Do Successful Business people make good Presidents?
WARNING****** Not health care related
As is mentioned in the Bloomberg article…..CEO’s are generally surrounded with like minded goal oriented people all working together to achieve a goal or vision…..
That doesn’t exist in politics, when you have to listen to multiple opinions and take abuse that a CEO would never tolerate. The country is not a business……let’s say it again…the country is not a business.
None of the great or near-great presidents—Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, or Woodrow Wilson—was a businessman. Truman was a failed businessman (a haberdasher) before entering politics, but that hardly constitutes a ringing endorsement of Romney’s claim for private sector ascendency.
For that matter, none of the better-than-average presidents was a businessman either. In this category think of Presidents John F. Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, Lyndon Johnson, and Bill Clinton.
Probably the most successful president with real business experience (and success) was George H.W. Bush. Before going into politics he founded Zapata Petroleum, which ultimately became Pennzoil. Bush 41 ended up a one-term president unable to kick-start an economy in a recession and seemingly out of touch with the problems of the common man. Sound familiar?
It gets worse from here. Jimmy Carter, another one-term president beset with economic woes, was a success in agribusiness (peanut farming) before getting into politics. He generally falls into the lower half of the historians’ rankings.
And then we get the big three—the men widely considered by historians to be the worst presidents of the modern era: Warren G. Harding, Herbert Hoover, and George W. Bush. One left the country on the verge of a depression, one left the country in a depression, and one presided over such corruption and ineptitude that despite the failings of the other two he still manages to get the lowest ranking of them all. And yet all three made millions of dollars in the private sector before entering politics. All three were successful businessmen (a newspaper publisher, a mining tycoon, and the owner of a professional baseball team). Bush 43 even went to Harvard business school, like Romney, and like Romney promised to bring business principles to the Oval Office.
Mike:
Boy-George Bush was not a successful businessman from what I know of his history. He did things pretty much in the same manner as what he did in the National Guard Air Force, a member in absentia or name only.
There is not much more to say about a man who was born into wealth, who favored a small and wealthy segment of society with tax policy and regulations, and who left the country in far worse economic condition than when he received it (including the 2001 recession).
It would be interesting to put together a job description for presidents, using as a basis the success or lack thereof of past presidents.
Greater than the average wealth appears to be one common factor, though not a necessity. Washington and Jefferson and FDR come to mind, with huge fortunes. OTOH, Lincoln was no magnate. The presidents of the last half of the 1800s were not well-to-do (if “under $1 million” is your definition of poor.)
Other requirements: An ability to speak to crowds, a high level of bloody-mindedness and a thick skin, and (it seems to me) physical vigor and an ability to work dawn to midnight while shaking hands and smiling convincingly.
Of course, the skills of a candidate and the skills of an incumbent are different. The most successful presidents need both skillsets. This partly explains why in a nation of 310,000,000 people, so few people qualify for the job.
Creating a comprehensive job description and then screening the entire population might find us a few more than the 2 applicants we get each election cycle. How many Lincolns, Roosevelts, Jeffersons are out there, hiding? Can we seek them out and trundle them off to Washington? One would hope so.
Note: None of this has anything to do with policies and the success of the nation and its people. The candidate is the “truck,” so to speak, but where the truck drives is a different matter.
Noni
Cool overview of the wealth of past presidents here: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/05/the-net-worth-of-the-us-presidents-from-washington-to-obama/57020/
Noni
i have always understood “bloody-minded” to mean “stubborn.”
But I think you mean “willing to resort to bloodshed.”
Which appears to be true of all Presidents.
Government is hard. You have to stick to the rules, do everything by the book, treat everyone including your employees fairly and admit your mistakes. In business, you can get people in Congress to make it legal to lie, cheat, and steal for a profit in the stock market. And, if you’re rich enough, someone in the government will take the blame for you should you screw up. From the the perspective of the billionaires who own the country, that’s what Presidents are for.
It’s always been this way and always will be. If a President doesn’t burn the White House down or blow up the Capitol, he’s doing pretty good. This President is good enough. The other guys are running on the promise to dismantle the federal government. Not a good idea, I think. But, suit yourself. NancyO
NancyO
they have no more intention of dismantling the government than the other guy. it’s just something they say because it gets votes from the people who are mad at the government for one reason or another… taxes, long lines at the DMV, restrictions on what they can do with their own proppity..
But they will keep the government they need to assure they make money one way or another.
not so different from the other guy, actually.
btw
during my brief sojourn as a government worker i noticed that government is willing to lie, break the rules, and treat everyone unfairly.. if only for the lovely satisfaction they get from being “one up” on the client or lower level worker.
the difference, more or less, is that the government does it more or less “in public” and the people feel more affronted by it than they do when they are cheated by the private sector who are, after all, only minding “their own business,” and the customer in theory has the right to go somewhere else.
moral is that people are pretty much the same in government or out of it. only hope we ever had was checks and balances. and we seem to have lost that.
coberly
This issue raises several questions that I’ve been waiting to hear people in journalism bring up. I shouldn’t hang so long. Sp I’ll point them out and hope that it opens the discussion to the subsidiary issues.
First, the primary question, good business experience equals good Presidency. That itself begs the question as to how to measure the individual’s success during their term of office. Let’s focus on what most people seem to mean, improved economic conditions. Every time I hear it asked or stated, “Obama has done such and such regarding the economy,” I wonder, what the devil does the President actually have to do with the economic performance of the nation? The President doesn’t make any legislation. The President has to work within the confines of Congressional legislative action. The Treasury Dept, part of the Executive Office, can manipulate some monetary factors, but can do little more than that. Rules and regulations? The President doesn’t make the rules nor the legislation. The Cpongress does, but many people arguing for Romney to replace Obama don’t want any rules or regulations. So I ask, what has the President got to do with economic growth or general health?
Pt. II next.
Jack
i think the President is essentially a salesman… even as, I supppose, a president of a company is a salesman in the sense that he sells ideas to the company itself.
A President succeeds or fails by the degree to which he is able to sell ideas to the people and the congress. He doesn’t get to “make” the law. He does get to “sell” the law. And of course he has a good deal of influence over how the laws are carried out, and how well… he selects the “managers.”
Finally, if the Right was right, and there was “too much government,” it would make sense for a President to advocate “less government.”
While I am not of the Right myself, it is very easy for me to see why “less government” appeals to ordinary people, who generally don’t understand the point of the “rules,” and only encounter them when they limit their “freedom.” Moreover, the government is often extremely arrogant in the way they enforce those rules. Probably in the end, the government has to be arrogant: you can’t really herd cattle with kindness. But what I have seen is that arrogance is usually unnecessary and counterproductive… and also “all too human.” Power corrupts.
In spite of my questions regarding what influence the President may have on econoomic performance I would still ask another some what contradictory question. What exactly is the proof of Romney’s success as a business man? His primary credentials are generally described as an investment banker. That’s not the same thing as an entrepreneur who develops business entities. Romney was successful at gathering together pools of capital. Though we don’t even know what role he played at Bain Capital aside from owning most of the company. No description of Romney’s business life includes building a company and creating some form of a production entity. He did move money around, and quite a bit into his own pockets and those of his partners. What does that have to do with the duties of the Presidency?
A last point. A CEO of a business works with the authority of the company Bd. of Directors. When the bond between CEO and BofDs is broken the CEO either looks for a new job or, maybe, calls on an investment banker and makes a plan to take over the company. That’s not how government works. Obama has been working with a hostile Bd. of Directors in the form of the Congress. Both McConnell and Boehner had made it clear that their only goal since 2008 was to obstruct the workings of the Executive Office. I am not particularly pleased with many of Obama’s actions, but I do recognize that he was lucky to get anything done with the Congress being paralysed.
One last reiteration of my basic question. What has the President got to do with correcting, or destroying for that matter, the economy? In the face of a dysfunctional Congress what can any President do?
I should add
a good President is not only a salesman. He presumably has good ideas worth selling, either his own, or those of smart people.
I think FDR showed that he was smarter than his advisors.
Don’t want to take the comparison too far, but FDR and Lincoln. and possibly Teddy Roosevelt and George Washington (I know less about them) were real geniuses of government.
“While I am not of the Right myself, it is very easy for me to see why “less government” appeals to ordinary people, who generally don’t understand the point of the “rules,” and only encounter them when they limit their “freedom.”” Coberly
I heard a “small businessman” interviewed on NPR yesterday. He was involved with a small regional bank. He was complaining that there was too much regulation of business. Those regulations were raising costs. I wondered how businesses would function if all their banking interactions took place without government regulations? There has always been a sector of the economy that did operate in such an unrestricted regulatory environment. Arnold Rothstein was an early proponent of such an environment. So too was Al Capone and Meyer Lansky. All men who would have described themselves as businessmen. In Rothstein’s case he was close to the truth, but he did enjoy a totally “free market” environment. No pesky government legislation to have to work around or ignore.
“Don’t want to take the comparison too far, but FDR and Lincoln. and possibly Teddy Roosevelt and George Washington (I know less about them) were real geniuses of government.” coberly
You’re poving my point. All those who you mention, I’d add LBJ (and he may have been the best at it), knew how to work with the Congress to get the job of running the country done. Their individual tactics may have differed. Washington had the respect of all and LBJ was feared by many. It’s good to know about all the skeletions in all the closets. The fact is, however, the current Republican Party had made it perfectly clear that Obama would get no cooperation, even for the good of the country. The way Obama differs most is only the color of his skin. Are GOPers racists? Almost all, but so too are many Dems.
Jack
i think you commit the fallacy of “all or none.” I happen to think we need regulations. I also think that if we are going to win elections, not to say hold the country together, we need to do a better of job of making the regulations and their enforcement reasonable.
I’d have added LBJ to my list if he had stopped with Civil Rights and the War on Poverty. But Vietnam was not much to his credit. And to listen to him lament his choices on the famous tapes keeps me from putting him into the “genius” category. FDR et al were not only good at getting stuff done, they were good at deciding what stuff to get done.
The Pres has a lot of power to get things done. Even if it’s the Congress that “makes the rules.”
I don’t dislike Obama because he is black. I dislike him because he is out to destroy Social Security.
The man who can’t get anything done because of our dysfunctional Congress was able to get the payroll tax holiday passed over a weekend.
And he keeps bombing people in foreign countries. And he signed a law to repeal American Constitutional protections against arbitrary imprisonment. And he gave away any chance of single payer health care in order to save the insurance companies from their own greed.
As for Romney, didn’t he clean the dog diarrhea off the car himself after putting him in a cage on the roof of his car? Now there is a mensch.
We are being asked to vote for a liar and international criminal and traitor to America in order to save ourselves from a psychopath. Good thing I’ve got Diebold to cast my ballot for me.
As usual I gree with what you say. We tend to say the same thing in different words. I wan’t focused on the less good things that Presiddents have done, but I do still maintain that Presidents have a limited role to play in moving the economy in one way or the other. The President needs the cooperation of the Congress to move things regardless of the direction of that movement. One troubling example was Clinton and Congress stripping the most important specifics out of banking regulations with the replacement of Glass-Steagall with the Gramm Gift To Bankers legislation. See how profound the changes to the economy can be with a little cooperation between the Executive and the Congress.
Where we agree most is your last paragraph, “We are being asked to vote for a liar and international criminal and traitor to America in order to save ourselves from a psychopath.” I can’t imagine in what way Obama thinks the country, or his Presidency, benefit from the actions in the middle east. And he exhibits a limited comprehension of the Social Security debate. That may be too kind of me to say it that way. His choice of Simpson and Bowles demonstrates an intention to direct the conclusions of the Commission before any research or discussion actually took place.
I’m a bit tired of the lousy choices we are being offered in so many electoral events.
Just so we’re clear. Glass-Steagall was repealed by republicans.
First vote on the legislation had only one Dem voting for it. It was republican legislation.
So as much people want to blame Congress, there is only one party making exactly all the wrong moves.
Dale-Diebold got out of the ballot machine business years ago. Jesse Jones was smarter than FDR. At least Romney didn’t eat the dog! (See “Dreams of My Father”). Other than that we agree!
I think a president can have a lot of influence on the economy. Bush changed the directive of the D of Labor from for labor to for business dealing with labor. Reagan fired the air traffic controllers and to many cheered. Clinton sold NAFTA and welfare reform while presiding over the greatest percentage point increase in the share of income to the top 1% (6 points in 8 years vs 4 points in 12 for Reagan/Bush). Obama has the DOJ going after whistle blowers and med mary jane. Carter had us focused on alternative energy then Reagan ripped down the solar panals and Obama was unwilling to meet with U of Maine students who wanted to return one of those original panals. Obama has not made the mortgage relief money work as congress intended.
Congress writes the laws, but there is always a judge interpreting what the Dept of Et Al writes for rules.
I’m not saying congress on one’s side is not a plus (Mike showed a repub pres did better with a dem congress and not vis versa), but I’m growing weary of this argument that the president has little power in regards to the economy. Damn argument fits right into the repubs overall strategy; that they can put any puppet in.
I swear, in 1999 at the Bush compound with Daddy and Darth Chenney around looking for who to run for president, they say Georgie boy and yelled over: Hey George, you doing anything for the next 4 years? How would you like to take a ride to the White House? We’ll let you drive! And then we got Darth not letting Bush be grilled by congress without Darth’s presence. Remember?
As to who is Romney, here is Matt T’s take on it: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-20120829
little john
jones, eh? well, maybe. but Alexander Hamilton was “smarter than” Washington, but Washington was smart enough to hire him, and i shudder to think what kind of a president hamilton would have made.
and while no one would ever think that Grant was smarter than Lincoln, Grant had a little chuckle at some of Lincoln’s military “ideas.” Right man for the right job, I guess.
jack.
noted. agreed.
Daniel Becker
Matt Taibbi also wrote a pretty good book about the latest financial miracle wrought by our geniuses of finance. “Griftopia.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/mitt-romney-yacht_b_1842680.html
Take a look at Cenk Uyger’s piece on the influence large donors have on govt. policy and Presidential decisions. This is money talking, alright. It seems there is no such thing as “free speech.” It apparently costs $1 million bucks a pop to be invited to a “really nice affair” on a really nice yacht in a really nice marina in Naples, FL or the Bush family compound, or whichever place offers views of the greatest appeal to very rich people. One way or another, this is how the business of the country is done. Elections have nothing to do with it. NancyO
Anonymous said: “I have always understood “bloody-minded” to mean “stubborn.””
Me too, that’s what I meant. But of course, the ruler’s acceptance of the fact that bloodshed will almost certainly be necessary is another factor. “The government must have butchers as well as shepherds,” as some French guy said.
Noni
Mike
language changes and i am no one to talk. but using flout to mean flaunt is one of those language changes best left to the professional journalists for now.
Very disappointing to see the article say “Romney has continually flouted his business experience”, where you clearly mean Romney has continually flaunted his business experience.
Stan
i guess blogger doesn’t want you to know
He could have meant “Romney has continually flogged his business experience..”
there are better things to be very disappointed about.
Not to flog a dead horse, but how is this for a little more syntactic confusion?
Dictionary.com, under the definition of flaunt.
“Usage note
4. The use of flaunt to mean “to ignore or treat with disdain” ( He flaunts community standards with his behavior ) is strongly objected to by many usage guides, which insist that only flout can properly express this meaning. From its earliest appearance in English in the 16th century, flaunt has had the meanings “to display oneself conspicuously, defiantly, or boldly” in public and “to parade or display ostentatiously.” These senses approach those of flout, which dates from about the same period: “to treat with disdain, scorn, or contempt; scoff at; mock.” A sentence like Once secure in his new social position, he was able to flaunt his lower-class origins can thus be ambiguous in current English. Considering the similarity in pronunciation of the two words, it is not surprising that flaunt has assumed the meanings of flout and that this use has appeared in the speech and edited writing of even well-educated, literate persons. Nevertheless, many regard the senses of flaunt and flout as entirely unrelated and concerned speakers and writers still continue to keep them separate.”
Jack
i have trouble with the logic of the above.
It seems that a person might flaunt his contempt of the rules by flouting the rules…
but that doesn’t come close to making the words mean the same. rather they mean almost the opposite.
[…] be able to intuit how the law will work together as a whole is akin to the flawed assumption that a business owner has a deep understanding of economic […]