Business and politics

[nancylebov]

Is there anyone who's good at business who's gone into politics?

For a first whack at a definition, "good at business" means having been in a position to make major decisions (possibly limited to CEO, but I'm not sure about this), made money most years, never went bankrupt. Doing something useful is a bonus.

If any such people went into politics and got elected, did their business background seem to have done any good?

One of my friends mentioned Truman as someone who was bad at business who was a good enough president, but that's not the category I'm looking for.

For those of you who think not wanting to be president should be a qualification for the job, what do you think of conscripting Warren Buffett? Anyone else you'd want to try? (I think consent matters, so I don't recommend this.)

This post has been inspired by Donald Trump and GWB.

Comments

[andrewhickey.info]

David Laws (British politician) was, before entering politics, a VP of JP Morgan and a Managing Director at Barclays. He's generally regarded as one of the best economic minds in politics. Vince Cable (current secretary of state for business) was chief economist for Shell in the mid-90s.