Tag Archives: Business

Misdirected Call for Bigger Government

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Sometimes the private sector does it to itself. That’s what makes Washington such a confounding place to do business.

Purists like to talk about how the government shouldn’t get involved picking winners and losers.

It is a nice thought. But making that nice thought reality is not always possible.

From outside the beltway, it looks so simple. Those damn politicians, who think they are holier than thou, get their sense of glory by regulating the poor old business sector, an innocent bystander that would act efficiently if only the government would stay out of their business. Continue reading

The Business of Business

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

“The chief business of the American people is business.”

Calvin Coolidge said that to a group of newspaper editors in 1925, smack dab in the middle of the Roaring 20’s, a decade of brisk economic growth. It was also in the middle of a huge stock market bubble (a bubble which would collapse four years later).

Coolidge summarized perfectly both the Republican and the business sector’s approach to government. Get the government out of the way and let business take care of the people through greater prosperity. Continue reading

Moments in Time

BY GARY JOHNSON
Reprinted from Loose Change (TCBMag.com)

1. Was fortunate to be at Neil Young’s Bridge Concert last Sunday. An amazing event, in an outdoor amphitheater in Mountain View. Jack White; K.D. Lang (forgot how incredible she was); Ray LaMontagne (“Trouble!”); Lucinda Williams; Steve Martin; Flaming Lips (a fav of mine—disappointed); Gary Jones, Jr.; Guns N’ Roses (Axl lives!); and legend Neil with Crazy Horse. Peak experience: being “there.” Jack White did some Stripes and Blunderbuss stuff, but his band was all New Orleans honky tonk. Absolutely Killer.

2. Spotted the guy who does the Men’s Wearhouse commercials (“I guarantee it”). Huge head, huger nose, all stuck on a tiny body. He was sucking on a reefer like there was no tomorrow. No doubt medicinal. Continue reading

Did Obama Ever Run a Lemonade Stand?

BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from Telemachus.com

This presidential election is going to be about 1 thing and one thing only: ‘Do you believe that America is built on the notion that free people engaging in free enterprise is the BEST thing we can do as a nation…or that everything flows from the federal government?’

That is pretty much it, ladies and gentlemen. We have always had the debate in our national elections over more or less ‘control’ from a centralized authority in Washington starting with the debates in the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. Continue reading

Hating Business Not Good Business

BY GARY JOHNSON
Reprinted from Loose Change (TCBMag.com)

“Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous to me, for all is vanity and vexation of the spirit.”—Ecclesiastes 2:17

“Corporations: an ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.” Though Ambrose Bierce, a sensationalist writer working for William Randolph Hearst, said it a century ago, it could easily have shown up on any number of signs at rallies across the United States and Europe this year. If 2011 was the year of the Rabbit, 2012 is the year of Business Haters.

Jack Welch, outspoken and legendary former CEO of General Electric, is touring the country with his wife, which is nice. She’s Suzy, an author and former Harvard Business Review editor. Though General Electric has mostly abandoned Welch’s Continue reading

Regulations Wipe-Out U.S. Productivity

BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from Telemachus.com

Americans produce more regulatory paperwork than manufacturered goods. You heard that ‘torectly as they say (sometimes) in the South.

Americans spent enough time and effort complying with government regulations to total $1.8 trillion of our roughly $15 trillion national GDP. (Source: Small Business Administration)

During the same year, the entire American manufacturing industry made $1.7 trillion worth of: airplanes, cars, furniture, clothes, upholstery, widgets, gadgets, wingnuts, and Sidewinder missiles. (Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Industry Economic Accounts (2009))

This is why the current ‘debate’ (mud-slinging) by the Obama Administration over ‘out-sourcing’ and ‘Bain Capital’ is so maddening, mind-numbing and quite honestly, ‘dishonest’. Continue reading

Government Is No Business

BY MICKEY EDWARDS

Reprinted from Atlantic.com

            In California, two women who have risen to the top ranks of the business world have positioned themselves for entry into the top ranks of government as well, as California’s governor and one of its two United States Senators. Another has positioned herself to become a United States Senator from Connecticut.

            All three — Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman in California and Linda McMahon in Connecticut — still face large hurdles in November’s general elections, but they are serious candidates with reasonable prospects. And all three have based their campaigns on a common attribute. No, not the fact that they are women — after all, Connecticut has a woman governor and both of California’s current U.S. Senators are women. What Fiorina, Whitman, and McMahon all tout as the credential that proves their superior qualification for high office is the fact that all three are highly successful in … business.

            I have no serious problem with any of the three: in California, in particular, the women, Fiorina and Whitman, face Democratic candidates (Barbara Boxer and Jerry Brown) whose loss would do no great harm to the nation. I do have a problem, however, with the continued promotion of business success as a qualifier for public office.

            Success in the market is not an automatic disqualifier for public service, but it is a far different undertaking with different purposes and different values. And to suggest that government needs people experienced in business reminds me of the old feminist saw that a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. In fact, business and government — while there may be skills involved that are translatable and useful as one moves from one sphere to another — are in some ways polar opposite undertakings.

Continue reading