Shouldn't limited govt work and mostly private sector work be a disadvantage?

[Tidewater_Wave]

No because outside of the party, there is the real world where not everything is based on or revolves around government. I'm sick of hearing how government experience is a plus. Run the government and the country like a successful business and we'll do fine. Forget the leftwing talking points and just balance the budget and cut taxes even if it means cutting a few services. Unfortunately since FDR we've had the mentality on the left about how having government services is important but it has been overstated in order to make people dependent on the democratic party. Obama doesn't understand economic, have a clue how supply and demand works, and has never held a job in his life. Now he wants to tell my doctor what's what? This is the kind of thing that happens when you don't treat our government and budget like a business. If a business goes under from bad decision making, so should the ruling class or in this case democrats.

When a business cracks, it's usually closed and dug the owner onto debts; or else someone buy it for a cheap amount.  This seems to me pretty similar to what happened in 2008.
That's just one of the myriad of reasons government should not be managed like business. The main reality of business is throwing yourself into risk and battle to not make wrong moves nor be affected by a contingency problem, or you're doomed. I really can't believe that people wants this to actually happen to their country.

BTW, good luck in not selling it to China.

Have you seen public sector pensions? They are exorbitant and funded by taxpayers who have no hope of seeing similar plans. How is this fair?

Shouldn't the unfair part be the low private sector pensions, rather than the ones on public sector?

Yes and successful businesses don't crash or go under. Ok you got me, don't run our country like a business, run it like a successful business. Run it like McDonalds rather than General Motors. The right kind of leaders will have to get into the White House who have this experience and know how to cut costs and save money. I know it's hard to accept that free hand outs won't be available but it's honestly the only way to govern a nation and not be in debt. Ask Greece!

[Insula Dei]

Romney and his supporters don't really throw around his supposed business experience to reinforce his credentials but to show that he understands the lingo and the ethos of the American Right. It's less about suggesting some form of non-ideological competence, than about showcasing a very ideological loyalty to a set of ideals and rhetorical devices that are the lifeblood of that weird creature that is American Conservativism (,and a set that incidentally also likes to pretend to be non-ideological).

Just my analysis, fwiw.

[IDS Speaker Ben Kenobi]

Running a business and running an economy is very different though. It's amazing how many people on the right seem unable to grasp this. Business success is about having business ideas and being good at management. Not about understanding the world or economics.

I strongly suspect that the disagreement is rooted in economics. You reject what conservatives believe in economics, which is why you don't understand this point.

I could of course be wrong.

[batmacumba]

Nobody is saying that the Gov't can or should be run like a business completely. That is an exaggeration.

No because outside of the party, there is the real world where not everything is based on or revolves around government. I'm sick of hearing how government experience is a plus. Run the government and the country like a successful business and we'll do fine. Forget the leftwing talking points and just balance the budget and cut taxes even if it means cutting a few services.

BTW, if I didn't know how to run a business, I wouldn't be able to wright right now, once I'm on a cafe, write on phones sucks and iPads are really expensive here.
And, once I am a nice and altruist person and once the girl went to the ladie's room, I'll give you folks some tips on business management which are pretty basic on contemporary administration.
First, no one run a business based on budget primarily, unless you're going bad and the economic environment is working against you at the same time. Even then, you gotta prepare the B plan soon, since such a strategy doesn't work for long.
Public servants on the administrative area knows about this things very well, It's called Strategic Management. And, sure, some aspects can be shared by both sectors, which are usually done. One of the most successful and studied cases is, indeed, their application on the American public service during Clinton administration. Who, BTW, is a lawyer by profession. And succeeded an entrepreneur with a loooong business family tradition...

Anyway, we've already got our share of businessman on chargehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Collor_de_Mello, here, and I really don't want anything similar to that crap again.

[Sibboleth]

Running a business and running an economy is very different though. It's amazing how many people on the right seem unable to grasp this. Business success is about having business ideas and being good at management. Not about understanding the world or economics.

I strongly suspect that the disagreement is rooted in economics. You reject what conservatives believe in economics, which is why you don't understand this point.

I could of course be wrong.

Gustaf is well known in these parts as a far-left hack, yes.

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I think the disconnect here is that what you want with politics and politicians is essentially two-fold - you want them to implement your preferred policies. That is, you want them both to pursue the right policies and also be able to implement them.

The latter is a political skill and is why political experience matters. You know that someone like LBJ is able to get things done whereas an outsider (Jimmy Carter, for example) might often be unable to.

The first one is different. Here you might have reason to distrust career politicians. The very term suggests that such people don't share your values precisely because they don't really have any. And their lack of experience with how the world works outside of politics might make them to blind to the problems society faces.

That doesn't really speak well for Romney anyway though.

Running a business and running an economy is very different though. It's amazing how many people on the right seem unable to grasp this. Business success is about having business ideas and being good at management. Not about understanding the world or economics.

For one thing, I am pretty sure that Romney is just as smart in terms of "economics" as he is in "Business". I can't fathom he would do so well at Harvard Business School otherwise. Is there not significant overlap in the programs? I would imagine that one would struggle greatly had he not learned economics both before and during his studies there.

Second of all Romney is not just any business person. He is a former venture capitalist with experiences in many different companies. And you can dig deep and find ways in which he screwed them over or not. But at the end of the day, he did reorganized these companies for a purpose, however "unfair" one can characterize it. In the process, he experienced the effects of government policies directly. Experienced how it affected the decisions either directly or indirectly from actions or inactions of the government. That experience in conjunction with his previous experience as a Governor, and yes knowledge of economics in general, which I am pretty sure he has, is what makes him a good choice.

I would arge that an economics professor is just as ill suited, to run an economy. That you would seek someone with diverse experiences, is rather obvious. If Mittens was "just a business executive", you would have a point.

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Nobody is saying that the Gov't can or should be run like a business completely. That is an exaggeration.

Proprietors, or at the least shareholders, own a business. Businesses (except perhaps unions if one considers them businesses) are not set up for the welfare of employees, taxing authorities, creditors, suppliers, or customers. Any good done for these entities is coincidence or a necessary deal with outsiders.

Are you serving any purpose by starting your reponses with the equivalent of a dicationary definition? All you do is piss people off by insulting their intelligence.

The argument is that a businessman

1. Understands the impact of government policies on job creation because he deals with it directly. He has to pay the taxes when raised, comply with the new regulations and cope with the gov'ts failure to stop a country from dumping. He therefore can enact policies tailored to maxmising competitiveness and job creation.

Job creation is not a primary concern of employers. If a corporation can increase productivity by reducing its staff it will, as many profitable companies have done even before the financial collapse. Note well that giant corporations frequently hire lobbyists to make such a claim... and of course control the politicians that the giant entity sponsored to electoral success through campaign contributions.

But avoid using the buzzword "competitiveness" when "profitability" is the reality. It may be good for a corporation that it gets outright subsidies, underpays and overworks workers, gets tax burdens shifted to everyone else, gets regulatory relief that might lead to some ecological  disaster or life-taking catastrophe for which the government pays, or even gets a war for profit or control of resources and markets. Any good that comes from capitalism is a byproduct of the profit motive even if the profit comes from meeting human needs and desires.

This is the same thing you said in the first part, only with a mixture of far left cynnicism and anti-business biases mixed in with it.

The hope would be, that one would abandon their personal parochial concerns and serve the interests of the people, once in office. Of course you are in a situation where the determination of whether that has happened or not is determined by one's political slant, chances are the assessments will differ. I am pretty sure your judgement on such matters is wholly adequate based on your long and emense record of fair and unbiased analysis on political matters up to this point.

[pbrower2a]

Running a business and running an economy is very different though. It's amazing how many people on the right seem unable to grasp this. Business success is about having business ideas and being good at management. Not about understanding the world or economics.

I strongly suspect that the disagreement is rooted in economics. You reject what conservatives believe in economics, which is why you don't understand this point.

I could of course be wrong.

It is the difference between microeconomics (theory of the individual and the firm) and macroeconomic (the theory of the of economy as a whole). What is good for one person (accelerating one's savings during an economic downturn) might be a calamity for humanity as a whole if everyone did it because such would reduce total spending when consumer spending is all that can drive the economy.

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

2. Understands the need and importance of balancing a check book and that money doesn't grow on trees. It is easy taxed, borrowed, or printed, each of which puts a cost on the private sector. He also understands the need for efficiency and getting the biggest bang for the buck. Thus he can pursue policies that spend money the most effectively and is thus able to reduce the deficit.

Government can create the money supply. If you try to do so you face a long prison term. A government can of course print money to the extent of private productivity without inflation. Business (except in banks through fractional reserves) cannot create money.

That is not to say that government needs to show economy and efficiency.

Did I not include the printing of money? Ah, yes I did, it appears. That has a limit, which you acknowlege in your post, beyond which there is a cost. It is not unlimited. Therefore there is a great case to be made that the government should set priorities and do what it wants to as efficiently as possible.

No one is saying that he will literally govern as a CEO. He will govern as a President of the United States. But as a former CEO he has this experience in dealing with the gov't and its economic polices first hand and is thus best able to create an environment for jobs and to balance the budget.

Don't be so sure. A CEO of a defense contractor has a powerful incentive to bleed the government on behalf of his good buddies at the defense contractor. Governor Rick Scott (R-FL), boss of a for-profit network of medical clinics before being elected Governor, has proved wildly unpopular in Florida. Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan, another entrepreneur-turned-Governor, gets approvals far below average. The ability to turn on a dime from loyalty to stockholders or one's own gain to public service is not easy.  Harshness in administrating a for-profit entity that people can quit if they dislike (if one is an oil-field geologist and dislikes Exxon-Mobil one might get a chance at BP)... but a country? It is difficult to uproot oneself even from Syria today.  

I can hardly see an executive suite as anything other than a haven for pathological narcissists, if not high-functioning sociopaths. Corporate executives are hired to enforce the desires of elites who see working people as livestock at best and vermin at worst -- and serving those interests isn't for people of charity and decency.  Recall Enron Corporation as an extreme example... and then some of the predatory lenders and corrupt rating agencies that foisted an economic disaster that threatened the severity of the three-year meltdown that followed the Crash of 1929.

More bias it appears. Again if we were talking about a defense contractor, then one would only vote for them on the assumption that they abandon their personal gain for the sake of the country, as I discussed earlier.

Rick Scott is a horrible politician. Snyder has some potential and his polls seem to be slowly recovering. He isn't a politician by trade, either. Yes, they lack political skills and had to make tough policy choices that were hard for people to accept. Therefore, those with limited political skills will be in a worse position then say an adept politico like Cuomo, or even someone like Scott Walker or Tom Corbett.

The rest of this section of your post is just trash.

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Conservatism has historically preferred outsiders or at least people who can claim to be outsiders. Term Limits are much more popular amongst conservatives then liberals and this is why Governors are preferred to Senators and businessmen are preferred to government officials. This desire is what hampered McCain's 2000 bid. He got the moderates, but he could never unify a coalition of "outsiders" because he was a Senator, in spite of his record of what he did.

You are right about the desire of the Right for term limits. Term limits have their problems -- most obviously they work as much against a competent and effective legislator as opposed to an incompetent or even corrupt legislator. They ensure a more rapid turnover of politicians -- and give more power to unelected lobbyists responsible only to their paymasters. (Government by lobbyists is a novel form of dictatorship!) They force perhaps a revolving door between government, business, and pressure groups. They can also force politicians with strong aspirations for high office to run for offices for which they need more preparation to do well, which is not good for the political process. A four-term Congressional Representative is, ceteris paribus,  more likely to be a more effective Senator than a two-term Representative.  
 
 The line between legislating and governing isn't so clear as it may seem to you.  Mayors and Governors have become Senators, Representatives have become Governors, and city-councilmen have often become Mayors. Knowing what the People want and being able to achieve it within a legislature is a desirable trait in a mayor, Governor, or President.

I am not a supporter of term limits, never said I was. You once again read to much into something and posted a bunch of crap distracting from the core issues of the topic. I never created any line between legislating and governing. I was assessing the desire of conservatives for a Washington outsider. Since you mix your personal view with your analysis all the time, I am not surprised you assume others do so as well.

It is not surprising that a liberal wouldn't understand this, but that sentiment is only more demanding now then it was then. Because of actions that Bush took on immigration, bailouts and so forth that completely set the base aflame with anger at the establishment and Washington. Thus you had Romney's initial rise to the top in IA and NH in 2007, followed by the rise of Mike Huckabee.

...Conservative interests -- like cheap labor and tough law enforcement -- can themselves contradict. Conservatives ordinarily want an abundant supply of cheap, dependent, expendable, but competent labor. Greater profits can be made by underpaying workers because they are in no position in which to say no (don't kid yourself -- that is one of the objectives of "Right-to-Work" legislation). But cheap labor is a hardship for those who have no alternative -- and low wages imply hardships to people (children) who have no culpability in the system.

Note well: in a democracy, everything -- including stewardship of the economy -- is a legitimate concern of the elected leadership. It is not enough to say that efficiency is everything; if that efficiency comes with cruelty then the objectives are suspect.  Workers have a right to concern themselves with issues of economic equity that some conservatives consider outside the realm of public debate and action. If Big Business could get away with it America would quickly revert to the norm of the Gilded Age for industrial workers -- kids in the workforce by age 10, 70 hours as the workweek, workers wrecked by 35 and dead by 40.

How did you get that out of an explanation as to why the GOP base hate Washington? More exaggerations of conservative positons, more personal bias, more paranoia, and thus more garbage.

President Obama was a Senator for as long as Romney was Governor. Before that, he was a backbencher in the Illinois state legislature.

We now get to judge him on his results, and what he was before he was President no longer matters except as description. It would not matter now if the President did as he does after having spent most of his life as a long-haul trucker. We legitimately judge politicians on their results.

The thread is suppose defend longterm incumbents and insiders. That section intially included Lincoln short government experience as well. I removed it to reduce the length. It wasn't meant to be a hit on Obama, but a defense of "alleged" outsiders.

[Politico]

Pbrower is off his rocker this time. I mean, with all due respect, most of his comments on this page make the guy who suggested Breitbart was offed by the government look reasonable. How somebody can be so blinded by their blatant class envy, to the point of being filled with rage at the well-off, is beyond me. I mean, all I wanted in life was to be the star QB of an NFL team. Obviously we don't always get what we want. That does not make it reasonable for me to suggest nasty things about NFL QBs, hate them with all my might, suggest the NFL should be forbidden, etc.

[J. J.]

I'm getting tired of hearing Romney talk about how he is best qualified to be President because he's not a career politician and has extensive work in the private sector. I have three problems with this.

1. I cannot think of any other profession where a limited amount of experience is seen an advantage. Romney's message is basically this: "I am best qualified to be President, because I have a limited amount of experience in government."

It's like a game of mad libs: "I am best qualified to be (occupation), because I have a limited amount of experience in (position's field)."

Being governor of a state is not limited experience.  It is a question of sole experience.  I might not go to a surgeon, even one with exceptional experience, if I was interested in a nonsurgical solution to a medical problem. (That, if fact, was what I've done.)

A successful career politician understands how government works, but he does not necessarily understand how the country works.  That is a fine quality for a senator or a state representative, or a member of city council; that is not necessarily a fine quality for someone running a country, a state, or even a city.

Both aspects are important, but it is helpful to have experience in both.

2. Romney believes that the main problem confronting the U.S. is the bad economy, and he is best qualified to fix the economy because he has worked as a businessman. But a businessman is an expert on business. If we needed an expert on the economy to be the President, shouldn't we be looking for.... an economist?

He understands what helps and hurts businesses.  An economist might understand some of the frictions on businesses, in theory, but not practically.  They may not, for example, understand the effect of expectations.

[Tidewater_Wave]

Pbrower is off his rocker this time. I mean, with all due respect, most of his comments on this page make the guy who suggested Breitbart was offed by the government look reasonable. How somebody can be so blinded by their blatant class envy, to the point of being filled with rage at the well-off, is beyond me. I mean, all I wanted in life was to be the star QB of an NFL team. Obviously we don't always get what we want. That does not make it reasonable for me to suggest nasty things about NFL QBs, hate them with all my might, suggest the NFL should be forbidden, etc.

Class envy is a huge problem in this country and is running rampant throughout the left. If it succeeds in this election, then I don't see our nation ever being the same.

[IDS Speaker Ben Kenobi]

It is the difference between microeconomics (theory of the individual and the firm) and macroeconomic (the theory of the of economy as a whole). What is good for one person (accelerating one's savings during an economic downturn) might be a calamity for humanity as a whole if everyone did it because such would reduce total spending when consumer spending is all that can drive the economy.

Valid if there is agreement on which macroeconomic theory. Unless Gustav or yourself is an Austrian, then this is not so, because I'm an Austrian myself.

[IDS Speaker Ben Kenobi]

Gustaf is well known in these parts as a far-left hack, yes.

I was thinking more along the lines of a Keynesian.

[Tidewater_Wave]

Gustaf is well known in these parts as a far-left hack, yes.

I was thinking more along the lines of a Keynesian.

Keynesian=left wing hack lol

[Progressive Realist]

Gustaf? A left-wing hack?

trololol

[Sibboleth]

I was being sarcastic. In case that wasn't obvious. And it really ought to have been. So, perhaps, it was.

[Progressive Realist]

I was being sarcastic. In case that wasn't obvious. And it really ought to have been. So, perhaps, it was.

Oh, sorry. I didn't see your post there. I was responding to the right-wingers who quoted you (without your name appearing in the quotes). Sorry.

[Sibboleth]

Yes, confusion is absolutely understandable in this dark twisted nightmare of a thread.

[IDS Speaker Ben Kenobi]

Yeah, I picked up on the sarcasm,

[TheGlobalizer]

@Retromike - His point is that the usual suspects are not achieving conservative goals.  Classic outsider preference argument.  He's basically saying that an inexperienced conservative outsider is more likely to get a net positive outcome for the majority of people on the political right than an experienced conservative insider.  With some exceptions, he may be right.

You have to remember that conservative philosophies generally advocate smaller government and laissez faire economics.  Being good at government isn't a particular asset in such a philosophy, whereas being part of "the regulated" can be.

If I was Romney I'd be playing the "outsider with executive experience in public and private sector roles" all day long, it's his best argument.

[Gustaf]

I think the disconnect here is that what you want with politics and politicians is essentially two-fold - you want them to implement your preferred policies. That is, you want them both to pursue the right policies and also be able to implement them.

The latter is a political skill and is why political experience matters. You know that someone like LBJ is able to get things done whereas an outsider (Jimmy Carter, for example) might often be unable to.

The first one is different. Here you might have reason to distrust career politicians. The very term suggests that such people don't share your values precisely because they don't really have any. And their lack of experience with how the world works outside of politics might make them to blind to the problems society faces.

That doesn't really speak well for Romney anyway though.

Running a business and running an economy is very different though. It's amazing how many people on the right seem unable to grasp this. Business success is about having business ideas and being good at management. Not about understanding the world or economics.

For one thing, I am pretty sure that Romney is just as smart in terms of "economics" as he is in "Business". I can't fathom he would do so well at Harvard Business School otherwise. Is there not significant overlap in the programs? I would imagine that one would struggle greatly had he not learned economics both before and during his studies there.

Second of all Romney is not just any business person. He is a former venture capitalist with experiences in many different companies. And you can dig deep and find ways in which he screwed them over or not. But at the end of the day, he did reorganized these companies for a purpose, however "unfair" one can characterize it. In the process, he experienced the effects of government policies directly. Experienced how it affected the decisions either directly or indirectly from actions or inactions of the government. That experience in conjunction with his previous experience as a Governor, and yes knowledge of economics in general, which I am pretty sure he has, is what makes him a good choice.

I would arge that an economics professor is just as ill suited, to run an economy. That you would seek someone with diverse experiences, is rather obvious. If Mittens was "just a business executive", you would have a point.

That was a general statement rather than specifically about Romney.

And I certainly don't think that actual economists are bad at understanding the economy. When it comes to running it, one gets back to my first point about political skill.

I must of course also comment on the notion that I don't understand conservative economic policy or whatever. I guess I'd say...lol?

[IDS Speaker Ben Kenobi]

Well, I presumed you were a Keynesian rather than an Austrian.

[Gustaf]

Well, I presumed you were a Keynesian rather than an Austrian.

Well...hardly any educated, living economist is an Austrian. Which is not to say they didn't contribute something to economics back in the day. Of course, not that many people are Keynesians either (unless you're counting neo-Keynesians).

I'm more of a Chicago guy I'd say.