The famous words, “I’ll be back” heard on the silver screen a million times over, but after 7 , shall we say disastrous (?), years as California’s high profile Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger has had to step down: leaving the state a mere $28bn adrift with regard to state budgets! Not bad Arnie, that’s an average of a $4bn loss per annum-excellent governance! The remarkable point is that Democrat Jerry Brown has returned to the office he held 28 years ago. Seems to me that this film star status does not make for good national/statewide leaders. Reagan was a clown too and strangely enough, also a Governor of California!

Of course poor old Arnie has had ups & downs and this article highlights only a few, but one of the most bizarre proposals to emanate from the Austrian super-brain must have been to legalise ‘pot’ as the revenue from the growing and selling of this plant could raise $16bn per annum for the beleaguered state! Now with smoking banned, which has caused ‘hospitality havoc’ in most of the world, just where and how did Arnie think people think people would enjoy this newly legalised plant? As I say-bizarre.

So, Arnie is at a loose end. Too old for films, unless they invent ‘robowheelchaircop’ for him to play the part of the wheelchair (joke, for those who think I am insulting wheelchairs!), too late at 63 to bother about trying to regain the governorship of that once great state called California, so it looks like Arnie is headed home to Austria for a while.

But wait, Austria is part of Europe is it not? From 1995, apparently, it was so Arnie can leave one ‘superstate’ and return home to another ‘superstate’-how nice for him. What I find less amusing is the fact that he is now possibly being lined up for a crack at the Presidency of the EU. I can think of nothing I would fancy less than having this muscle bound airhead as ‘my head of state’. Happily, looking at the EU map Britain remains as a nice shade of blue while the ever spreading EU blanket is yellow. Should ‘Call me Dave’ ever grow a pair worthy of mention we will remain blue, but that is looking the remotest of possibilities now. So, if we do end up as part of this colossus that has no idea of central governance except that as far as Herman van Rompoy is concerned all countries laws have to abide by EU laws (?)- how he/they expect that to work out I do not know. Nigel Farage blasted ‘RumpyPumpy‘ last year and having met Nigel myself and listened to the man I am now totally convinced that ‘GB’ & ‘EU’ must stay as individual entities.

S.Ireland were suckered into this idiotic superstate and all was fine until 1999 when they partook of that wondrous invention-the euro. This country had survived with pounds, punts, dollars, francs, marks, in fact, all sorts of economies, as countries tend to do with international trade and tourism, but the day they converted to “EURO’S” was the day they went downhill-and at a great rate of knots! Seems Portugal, Spain & Greece are on the verge of ‘euro bankruptcy’ too, so how much will they need to be ‘bailed out’?

California lost out on millions of dollars in revenue from businesses closing down after implementation of smoking bans here, there and everywhere. Southern Ireland lost 1,000 bars, pubs & clubs as the smoking ban slaughtered their hospitality economy, Scotland have suffered similarly, Wales too. England has suffered colossal damage and sane MPs called for a relaxation of the ban headed by David Nuttall. Spanish barkeepers/club owners have stated that more than half of staff would be ‘laid-off’ due to falling business after their government tightened the laws. The Greeks are still in uproar as they generally are with such restrictions (thank God some bar owners have balls–England take note!) and the Czech Republic have had nothing to do with Tobacco control or indeed the WHO-well done Vaclav Klaus!

So, if Arnie’s management team manage to promote Arnie well enough, who knows, we could end up with an even bigger clown in charge of European affairs that the one we’ve got now. What does ex-governor Schwarzenegger know about politics? Well, before he ran for office in California, very little and I would suspect that he now knows more about the corruptions and lies that politicians constantly employ than he ever imagined possible but that does not mean he knows much about politics!  However, what concerns me is the mere fact that with an ego the size of Everest, the cigar lover, who loves to employ smoking bans (and embrace legalising marijuana which is smoked!), has left one state of America in a state; ie, $28bn in debt, to possibly focus his attention on running a considerably larger state into the ground. With Arnie’s political track record & ‘expertise’ we should all be bankrupt within 10 years-except the Pharmaceutical Industry which is doing its damnedest to rule us anyway! Herbal remedies, which have been passed down through the ages, are to be banned-for fear they may take money from Big Pharma’s pockets! Now how will this sit with Arnie’s revenue raising marijuana thoughts?

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