Non-Ricochet Quote of the Week
Steve Manacek ·
Jul 5, 2010 at 6:46am
An absolutely astonishing quote from Fareed Zakaria's piece in this morning's Washington Post:
Most of the business leaders I spoke to had voted for Barack Obama. They still admire him. Those who had met him thought he was unusually smart. But all think he is, at his core, anti-business.
I've met and worked with a lot of these same people -- they're not dumb; they're not suicidal. But what possible thought process leads the CEO of a large company with billions in revenue and scores of thousands of employees to vote for someone he or she believes is "anti-business"?
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Jun '10
Re: Non-Ricochet Quote of the Week
Guilt.
May '10
Re: Non-Ricochet Quote of the Week
Walking down around the National Mall the Monday before Obama's Inauguration, I was struck by the number of makeshift booths selling t-shirts and other knick-knacks declaring the fulfillment of MLK's dream in the election of Obama. There you have it. Millions voted for him and still support and defend his incompetence, because they believe he's like the big, shiny toy given to the neglected child designed to make up for all the wrong done to him. They're businessmen, and the customer is always right. And during the 2008 campaign, the Obama campaign was treating Americans as voters, but as customers. Business gives them what the want.
Re: Non-Ricochet Quote of the Week
Obama was supposed to temper the follies of a business world that had strayed into virtual reality with a steady, competent hand on the regulatory state. He's lived up to that promise, to a degree, but at the price of a massive new transformation of the government's relationship with the economy. Perhaps your disillusioned business folk didn't see it coming, Steve. It's hard to predict the limits of audacity.
Jun '10
Re: Non-Ricochet Quote of the Week
What percentage of Wall Streeters are Dems? Is it 60, 70, 75%? How can corporate CEO's not have seen who this man, Obama is? How could a warrior like McChrystal have voted him? What is the sound of one hand clapping? When will the "neglected child" finally grow up? Perhaps not until the "child" is treated like the adult he is and the appropriate responsibility is demanded of him. As for liberals, a re-reading of Jack and the Beanstalk would be helpful.
Re: Non-Ricochet Quote of the Week
How could they have voted for Obama? 1) They didn't realize quite how antibusiness he was when they cast their votes, 2) They suffered, in a particularly intense way, from Bush-derangement syndrome, and simply couldn't vote for Bush, and, 3) They all thought their own various cozy arrangements with regulators and politicians would protect them. Of the three, the last strikes me as probably the most important. The people who run really big businesses have all cut deals with politicians, spending millions a year on lobbyists, campaign contributions, and so forth. Obama may be antibusiness in general, the crony capitalists all believe, but he's still their...crony.
Are you persuaded, Steve?
May '10
Re: Non-Ricochet Quote of the Week
This seemingly contradictory behavior is driven by the most powerful unacknowledged force in American life: social class -- and in particular, a fluid class system in which heredity and wealth play only minor parts, and in which attitude and behavior are used to signal one's membership in the desired social group.
These business leaders are balancing possible indirect future effects against an immediate package of disincentives and rewards. If they vote for Barack Obama, he may wreck the economy and eviscerate their businesses, but even if he does they are unlikely to be blamed or their careers suffer. On the other hand, by publicly supporting him they send a powerful class signal, and may reap immediate benefits in the form of higher status, greater visibility, and even increased career opportunities.
Senior corporate managers are politicians, albeit ones who are sometimes have practical skills in addition to their political acumen. The higher they rise in their organizations, the more important politics becomes. The scope of a senior manager's job is so large that his superiors cannot evaluate his performance in detail, and must rely on trust, which is formed of personal impressions, for which class can be a shorthand.
May '10
Re: Non-Ricochet Quote of the Week
Peter, I do find this convincing. Sometimes I am so cynical regarding human nature that every decision one of these corporate managers makes seems riddled with agency conflict. Nice to have an explanation that takes into account the possibility that they are trying to act in the interest of their companies.
It would also be nice if they could be judged, and compensated accordingly, based on the success or failure of this particular electoral strategy.
May '10
Re: Non-Ricochet Quote of the Week
"Pro-business" is not necessarily the same as "pro- free enterprise" or "pro- competition". I also agree with Peter's 3rd answer but am not quite as cynical about it. CEOs have an obligation to their shareholders, and if they can gain a competitive advantage in a legal way then you could argue that they have an obligation to take it.
So we wind up with GE embracing "green" policies that will make it next to impossible for competitors to make a dent in their market share. Conversely, when Exxon sticks their head above the sand and gets whacked with thinly veiled threat from two senators, even if they wanted to they couldn't go on a crusade about it. It's bad for business.
Re: Non-Ricochet Quote of the Week
I agree with Peter. For a lot of business types, the Federal government and all of its levers -- taxes, regulation, trade policy -- are just business hurdles to be managed, right up there with product innovation, marketing, and working the capital markets.
Is there any way to measure -- I mean, actually come up with a specific number -- the amount of money we spend as a percentage of GDP on compliance and petitioning? I mean the whole mess -- taxes, regulations, legal issues, lobbying? It would be quite a number. Probably more than we spend on innovation, R&D, venture capital, and all of those other things that actually create jobs and fuel growth.
May '10
Re: Non-Ricochet Quote of the Week
As a rent seeker, er...lawyer, I am just as curious but absolutely certain the number would be nauseating. Whole industries - e.g., HR consulting, diversity consulting, safety consultants - exist for this reason. For a visual example, take a can of soup from the 1950s and compare it to the label on the same can of soup today. Or a pack of cigarettes. Even the classic cartoon DVD we bought for our kids came with a warning label.
Jun '10
Re: Non-Ricochet Quote of the Week
It sounds to me like this thread is debating the virtues and vices of crony capitalism.
You might know that under the great Jack Welch the value of GE stock doubled every four years. Welch created genuine products and valuable services with real value. When he left the company its stock price was hovering around $60 per share. Today under Jeff Immelt GE sells for $14 and it hasn't split even once during his tenure with the company.
Genuine free enterprise produces dividends and capital gains for investors. Crony capitalism produces slush funds for looters. If we continue down this road, we're going to look like Mexico or Indonesia. Buying political influence instead producing products is a deal with the devil. No thanks.
May '10
Re: Non-Ricochet Quote of the Week
The part fairly missing from this discussion is a frank assessment of how responsible the Republicans were for running the economy off the rails. This explains why those in business failed to see this coming. Or underestimated how bad it would be. It was really hard not to take back the reins. There were many predicting much of what has come to pass, but they looked like sputtering, angry spoiled-sports -- mean, old John McCain and red-faced John Boehner among them.
Channeling rage is fine and all, but sooner or later to really reclaim the country there will need to be a candidate with a positive vision -- McCain was not it. One of Sarah Palin's chief appeals I suspect is that she has a sense of humor and is fundamentally positive.
Ronald Reagan slaughtered Jimmy Carter by being the smiling optimistic one. Dole lost by being churlish and dour about Clinton. Bush beat Gore by being sunny and upbeat.
Obama will win re-election if he is permitted to be the candidate articulating the optimistic future once again. I fear that Republicans are running out of time to find their tough, but fundamentally optimistic voice.
May '10
Re: Non-Ricochet Quote of the Week
Peter Robinson: 3) They all thought their own various cozy arrangements with regulators and politicians would protect them.
Jul 5 at 10:00am
In fairness to business, which after-all does create jobs and capital gains that allows for the funding of a rich variety of think-tanks and narrowly circulated political magazines and Websites... It is not cronyism to want to know what the rules are and then ensure that you can fairly see changes coming and have a voice in those changes. When you see how clueless politicians are about the economy it's hard not to want to have a voice at the table. It's a messy and imperfect system, but to equate lobbying with cronyism is grossly unfair.
The big mistake was that business-people thought they were voting for the Clinton administration, but as Rob has commented, they were really voting for the lost McGovern administration.
May '10
Re: Non-Ricochet Quote of the Week
We discussed this issue in Peter's prior post (click link)
In a previous life, I spent 16 years with a large aerospace company. Our division GM always told me that government regulations were our best friend- it was the way that large companies with a full R&D and compliance staff could compete against the small garage shops who would swoop in after the development program and try to low-bid the production projects.
He was partly right and partly self-serving, of course, as most of these "gray" situations turn out. Larger companies with a full capability compete just fine as long as the government buys systems rather than trying to act like an industrial company, and buy components and assemble the systems in the old WWII arsenal systems (that is what empire-building civil service people love to do).
Trace, I agree with what you actually said- you do have to know the land and defend your interests in Washington (I did, went through both trucking deregulation and years of military procurement, as both government & company). But Peter and Rob are also correct; read about the three rent-seekers- Peter's post linked above.