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

Re: Economic incentives to lie

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

You're reminding me of something from Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency, a book about the destructive effects of trying to have a perfectly efficient business.

It was the only section which made me laugh out loud, but it was written from the angle that when both parties to a contract are trying to pull a fast one (and part of that may well be skimping on writing the contract carefully), they will spend more on legal costs than they could possibly have made on the contract. However, this was written as though such events happen on the fringe.

If such behavior has become a lot more common, I don't know how much of it is lack of punishment, and how much is bad cultural ideas, though I grant that they can be intertwined.