Now can we all agree that government cannot be run like a business, or by business people?

[Baitball Blogger]

I have been watching on a local level the corrupting force that economic objectives have on government, its officials and the people it is supposed to serve. Trump has elevated that observation to the national level. In Trump we see what natural selection creates in a capitalistic society. HE IS the ideal to those who put money before process.

With today's joint meeting with Putin, he is stripped of any benefit of the doubt that he would sell his own country for the one goal that he has followed his entire life: leverage and the profit it can bring.

[unblock]

1. the stupid thing about it is there are many types of businesses and business people.

the ceo of a very large organization is likely to have at least some skills that transfer usefully to the office of the president. especially if that ceo has forged lasting, mutually profitable relationships with counterparties and gained the trust and admiration of customers and workers shareholders alike.

the sole owner of a family business built around shell companies each doing one-off deals and who profits routinely from burning partners, lenders, suppliers, and customers,... not so much.


yet again, i blame the media for not focusing on this. donnie's lack of disclosure in the tax forms was not something to simply go "wow" over and "gee, looks like he's going to get away with this." there should have been many stories about how huge of a red flag this raised, many stories about why we have such disclosures, many stories about possible conflicts, etc.

also, there should have been many stories about his routine breaking of contracts and what that bodes for international agreements, etc.

the media rarely covered this and when they did, they never said it was anything worse than "controversial", which actually played into donnie's hands.

[Baitball Blogger]

3. We need to make a list of actionable bills that Democrats in Congress need to take up

the second that they win the majority. No waffling the way that Lieberman did when he delayed us when he had the Senate.

The first demand:

1) All tax returns must be made public before a candidate can run for office.

2) Presidents cannot give pardons to himself.

[unblock]

7. i don't know if congress can do those things.

the self-pardon thing would have to be a constitutional amendment. congress could kick it off but it would ultimately be up to 3/4th of the states.

the tax return thing i'm not sure about, maybe federal law can require that, but it might also be a matter of state law because that's how presidential electors are actually chosen.


in any event, there's a much longer list regarding voting i'd like to see enacted, protecting polling places, easy voting registration, banning unverifiable/hackable voting machines, banning disenfranchisement for any reason (from conviction to not voting in the previous election, ), full disclosure of campaign donations, zero foreign donations, individual donations only (no corporations, especially none that might have foreign owners), etc.

[RandomAccess]

2. well, yes and no

THe basic premise is absolutely 100% true -- and MY main reason is that the role, underlyig premise and modus operandi of government and business are completely different and in some cases, diametrically opposed. And I probably share your attitude about "capitalistic society."

BUT, business per se doesn't IMO have all that much to do with what happened today. Today was all about corruption, greed, cowardice, etc. Those are not necessarily hallmarks of business.

[Baitball Blogger]

4. There are few self-correcting features in business.

You have stockholders, who are sometimes blamed for the overreaches of the CEO. You also have the public who will withhold their purchasing dollars, as the Millennials do for moral reasons. Bottom line, they don't have to wait for election time.

I agree with the guy who said that our capitalist society needs some correcting restructuring.

[BumRushDaShow]

5. I have been saying this for years

The goal of a "business" is to make and/or sell a product or service in order to make money and preferably "turn a profit". The goal of government is to provide services, per the U.S. Constitution, to the citizens, by using their tax money as the funding source... and not to "turn a profit" off of that taxpayer money like the current administration is doing.

[Baitball Blogger]

6. +1