Business and politics
May. 1st, 2011 08:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nancylebovIs 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.
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.
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no subject
Date: 2011-05-01 01:34 pm (UTC)But with a less mentally encumbered idea of business in my head, I'd say Jimmy Carter. While he gets dismissed as a 'peanut farmer', after he took over his family's profitable but nothing big farm, he expanded it, advanced a lot of automation, and sold the various devices through his own manufacturing process, maintaining the farm and a full agriculture business as well. He was *very* wealthy as a result of his vision and expansion of the farm into other related aspects of farming.
I don't know how well he did as a president; I was too young and he had a really hard time to be pres in, that parallels Obama's issues now. But he's been an amazing former president.
I wonder if Trump quite realizes what being a former president means, in terms of his business dealings, actually. The limits on the dealings he can have afterward are stringent enough, in ways that The Donald would Not Put Up With that makes me think this is all a sham. He wants a voice, but he doesn't actually want the responsibility.