“There is one and only one social responsibility of business, to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits.” - Milton Freidman
Trump has broken many, many, many promises. Building a wall, locking her up, draining the swamp, repealing and replacing Obamacare. But, the Donald has kept one of his promises BIGLY. He is absolutely running the Government like a business.
Don’t believe me? Take a look at President Trump’s financial disclosure form recently released by the Federal Office of Government Ethics. (1)
- The Trump Hotel in Washington D.C., which opened last year, provided over $20 Million in Income. If you are an international diplomat where else are you going to spend your Euros, Shekels or Yen to curry favor with the Orange One?
- The Mar-a-Lago Golf Club in Palm Beach generated $37 Million. A fun fact: after being elected, Trump doubled its initiation fee to $200K.
- Only $14.4 Million from the Turnberry Golf Club in Scotland. Another fun fact: after being elected, he jacked up the initiation fee by 38%.
- In other news, The Chinese Government (after a decade long fight) magically granted his request to trademark the “Trump” name. What are the odds? (2)
- And how about the $107 Million in donations Trump took in for his inauguration festivities? Given that Obama’s inauguration was geometrically larger and cost approximately $53 Million, where did all that extra dough go Donald? (3)
The conflicts of interest regarding Trump’s worldwide business ventures and Trump’s duty to execute the office of the Presidency for the benefit of the American People are profound and prodigious. But, hey! If you’re not conflicted, you’re not connected.
Speaking of conflicts, make sure to keep all the power (and money) in the family. Let Jared Kushner be in charge of Middle East Peace, the Opioid Crisis, Government Reform, Criminal Justice Reform AND appoint him as liaison to Mexico, China AND the Muslim Community. (4) Who needs competency when you can have Nepotism?
As Milton Freedman said above, it is appropriate and reasonable for businesses to focus on making money. Every quarter, publicly traded companies report their earnings to Wall Street. If they made a lot of money the stock is likely to go up. If they lost a lot of money and their future prospects look grim the stock is likely to fall. It’s that simple. That’s how businesses are judged. How much money will they make?
Many times social good can come out of that (Ford’s Model-T, Apple’s iPhone, Disney’s Frozen, Jim Beam’s Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, etc…). However, I don’t think that profitability is the appropriate measure of the success of a government.
We should judge our military by how effective they are not if they make a profit.
We should judge our schools by how well they educate our youth not if they make a profit.
We should judge our police force by how safe they keep our neighborhoods not if they make a profit.
Hasn’t anyone seen Robocop? (The awesome 1987 one, not the clunky 2014 one.) Omni Consumer Products took the Detroit Police Force private and it was a disaster!
Our Government should be lean, mean, effective and efficient. But, that is a separate endeavor from making a profit.
Efficiency and profitability do not always go hand in hand. Monopolies can be very profitable and very inefficient. Just ask a Senior Citizen who has to trek across the border to purchase medicine for their arthritis. Or ask Vladimir Putin. He seems to have a monopoly on all the resources of Russia. He has been able to monetize the hell out of that.
Perhaps we owe Trump a YUGE debt of gratitude for showing us what happens when you really run the Government like a business.
As Harry S. Truman (a bad businessman and good president) wisely said:
“You can’t get rich in politics unless you're a crook.”
Damn right…
(1) Bloomberg.com, “Trump Discloses Multi-Million Dollar Income in Latest Filing” by Caleb Melby and Bill Allison 6/16/2017
(2) CNN.com, “China grants Trump another trademark - this time for clothes” by Jethro Mullen 5/24/2017
(3) NPR.org, “We Now Know Trump’s Innaguration Donors. Where the Money Went is Another Story” by Danielle Kurtzleben 4/19/2017
(4) Business Insider, “Here are all the duties Jared Kushner has in the Trump Administration” by Maxwell Tani 4/5/2017