Official Letter to the forums. From Elijah.

[steph3n]

Can someone PLEASE explain to me why they will be making 1000$ a week?
that seems way to high

work....I get paid more than this, most everyone that I know does. People work and get paid

 

[skiingff]

Can someone PLEASE explain to me why they will be making 1000$ a week?
that seems way to high

I suspect $15,000+ per week just in salaries + "benefits."

Seems like a good idea... but WTF is with these extreme salaries?

 

[richk]

Have Faith. We already have the pledges.

But just in case, God helps those that help themselves, so we should purchase some more air time just to make sure.


"When George Washington asked people to follow him, they didn't say "let me read the fine print."

www.ronpaulblimp.com

I would like to remind you that we had pledges based on the original idea of a GRASSROOTS blimp for a month, specifically for Dec. 16th. What is being proposed now is quite different from what we started with. I need to know alot more about this project before I give my "pledged" $100.

 

[cero]

my dad is a teacher he works 30 hours a week and he makes less than that...
for fucks sake man I'm not paying somene 1000$ a week to ride the blimp
they better lower their salary or this is going to be the final nail in the coffin.

 

[eric_cartman]

$52,000 annual salary for Ron Paul "volunteers"

+

Free food

+

Free lodging

+

Free airfare

=

WTF is this, a corporate operation!?!?

Get the fuck outta here.



I think the salaries need to be cut in half. That would be more reasonable.

i agree. they should get free room, board and airfare.... but no 52K a year. that's crazy. to pay all these people all that much money, when i'm sure there are people willing to do this stuff for free.

salaries should be cut in half or eliminated. there's no way they'll ever raise enough money to get this blimp up in their air with all these extra expenses. and people don't want to donate knowing how much money goes towards the blimp staff.

 

[cien750hp]

my dad is a teacher he works 30 hours a week and he makes less than that...
for fucks sake man I'm not paying somene 1000$ a week to ride the blimp
they better lower their salary or this is going to be the final nail in the coffin.

first i think yoru dad works more than 30 hours a week being a teacher.
and second, teachers are the most underpaid workers. what they get is unfair. ron paul always introduces legislation to give them bonuses, he's probably the best thing that could happen for your dad and teachers everywhere. no income tax+bonuses+not limiting them with DOE and no child left behind.
therefor getting him out there should be a top priority

 

[rrroae]

This is a post from Hook. They're addressing all the issues, so let's cut them a little slack.

He says he is updating the transparancy page soon to specify the return policy if not enough money is raised. So anyone holding off because of that should get an answer soon.
He didn't say what those terms would be.

 

[cero]

Ya I know and thats why his voting for him,
and if this guys in charge of the blimp don't get their act together I will much rather donate to the volunteers at NH

 

[LFOD]

There is a reason for a no-refund policy.
Do you remember the wonkette guy with $100,000 in fake pledges? If he donated all the money we needed for the project, and they pay to lease the blimp, then he demands a refund, we are screwed. The only way to make sure they have the money is to make payments final. No spoof donation, no doubts, no runs on the bank.

I did hear about him, yes. A refund policy can be written in a very specific way to avoid any spoof donors, who would have to part with actual $ to attempt sabotage, very risky on their part, and therefore very unlikely.

It could simply say, for example, donations will be refunded in full *if and only if* the blimp was not actually launched by (deadline).

 

[fletcher]

There is a reason for a no-refund policy.
Do you remember the wonkette guy with $100,000 in fake pledges? If he donated all the money we needed for the project, and they pay to lease the blimp, then he demands a refund, we are screwed. The only way to make sure they have the money is to make payments final. No spoof donation, no doubts, no runs on the bank.

Lame excuse. No one is going to hand over a hundred dollars and later ask for a refund as a joke, let alone a hundred thousand dollars. Anyways, they only need to refund the money if they don't make enough to get it off the ground, not whenever people ask for it.

 

[Austin]

If I wasn't dropping all of my money on the Tea Party, I would definitely buy some advertising time.

I wish people would stop bashing this project.

 

[hillertexas]

Elijah,

How about instead of a refund you make it clear that if the blimp does not fly, the money will be contributed to ________ (Operation Live Free or Die, Granny Warriors, etc).

I think this would make people as comfortable as a refund promise would. And you could avoid the problems with promising a refund.

WIN-WIN

 

[michaelwise]

I doubled my original pledge, even though it was only $50 bucks. Good job Elijah for getting that thing in the air by the 10th. If You run into problems don't worry about a refund for me. Just keep it or donate it to the national campaign. By the way, there's nothing stopping you from donating to it from your salary is there? I suppose there's nothing stopping HQ from buying time on the blimp as well.

 

[robinlynn]

enlighten me.

what's the reason for flying in restricted areas?

 

[Hook]

They want to fly over Super Bowl venues. They will loose this battle. But I hope they have fun trying.

 

[kushaze]

If people don't get a refund or are not happy that their money didn't go to what they paid for, someone is going to get sued. I am not saying this to be negative, but I am saying this because it is likely to happen.

 

[millerjd]

In the past, a superbowl TFR (Temporary Flight Restriction) is only up to 10NM around the event. Living here in PHX, and it's been big news here that there isn't a hotel room available around the superbowl within the entire valley, and people are renting rooms out of their home from $1000 to $2000 a day, and some fancy ones for more. So we have the normal population of the valley, 6th largest city, plus all the superbowl people, and traffic, I can promise you it will be horrific because it's horrific here every business day.

I sent a PM to the team offering my knowledge of the airports here, so we can keep cost down, specifically the one they launch the Goodyear blimp from in case this does take flight.