One other point about Mitt Romney. As I wrote yesterday, there's nothing wrong with his history as a corporate raider and serial layoffer of workers. I don't hate capitalists.
What gets me hating, though, is when corporate raider-types are seen as some sort of Heroes. I don't even like all the paens to Steve Jobs as some sort of saviour. Mitt Romney and Steve Jobs were well rewarded for their service to society, and made no sacrifices that weren't extremely well compensated. Firemen running into burning buildings and soldiers patrolling valleys in Afghanistan, and social workers staffing homeless shelters are contributing to society in ways far more heroic, and they're not seeing 8-figure annual incomes. Romney's work at Bain is totally fine, and if he stayed there I would have no complaints about his work (even though I wouldn't want to do it). But he's trying to claim that his experience there qualifies him to "create jobs" as a political actor, and that's just ridiculous. Businessmen know how to make money- that's what Romney's good at. They don't know the first thing about how to make political things happen from the legislative end, and their business experience doesn't give them any worthwhile knowledge about how to manage a large economy.
No comments:
Post a Comment