with the administration is that they're not tough enough. They are waiting for BP to say, 'Oh, we've got a new plan to stop the oil leak.' They need to stop it, contain it, clean it up.
This idea of, oh, poor little black person, oh, poor little poor person, oh, poor little woman, oh, poor little indigenous person - everybody's a poor little something! I don't try and please everybody.
One Valentine's my date texted me in the evening saying: 'Oh there's a buy-one-get-one-free deal at Domino's tonight,' and I genuinely thought he was joking. But no, it wasn't a joke. We got a buy-one-get-one-free Domino's because there was a bargain on. Oh, and I had to pay for it as well.
We need to be honest with the American people about the problems and the challenges ahead and the solutions that are needed to fix them. And I would argue it's the president who has been missing in action on this front. He knows we have a debt crisis coming. All independent experts show us this. And so he hasn't even given us a budget yet. I mean, the law required that he was supposed to submit a budget the first Monday in February.
By using general consumption PPPs, the World Bank is, in effect, saying to the poor: "Sure, you cannot buy as much food as the dollar value we attribute to your income would buy in the United States. But then you can buy much more by way of services than you could buy with this PPP equivalent in the United States." But what consolation is this? The poor do not buy services - they are services, on their luckier days.
When we look at the budget, the budget is bad to a large extent because we have people that have no idea as to what to do and how to buy.
You know, if you've got nine people that you've got to get a treat for - because you do have sweet food, even if you're poor - you can't go out and buy a Sara Lee cake. You buy the big bag of cookies, those chocolate and vanilla ones with the icing. That has a lot of trans fat in it, but it goes a long way with a lot of people.
A lot of negative stuff has happened to me - that's why I'm tough - but I don't want people to be like, 'Oh, poor Becky,' because I'm not a victim.
I think calling what Paul Ryan is doing a 'budget' is lending some validity to it. It is not a budget. If it were a budget, he could justify his revenue projections, he could justify his cuts, and he can't. This is a scheme to rob the poor and give to the rich.
It is the expensiveness of our pleasures that makes the world poor and keeps us poor in ourselves. If we could but learn to find enjoyment in the things of the mind, the economic problems would solve themselves.
First of all, the American people are inundated with advertisement after advertisement of you buy, buy, buy. You've got to have the latest thing. The iPad 1 isn't any good anymore, you've got to have the iPad 2. The iPhone 4, now you've got to have iPhone 4S. Now you've got to have the 5b, now you've got to have the 6c.
The American people, in their own families, they understand that you have to do that. You have to make the tough decisions. You have to get your budget. You have got to put it in order. And they expect their elected officials and their leaders to do likewise.
I'll tell you what's funny about it [NSA wiretapping]: They tell us we got to cut the budget; we have to have budget rollback. We're going to cut the budget on air traffic control, and every once in a while your plane is going to be delayed for three hours. But we do have the money laying around to hire people to read your emails and listen to your phone conversations. That just doesn't make any friggin' sense at all.
When I think back, the neighbors were always sayin', 'Oh, that poor Julie, that poor orphan.' I loved it. The Italians would invite me in for dinner - it was an Italian neighborhood mostly. Oh, I loved it.