President Obama sure likes to hold Warren Buffett up as an example these days. After all, it is Warren Buffett that is dying to pay a higher tax rate. Never mind that he is currently fighting the IRS over a paltry billion dollars or so in unpaid taxes.
Warren is also hot and bothered about his secretary paying a higher effective tax rate than most millionaires and billionaires. Of course, we still have not seen her tax return, so we really don't know what rate she does pay. I guess it does not matter however, that Mitt Romney paid several million in taxes while Buffet's secretary may have paid a few thousand. Who's counting anyway?
My question to you the reader is this: If God forbid, something should happen to Mr. Buffett, would he feel more comfortable hiring Barack Obama or Mitt Romney to take over the management of Berkshire Hathaway? Oh, I know what you are thinking, government cannot be run like a business; it takes politicians to get things done.
It is thinking like this that has helped create a current debt load of $15 trillion dollars! Do you think that Mr. Buffett would have gotten us into the mess that we are currently in had he been running the country over the last 10 years? I highly doubt it. Warren still lives in the same humble abode that he has lived in for years. He is known for being pretty frugal. Oh, I forgot however that Mr. Buffett is a businessman though. We can't have a businessman running our country.
Actually, it would be real interesting to know where we would be today had Warren Buffett been running the country for the last 10 years. Maybe he would have consulted with other businessmen like Steve Jobs of Apple Computer or Jim Skinner of McDonald's about the economy and job creation. Instead our president goes to CEOs like Jeffrey Immelt of General Electric and Antonio Perez of Eastman Kodak to get his advice about job creation.
Is that the same Jeffrey Immelt who has had the stock of GE going backwards by an average of 3.3 percent per year over the last 10 years? Is that the same Antonio Perez who just had his company file for bankruptcy? Eastman Kodak was once a member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, it is now a penny stock! I don't know about you, but when I want to lose weight, I seek out a skinny diet counselor.
Now back to Berkshire Hathaway. What does President Obama's resume look like when it comes to investing in companies? Let's see, there was some $520 million that went into Solyndra. How did that one turn out? Did the investment go there on merit or favoritism? What would Buffet's shareholders say if Warren made an investment that went from $520 million to zero in the span of 18 months?
How did the Obama administration's investment in Beacon Power go? Oh well, it is just taxpayer money that we don't have. How about the billions that went into the so-called stimulus program? What kind of return are we getting on that one?
While it is intriguing to think where our country might be today had a crackerjack businessman like Warren Buffett been running the show, it is an absolutely frightful thought to think where Berkshire Hathaway might be today, had Mr. Obama been at the helm for the last 10 years. This may sound like a harsh observation, but close your own eyes and ponder these questions for a minute.
The bottom line is this: What we have been doing has not been working. The hole that we have to climb out of here in America is getting deeper and deeper and deeper. In fact, it is getting so deep, I think I can see Greece-austerity, strikes, riots, and bailouts anyone?
We need a different skill set in the White House right now. We need a turnaround expert in the worst way. Oh, I forgot that a businessman cannot run a country. If a bunch of politicians can run the country into the ground, I feel pretty confident that it will take some businessmen to turn it around.
He's half right. The government cannot be run like a business - because it is not a business. The authority, purpose, and resources are completely different. If government were run like a business, our liberty would evaporate faster than we could even grasp the loss.
It does not take politicians to run the government properly, it takes statesmen. People who are committed to the success of the whole country.
Our problems do not stem from not running the government like a business, but from excessive business interference with the workings of government.
We invested in Solyndra because as a collective we want Green industry to be the future of this country. That is only something the public can do, not the private.
"Can a Businessman Ruin a Country?"
Yes. They already have for most people in the US, and now Greece with more pain to come...but then, if there is profit to be made in somebody else's ruin, whether by taking advantage of an unfortunate situation or by actively causing the ruin, what's wrong with that, hey Gunderson?
As several other posters have already noted, businessmen already run our country through their puppets, and now look where harper is taking us. Ruin.
Perhaps you weren't paying attention, but it was a "businessman" in the White House who got us into this disaster - George W. Bush. Along with a lot of other "businessmen" ranging from Kenny Lay, to Angelo Mozillo, to Hank Greenberg, to Dick Fuld, to Hank Paulson, and the list goes on and on.
What you don't seem to understand is that a country is NOT a business and a government's objective is fundamentally different from that of a business.
By all rational accounts, the ROI on the stimulus package has been excellent - the primary problem was that it wasn't big enough to address the magnitude of the problem.
JM
A government isn't driven to operate making a profit. Period. What business models parallel the functions of government and are therefore, interchangeable? Almost none. None that would help in job creation or defecit reduction. No matter what kind of budget an entity creates, market dynamics will determine if it works, not the sheer will of the model.
Your article comes from your own personal stand that business has the answer. Were that the case, why hasn't someone tried it yet; out of the whole of American history, why hasn't your experiment been carried out? Because other (smarter) people know that it won't.
Republican base is more small business & middle america.
Democrats are the very rich @ most poor mostly, as well as parasitic types like Government Workers, 60 some % of Unions, and Lawyers.
When you say "nothing but" you betray ignorance & lack of curiosity for the truth. Absolutism denoted lack of thought.
Political corruption begets private sector corruption, not the other way around. The politicians set the laws and set the example.
Government does things business can never do and business does things with government support that they could never do alone but Government is not a business, I repeat Government is NOT a business . We do not need a Corporate States of America with a CEO
The US is a country it can not be run like a business.
Now the businessmen are simply eliminating the political middle men so they can benefit more directly.
So quit the b***.... Businessmen won't turn the nation around. The nation has been going in their direction just fine, allowing them to have lower tax rates, ship jobs oversees, ruin the lives of their employees, rob pension plans, and make ungodly profits. Businessmen have no reason to turn things around, certainly not people like the author who works in Private Equity.
No, businessmen have used their money to control the country for a long time. The country is where it is at because of the Uber-Rich businessmen. For the country to survive, we probably need to break their empires apart, make them bring back production and jobs from overseas, make them pay taxes on capital gains as if it were earned income, forbid market speculation with leveraging more than, say, 50%, make them pay taxes on financial trading, and send them to jail when their companies break the law.
While all the GOP contenders are quick to hit the “jobs, jobs, jobs” mantra, the former governors running for president have very different records on job creation. According to a National Review Online analysis of seasonally adjusted employment data (looking at the total number of those employed) from the Bureau of Labor website, Gary Johnson has the best record of the official candidates, with a job-growth rate of 11.6 percent during his tenure.
JOHNSON'S OVERALL ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS GOVERNOR
Left office with New Mexico as one of the only four states in the country with a balanced budget
Left New Mexico with a billion dollar budget surplus
Used Line Item Veto thousands of times to trim the budget
Vetoed 750 bills during his time in office; more than all other governors combined
Cut over 1,200 government jobs without firing anyone
Created more than 20,000 new jobs
First New Mexico Governor to challenge education status quo and propose statewide voucher program
Restored State General Fund reserves to more than $222 million from a low of $28.1 million
Limited annual state budget growth to 5.0% during eight years in office
Cut taxes 14 times while never raising them—a first for New Mexico
Vetoed 32% of the total number of bills submitted for his signature