DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: R.R. on November 02, 2012, 11:27:47 AM
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Obama has proposed adding a department of business in the unfortunate event that he manages to win reelection. Maybe XO thinks this is a great idea, but I don't know anybody else who thinks adding another layer of bureaucracy is a great or smart idea. This will not create millions of jobs. Besides, we already have a secretary of commerce, and that position has been sitting empty for the past 4 months.
Romney mocks Obama's "department of business" idea (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiP5DW8PgIs#noexternalembed-ws)
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Obama has proposed adding a department of business in the unfortunate event that he manages to win reelection.
Don't we already have a Department of Commerce?
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I think we need a Dept of Departments, in order to organize all these departments
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I think we need a Dept of Departments, in order to organize all these departments
Ha Ha....good one SIRS!
(https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/s480x480/398351_335354823230362_538354204_n.jpg)
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Rawmoney seems to be very good at a particular type of business. It is not the sort that tends to create jobs. Vulture capitalism consists of squeezing more productivity out of the labor force and sending the resulting millions to a few head vultures. Romney's business savvy is not something that will make him qualified to be President.
He has three positions on every issue. He will say anything for votes. What he will DO is unknown.
Note that he has NO HOPE of carrying Massachusetts, and had a rating of 36% when the people there were denied the opportunity to deep six his reelection. They elected a Democrat to follow him in office, that shows how well-liked this supercapitalist was at running a state. His only real triumph was Romneycare.
I am quite happy with having a Dept of Commerce and a Small Business Administration. A bureaucracy can range from being quite productive to being a problem. I do not expect Obama will actually create a Dept. of Business when he is reelected.
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It is not the sort that tends to create jobs.
Capital companies are vital to help create business and jobs.
Capital companies are not at "all bad" as you want to pretend.
In fact they provide much needed cash-flow and investment money
for struggling companies and companies that are expanding.
Capital companies also provide "venture capital" to the brightest
who have an idea but not the funds to bring the idea to the market.
For example Bain Capital in 1986 provided $4.5 million to two supermarket executives to open an office supply supermarket in Brighton, Massachusetts that eventually became Staples Office Supply. Today Staples has over 87,000 employees. And Bain Capital is providing jobs for over 400 employees just at Bain.
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ouch 8)
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What would we want a Department of Business to do?
Advocate good business to the president ?
Enforce regulation on business?
Duplication of effort is one of the first things a good businessman would tell the president to avoid.
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The purpose of Bain capital was not to create jobs. If there were no Staples, there would simply be more Office Depots and Office Maxes. For every job these clowns may have created, more jobs were lost.
Here is a little secret: "increasing productivity" is another way of saying "get more work out of your employees for the same money".
I did not say I wanted a Dept.of Business, anyway.But Romney's business experience is NOT adequate training for him to run this country. After he ran Mass, the people did not want to see his narrow white ass again. He had a 36% favorability rating, DESPITE Romneycare. I know that Barack Obama will do a whole lot better than any scurvy 36%.
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What part of Barak Obama's education and experience strikes you as exceptional qualification for understanding government and/or business?
Can't be his colledge grades , those are kept secret better than our latest missle research.
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The purpose of Bain capital was not to create jobs
You have a fundamental lack of understanding of business.
Probably much like Obama...whose default mode is that
business is bad...out to get everybody.
Of course you and Obama love all the great products
that make your life splendid that business produces.
My job as a business owner is not to create jobs,
but whats great about the equation is jobs are a bi-product
in my quest to have a successful business.
It's a win/win/win/win.
I have to hire people to handle increased business.
those employees get good jobs, great benefits, great office atmosphere.
the gvt gets taxes from me and taxes from the more employees I hire,
and the customer gets great service or they will go somewhere else.
so there is at least 4 "winners"
#1. The customer
#2. The employee
#3. The gvt
#4. Me
If there were no Staples, there would simply be more Office Depots and Office Maxes.
Not really.
Cutting edge business' create new opportunities, new niches.
My business is doing things no one else was doing here.
So we have grown and added more and more employees.
Under your theory a country does not really prosper
because new business' are created because as you
say "they would just be offered by somebody else".
That's silly. Why then do countries with high standards
of living have a robust free market where business
is encouraged and innovation happens. Silly to think
well we'd be just as well off if Apple, Dell, Microsoft,
Southwest Airlines, IBM, and all the great companies
were never created. Yeah we'd look like North Korea
and Cuba!
Here is a little secret: "increasing productivity" is another way of saying "get more work out of your employees for the same money".
And whats wrong with that?
How much do you think your grocery bill would be if they had ten extra unproductive people standing around?
Again...demonize/bite the hand that feeds because of a
fundamental lack of understanding of business.
Only in the liberal mind would "Increasing Productivity"be something undesirable.
I-Phones/Smart Phones have made my employees much more productive.
Is that a bad thing?
Sure Apple wins....but so do I, my customers, and my employees.
Medical innovations for profit have greatly improved productivity in the care of patients.
Is that a bad thing?
When people are greatly rewarded for innovation you get lots of it,
when they are not greatly rewarded for innovation you get less of it.
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Look at all these companies that are expanding and
creating new jobs because help from a capital company.
Of course as is the nature of free enterprise business
some fail and some succeed and a country's standard
of living increases the more successful their business
environment.
http://www.brentwood.com/Portfolio/CurrentInvestments.aspx (http://www.brentwood.com/Portfolio/CurrentInvestments.aspx)
http://www.brentwood.com/Portfolio/RealizedInvestments.aspx (http://www.brentwood.com/Portfolio/RealizedInvestments.aspx)
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And whats wrong with that?
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When someone increases their productivity, the company OWES it to them to pass along some of that increase to the worker.
We already have a situation in this country in which 40% of the wealth belongs to 1% of the population. That is on a par with Portugal. It is NOT progress.
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When someone increases their productivity, the company OWES it
to them to pass along some of that increase to the worker.
a company that does not take care of it's people
will eventually lose them to a better opportunity,
so if for nothing else, be greedy by showering
your employees with love, benefits, perks, & cash
and you will almost never lose them.
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That sounds like what I said.
The fact is that nearly all the increase in productivity has gone to the top earners in this country for the past ten years or so.
Romney took over a paper company, fired all the workers and made them reapply for their former jobs. Those who were rehired mostly had to work for less. After a year, Mitt shut the whole thing down and ran off with the money.
That is not leadership, that is chickenshittery.
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That sounds like what I said.
And I am actually doing it (not talking about it) and so are millions of other business owners.
Quit demonizing business!
The fact is that nearly all the increase in productivity has gone to
the top earners in this country for the past ten years or so.
Baloney!
The gvt by printing money has stolen money from the middle class and poor.
Thats why gas and stuffs are so expensive....because the gvt has made the dollar worth less by printing.
That's one of the reasons gas is so high, the Arabs know the dollars we pay them are worth less,
so they want more of the dollars to make up for them being worth less.
Increases in productivity have benefitted society as a whole enormously.
Farmers using GPS-equipped combines & sophisticated moisture sensors
can grow far more food than the population of an entire rural county in the late 1930's.
Food has become plentiful and relatively cheap in the United States.....thats a good thing.
And agricultural products have become one of the United States chief exports.
Instead of driving around looking at houses or products all day...you can browse the internet.
Steve Jobs probably became a billionaire many times over (hooray for him...wish we had more like him)
but his company created jobs directly and indirectly
made many others better off financially, increased gvt revenues,
& and helped people simplify their lives and become more productive.
Parents can stay in touch with children....people in general have become more productive.
Steve Jobs/BillGates/ect...were doing good while the gvt was creating an economic disaster!
Romney took over a paper company, fired all the workers and made them reapply for their former jobs.
Those who were rehired mostly had to work for less.
If a company is dying and part of the reason is it is not competitive is due to
union or employee costs...what is the "high ground" for letting it go under?
No the high ground is trying to save the company and bring costs under control.
As with anything...sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
Each company, each industry, each situation is different.
but buying a struggling company and laying people off is not a bad thing.
it's like cutting off a foot that has gangrene, it's sad, but really a good thing if it saves a life.
Obama has never started, run, or managed a business and it shows....look at his results!
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Creating jobs isn't always the magic bullet it's cracked up to be. Take GM for example. During the past 50 years they created a lot of jobs. They paid a lot of people, doled out exceptional benefits, and so forth. But, than the bill came do. Had GM run a leaner company, focusing on a better, safer, more efficient product, we all would have benefited to much greater degree.
BSB
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I simply do not worship business,as you seem to.
Herbert Hoover was an exceptionally competent businessman. But as a president, he sucked.He became the poster child for sucky presidents.
My grandfather never voted for a Democrat and he lived most of his life in West Texas. My father was proud to be an usher at the GOP Convention in Kansas City when they nominated Hoover. Then along came the 1929 Crash,my father lost his job and was unable to find any decent job until the CCC came along and he became a bookkeeper and later an auditor. I don't think he voted for another Republican again, except maybe Eisenhower in 1952. And I don't blame him.
He worked for the same paint company as head auditor 30 years. When he retired his pension was $126 per month. That is what capitalism means to me.
I know very well what vulture capitalists do: they make, or attempt to make, tons of money for themselves. They invent no products, they devise no strategies, they simply scope out a company and plunder it. Sometimes one of their plans actually gives some people jobs, like Staples, that sells mostly Chinese office supplies cheaper than the previous office supply stores, which were all driven out of business here in Miami by Office Depot and Office Max before a single Staples arrived.
I can demonize whomever I wish, by the way. It is a free country.
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I personally don't see anything wrong with capitalism. In fact I like it. The problem is people. I keep a list in my head of all the businesses I deal with, and have dealt with, that provide a necessary, or beneficial, service and do it well. I keep a list also of employees who do a very good job. I keep the lists in my head because unfortunately they aren't that long. That's the problem, not capitalism.
There are 11 gas stations on the Mass Turnpike and I ran 6 and another guy ran the remaining 5. The whole thing was about hiring the right people. Those people are out there you just have to be able to spot them. Once, and only once, I let a station manager hire a worker without my having meet him first. Three days later that worker stole $450 from that station. I took him to court and got the money back. A lot of employers don't know who to hire, and why, or they don't care. Few things impress me more than an honest, hard working, employee. I think that's why I was good at hiring. I respected the people who worked for me no matter the job level.
BSB
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The whole thing was about hiring the right people. I respected the people who worked for me no matter the job level. BSB
Amen to that BSB.
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Capitalism is simply a tool, just like a wheel or a lever, but more complex. I see no reason to worship it.
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Capitalism is simply a tool, just like a wheel or a lever, but more complex. I see no reason to worship it.
Capitalism: an economic system that is based on private ownership
of the means of production and the creation of goods or services for profit
Go try living somewhere without it...
when you return after a year or two...
you'll kiss the ground when you arrive back.
Of course you are already voting with your
feet because you're free to leave and live
anywhere you want, but you dont.
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XO "I see no reason to worship it"
The problem with that attitude is that you make the people who do worship it your problem. Ronald Reagan and his ilk aren't my problem. They to are just a tool. I'm not a gun-nut but I am a member of the NRA because gun-nuts are a tool to be used. They protect me from the extremists on the other side of the issue. The Ronald Reagans of this world protect me from those who would attempt to over control our economic system. It's a balancing act. You don't want either too much or little control.
BSB
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Go try living somewhere without it...
when you return after a year or two...
you'll kiss the ground when you arrive back.
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Been there, done that. I lived in Mexico for a total of three years.Mexico has basically crony capitalism and bribery.
Again, I am not against using tools. Tools can be useful. I am an investor,and have nearly every cent I won in one mutual fund or another. But I do NOT worship capitalism anymore than I worship a screwdriver just because it is a more useful tool than a dime when it comes to turning screws.
Capitalism, like tools, have a proper use. If it is not used to the benefit of the society (and it is not when 40% of the wealth belongs to 1% of the population), then better regulations and controls are required.
Cuba is a total mess when it comes to governing.
China's Communist Party has achieved a growth rate unsurpassed in human history.
Most Venezuelans are better off now than they were before Chavez, because he has used oil wealth for the benefit of a larger share of the people. Notice that he was reelected over probably the most competent opposition in Venezuelan history.
I would not wish to live in any of these places, mostly because I am neither Cuban nor Chinese nor Venezuelan.
There should be a balance between socialism and capitalism for the best results. Denmark is probably the best example of this.
I do not demonize capitalism any more than I demonize the use of computers, screwdrivers or chainsaws. But some of those who think that capitalism should be worshipped and not regulated adequately deserve to be demonized.
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"Mexico has basically crony capitalism and bribery."
Again, that's a human problem that has nothing to do with capitalism per se. Vietnam is ripe with the same problems under communism.
BSB
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Mexico in the 1960's was not any sort of capitalist country. Yet, when I returned, I was not moved to kiss the ground or anything like that. At that time, capitalism was backing the stupid war in Vietnam.