It’s one of those refrains we hear from candidates all the time, especially candidates coming from the private sector with little or no government experience, that they want to make government operate more like a business.
Really? You mean businesses like GM? Like Chrysler? Like Countrywide Financial, Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual? Like Bernie Madoff? You mean even profitable, industry dominant businesses like Boeing?
The words “much delayed” are beginning to attach themselves to the Boeing 787 as if they are part of the brand name. On Tuesday came perhaps the most stunning delay of all: postponement of a first flight intended to show the world that the much-delayed Dreamliner was finally ready for prime time.
Yet it’s not.
The latest bungle has badly damaged Boeing’s already-dented credibility. It raises questions about its reliability compared with Airbus. And it sets the company up for a much tougher financial climb.
I can accept the argument that some aspects of government might work better if their operations were modeled more on some aspects of some businesses, but it is silly to assert that a candidate whose professional experience comes entirely from the private sector is more qualified to run a government than a candidate whose experience is mostly in the public. A) We don’t necessarily want to replicate in government, say, the project management prowess of a Boeing or the customer service practices of a Comcast, and B) private sector experience is not always relevant to the unique demands of public office.
For example, T-Mobile exec and Seattle mayoral wannabe Joe Mallahan likes to tout his business experience, but he won’t be able wring efficiency out of city government by outsourcing jobs to the Philippines or by attempting to bust powerful public employee unions. I’m not saying his business experience isn’t valuable, it’s just not automatically applicable on its own.
So enough of this “running government like a business” meme; it’s a crappy metaphor. Government is not a business (for example, it has no profit motive), and there are plenty of businesses, even profitable ones, just riddled with waste, fraud and abuse. What I want in a mayor or executive is somebody capable of efficiently running government as a government, as opposed to somebody intent on trying to turn government into something it is not.
as a progressive friend said when i was speaking with her about the mayor’s race, “once they start talking about running government as a business, they’ve lost me.”
indeed. however the stewardship of public funds, like the tunnel boondoggle, should be something that we expect electeds to handle “like a business.” and if the business craps all over its shareholder (i’m looking at you jan and greg) then why the hell should we give them more time to screw us?
mcginn seems to be the only one talking about fiduciary matters that is both progressive and responsible.
I am so glad you published this! I have been making this argument for years, not just about this mayoral race. It’s somehow become a cultural “truth” that business > government, and business skills > government skills. There’s no logical basis for this, but people believe it… part of the successful corporate/consumerization of American culture. I didn’t think to point out what a colossal failure Business Executives have shown themselves to be over the past few years…. great post.
And I think this does have relevance to the current campaign as well. I want to hear if Mallahan has experience with government, not if he has experience at T-Mobile. Would T-Mobile hire Nickels as an exec because he’s been a mayor? (Well, maybe for the political influence; see: revolving door.)
Unfortunately the parking enforcement offices have massive profit motives. Bastards.
Goldy,
Thanks for pointing out the absurdity of this “government as business” business. It’s about time this was examined in depth. You’re right; it is nonsensical.
Now:
Maybe it’s time to take a look at the field and assess the candidates’ qualifications in light of your eminently reasonable standard for a government leader. And while we’re at it why not apply a standard of progressivism that you alluded to with last night’s tunnel post: the ability to recognize and resist the kind of wrongheaded policy BS churned out by conservative think tanks.
I humbly submit that Mike McGinn is the only candidate running for mayor who measures up to your standards.
skye:
The difference is that hiring an ex-Mayor, or ex-Congressman (e.g., Billy Tauzin), is entirely based on his or her former position, for the entree the person provides to the inner sanctum of government. Tauzin may have the title of CEO with PhRMA, but he has very little to do with the business side of the trade organization. He was hired for his Rolodex.
No, I can’t see a corporation hiring a politician to actually run the business. The skill-sets simply don’t overlap very much.
I’m glad for this post. I heard Joe Mallahan interviewed a while back, touting his T-Mobile experience and how he’s going to bring in that old business style discipline to “manage” the city (as I seem to recall him putting it), and I just wanted to barf. This post is a much better way of making the point.
Thank you Goldy. You are exactly correct. Corporations are managed for only one thing: profit. Usually short-term profit.
“I didn’t think to point out what a colossal failure Business Executives have shown themselves to be”
Worse than that. Leeches. Parasites. Freeloaders. Thieves.
After all the bullshit we’ve been fed by the neofascist windbags about hypothetical “welfare chiselers”, we’ve now witnessed the amoral antics of the pampered potentates of Wall Street.
From their point of view, they’re highly successful. They still get chauffeured to the Hamptons every night and corporate-jetted to Barbados on the weekends, while the rest of us struggle to keep roofs over our heads and swill in our stomachs. A pox on all their houses.
Various news media are reporting that pop singer Michael Jackson has died. Paramedics called to his rented Bel Air home this afternoon found him “not breathing” and suffering cardiac arrest. He was pronounced dead at a hospital. Jackson reportedly had health problems and family members said he was “not doing well” recently.
@9 Yup, he’s gone.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31.....ent-music/
@9,
They are reporting that Michael Jackson has indeed passed away. I never thought Michael Jackson was all that healthy. He always looked frail to me.
What a day! Farrah F. is gone, too!
If you can’t run government like a business, you sure as hell can’t run a business like government!
Abe Vigoda is still very much alive.
The Piper
Generally speaking, the whole reason for the government to provide services is because those particular services can’t be efficiently or effectively provided by private business.
Now, I’m not adverse to some executives becoming public servants. But I would think you would need to find someone who’s expertise was in “operations” (i.e., COO of a company, not a CEO or CFO).
The CEOs and CFOs of companies are usually deemed to be most successful in business if they aquire other companies using borrowed money; sell their company by taking it private, public, or a “merger”; slashing costs by out-sourcing jobs; cooking the books to ensure their own large bonuses and stock options while leaving the consequences for the next guy to handle; etc. These days they seldom do it the “slow” way by gradually growing their company through efficient customer service, good products, and reasonable prices.
@15,
I wouldn’t be so hard on the CFOs of the world. Sure, there have been dicks like that clown at Enron (the whole leadership of that company was corrupt!), but a guy or gal who really knows what they’re doing can manage the cash to a gnat’s ass-degree of precision which can translate into maintaining the company’s “blood supply.”
Cash is the single most important thing to look at when you’re looking at a firm. Are the producing cash or consuming it? A company can’t conusme cash for very long and stay in business. A good CFO makes sure the “blood supply” of the company is secure.
There have been a lot of crooks ripping off the shareholders and employees, and those stories make the headlines, but there are a hell of a lot of well-managed companies out there that are doing pretty well, and having a good CFO sure as hell helps!
Something like 95% of businesses fail in their first 5 years. There is a tremendous amount of failure in business. Business bankruptcies are common.
Yet it seems government failures are considered things that would have been avoided had they operated more like a private business.
If governments were to act more like business, they would take more risks, and fail a lot more often.
10, 11 — I guess this means his upcoming concert tour will be canceled, huh? What a blow to fans who thought they scored a minor coup by getting tickets.
I remember when the state had a program that “borrowed” executives from the private sectorm, and Booth Gardner, or one of those other vintage governors, put some woman from the phone company’s mid-level management in charge of DSHS. The result was a fucking disaster. She didn’t know her ass from a hole in the ground.
@13 “Abe Vigoda is still very much alive.”
No doubt still muttering, “Oh, my God….”
14/15/16 The real problem is that we’ve devolved to an ethos that says that corporations are the supreme organisms (having far greater rights than individuals!) and that it’s somehow a “noble purpose” of any corporation to “maximize value to the shareholders”–and in the short term, at that. The whole mortgage-backed derivative fiasco may be the worst example so far of where that ultimately leads. Old-fashioned banking is for “sissies”–who in their right mind would take money and loan it to somebody who’s buying a house, and then wait thirty years to get it back with some interest and administrative fees? That doesn’t do squat for the next quarterly report. So instead the banks invented the financial equivalent of a guy trying to make a baby in one day by copulating with 270 women.
I did a substantial amount of graduate school study toward a master’s degree in public administration, and I’ve also co-owned a small business; and I can tell you that running public agencies is nowhere near the same thing as running a for-profit business. In general, it’s much easier to run a business than a public agency. You have clearly-defined goals (sales and profit targets) and a simpler constituency (customers). Public agencies often are required to implement ambiguous policies and serve multiple constituencies pulling in different directions.
In a democracy, one of the most important government functions, which has no private business counterpart, is public input. Public agencies don’t build a sewage plant or change a bus route without holding public hearings, conducting community outreach, and soliciting citizen feedback. All of this is expensive and time-consuming. All public agencies do it to greater or lesser degree.
Another major difference between public management and business management is that managing in the public sector requires different skills and a different style. The biggest reason why private sector managers fail in the public sector is they can’t make the transition from the command culture of the private sector to the culture of negotiation and accomodation that managing in the public sector requires. You can issue orders to the employees (but God help you if you order them to do something different from what the agency’s manual says), but you can’t boss around constituents or legislators.
Budgeting and resource management are also different in the public sector. A public agency typically is given a fixed budget by the legislative body with appropriates and expenditure authority, and then has to fulfill the demand for its services within that budget. For example, a county health department gets X dollars for the budget cycle, and has to provide an unknown number of vaccinations, inspections, investigations, etc., within that budget. Public budget management is often an exercise in trying to make square pegs fit into round holes. Few, if any, managers whose experience is solely in private business are equipped to do this.
Our universities have separate departments of business management and public management for a good reason: Managing in the private and public sectors require different skill sets. Putting a business manager in charge of a public agency is somewhat like asking a truck driver to fly an airplane. Managers from the for-profit private sector aren’t trained to run public agencies, and it shows when they’re put in charge of public agencies.
@14 “Generally speaking, the whole reason for the government to provide services is because those particular services can’t be efficiently or effectively provided by private business.”
There’s substantial truth to that, but in addition, government is called upon to do the things private business won’t because it’s unprofitable: Feed the poor, pay for basic research, insure homes and businesses in flood-prone areas, and so on. Very often, government picks up the tasks essential to society that business won’t take on precisely because it’s a losing proposition economically. Rural electrification, farm-to-market roads, weather forecasting, rural postal service, and reclamation projects come to mind.
Here in the West, the region of massive reclamation projects, the average cost of providing irrigation water to western farms and ranches is around $2 million per farm or ranch. Hardly any farm or ranch west of the Mississippi would exist without this gigantic government subsidy because most of them aren’t productive enough to amortize the enormous costs involved.
Did you know that 90% of America’s beef is raised east of the Mississippi River, and Florida is America’s biggest beef-producing state? The billions of dollars invested in dams and irrigation canals aren’t providing America’s food supply; those farms and ranches produce very little of our domestic food output. All that money does is subsidize a lifestyle.
Here is Washington, home of the Columbia Basin Reclamation Project — granddaddy of all agricultural subsidies — statewide agricultural production accounts for about $4 billion to $5 billion of our state’s gross domestic product of around $225 billion a year, or roughly 2% of our state’s economic output. A drop in the bucket of our overall economy.
As for Washington’s best-known agricultural product, apples, no one wants them anymore because they can’t compete with cheaper apples from China.
@16 Pure nonsense. Government can’t afford to fail. Government performs functions in which failure is not an option. For example, if FAA air traffic control operations fail people will die. If government food inspection breaks down people will die. If a fire department fails property will be destroyed and people will die. If traffic signals fail people will be injured and killed. Government is the wrong place to take entrepreneurial risks, because much more is at stake than profit-loss outcomes.
The point I’m trying to make in my comments in this thread is that the approach by some people that government and business are basically the same is fundamentally flawed. This profoundly mistaken assumption is important because it leads to the fatal notion that private business management techniques can (and should) be transplanted to the public sector. Nothing could be more wrong-headed, and this is a surefire prescription for disastrous failure.
Well this is one topic Pelletizer can actually talk to because he was a guvmint cheeze hack!
RR @ 22: …and if economic de-regulation fails, then the economy will die….
Oh, wait. It already did that.
While it’s true the business-govt. analogy is a poor one
still the govt. needs to be well run
and in general the democrats and progressives don’t take on this issue.
For example, the fact that the county government did not have a little file on each road project showing whether it was on budget, or over, and why, is really shocking.
They don’t even keep track. so they can’t figure out:
why is it always over so much?
and they can’t figure out:
gee, this means we need to improve our forecasts!
and they can’t figure out:
is someone ripping off the public, should we sue a contractor for delay or a supplier for shoddy materials that create problems?
that sonntag report just made it seem like there isn’t any management at all going on.
@25 “Pelletizer … was a guvmint cheeze hack”
Be grateful I was a cheese hack and not a policymaker.
@27 “the fact that the county government did not have a little file on each road project showing whether it was on budget, or over, and why, is really shocking”
Maybe the reason for that is because they weren’t given a budget that allowed them to do this.
When a public agency didn’t do something you may believe they should have done very often the reason is one of two things: (a) someone ordered them not to, or (b) lack of resources.
What if a candidate instead said,
“If only government operated like a GOOD business, like Microsoft, Apple, Berkshire, or GE.”
Would people be more apt to invest in that type of government?
@12 No one has ever suggested running businesses like government. Where do you get that bull from? Off the bathroom wall while taking a shit?
@30 Microsoft is probably as good an analogy as you can find. Like government, they insist on having a monopoly.
Pelletizer@32 why you upset? Ballmer and Gates gave ~100K each to the Dummocraptic party. Darcy Moonbat! cut her “managerial teefes” there! Many MSFT millionaires luv the Dummocraptic, so why is Pelletizer so bitter?
@23:
Uh…Roger, that was kind of my point. I wasn’t advocating it…I was just pointing out the logical result if government seeks to emulate business.
Hi all,
Oldstyle conservatives are such poor defenders of capitalism. The beauty of capitalism isn’t that it produced Countrywide, Lehman, GM, etc. etc., but that it was trying aggressively to kill them when the government came by and grabbed the icepick out of it’s hands.
Oldstyle conservatives defend capitalists, not capitalism.
And when they let the Wall Street bailout happen under a Republican administration, they stabbed the corpse of honest conservatism that they had already kicked down the stairs by supporting the fed’s violent experimental takeover of Iraq.
Thanks all,
new left conservative 1
Puddy throws bullshit (so what else is new?):
I didn’t look at Gates, because it’s sometimes difficult to figure whether a contribution was from the father or the son. But it’s easy to do a search of Steve Ballmer’s federal contributions. The total since 1999 is impressive — over $50K to candidates and/or committees, another $36K in joint fundraisers — though that’s a bit under the $100K suggested by Puddy.
But Steve spreads it around. He sure as hell doesn’t back a straight Democratic ticket. Far from it!
For example, all but $5000 of that joint fundraiser total went to either Sheriff Hairspray or to a slew of state Republican parties.
Ballmer’s $10K to the Microsoft PAC is included in his individual contributions. Big Ballmer checks went to the National Republican Congressional Committee and Americans for a Republican Majority PAC (Tom DeLay). Other Ballmer faves include Bush-Cheney, Liddy Dole, Straight Talk America (McCain), and Jon Kyl.
Yeah, he’s given money to Maria and to a few Democratic Congressional candidates (all out of state), but Ballmer’s very much a Republican.
36 It’s merely a common practice in the business world, to line the pockets of candidates of both parties, so whoever gets elected is beholden enough to listen when you come asking for a favor or two.
By the way…nice job of calling Pudknocker on pulling another “fact” out of his ass.
“@27 “the fact that the county government did not have a little file on each road project showing whether it was on budget, or over, and why, is really shocking”
When a public agency didn’t do something you may believe they should have done very often the reason is one of two things: (a) someone ordered them not to, or (b) lack of resources.”
So what you’re saying is we can’t expect government maangers to manage unless they get more money or special orders to count the money.
Very knee jerk, lame response, that fully confirms the problem.
N in Seattle is such a search moron.
N farted
Moronic one, where did Puddy say Steve only gave to Dummocraptics?
BTW N – BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS IN DIVERSE GEOGRAPHIC ENVIRONMENTS PAC is one of the ACTBLUE PACs. LA PAC NNE is another Dummocraptic PAC. AMERICA FORWARD LEADERSHIP PAC is a Dummocraptic leadership PAC WASHINGTON SENATE VICTORY (D) is a local Dummocraptic PAC, etc., etc. etc. Too bad you can’t add too fast.
You can’t dig to see what they gave through the PAC can you? Puddy has to perform your DD. Well GO fool.
Here it is for 2006
Here it is for 2008.
Here are Ballmer’s contributions fool.
Here are Gates contributions fool.
And they gave to the inauguration too.
“The list of donors to Barack Obama’s presidential inaugural committee includes some Seattle-area luminaries. The families of Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer each contributed $100,000, while several other Microsofties, including Craig Mundie, also made donations. Rob Glaser of RealNetworks and John Vechey of PopCap Games contributed $50,000 each, and Nick Hanauer of Second Avenue Partners donated $25,000.”
Golly N you are a stupid as another single letter HA libtardo K. Puddy stands behind his comment above.
What is telling is Ballmer and Gates really thought one of their ex-employees Darcy Moonbat! would NOT make a great congressperson. Maybe she wasn’t “executive” material. Goes to show not only are they business savvy but politically savvy too.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahahahahaha
Puddy can’t help it if you are a search moron!
Butt there is more N, yesterday’s HA libtardo search moron…
From da PI “Software Notebook: Tech workers favor Democrats, donate more to Obama” and that was back as of the end of Feb 2008.
Maybe you should fly down to Michael Jackson’s funeral and give up this blog for a few dayz!
Liquid Fart Art Libtardo, where did Puddy ever say Ballmer and Gates only gave to Dummocraptics? Huh? Too bad facts and Liquid Fart Art Libtardo are like poles on a magnet, just like the dumb bunny.
See ya fool. When you extract you head from the cesspool, you need go to Michael Jackson’s funeral too and stay away from HA Libtardos.
One thing Puddy thought was interesting too. Gates and Ballmer really held John Effin Kerry in high regard. NOT!
Roger Rabbit, you write thoughtful posts, with actual ideas and discussion points and the best you have for a response is to be called “guvmint cheeze hack”. I wished we could get a better class of conservatives, ones that actually think.
Can the left please make use of another rhetorical device other than ‘poisoning the well’? It’s become cliche of itself at this point.
One public figure’s marriage fails, therefore marriage is not a sanctimony and gay marriage should be allowed.
One conservative has a moral failing and morality can no longer be used in the political arena for the whole political ideology.
A business fails so we can’t espouse the idea that a govt entity needs to be fiscally sound and limit growth.
Ironically, the businesses you cite all make use of copious amounts of labor unions and their unsustainability is a direct reflection of their demands and leftist ideals.
Govt should be run like a business, one that doesn’t use union labor.
Now go back to your knuckle dragging and elaborate fallacies as to why liberals are statistically dumber, sicker, uglier, and more unhappy than conservatives. Then after you’re done with that, go practice your fake outrage for when conservatives retake the govt after obama-care has been implemented and they use it to deny abortions.
And blew john thinks?
So you agreed with Pelletizer on Cuyahoga County was run by Republicans eventhough the big cities vote Dummocraptic.
So you agreed with Pelletizer on his Haiti position?
So you agreed with Pelletizer the reason Greg Nickels street was plowed in the snow storm was due to taxes?
So you agreed with Pelletizer the reason Greg Nickels wanted a beach burn ban was due to taxes?
Need more blew john? Those are just a few of the dumb bunny whoppers.
BTW libtardoism is a mental disorder.
@42: Thanks for the over-simplistic analysis of your view of the “left”.
No wonder you are a happy republican, you are blithelyfully ignorant of actual facts and events.
You said:
First, it is not one public figure – but a plethora of republican hypocrites who loudly proclaim “family values” and are leaders of the republican party – but have personal lives that do not reflect their “supposed” values.
We call these jackasses hypocrites (Vitter, Craig, Ensign, Sandford, Limbaugh, Gingrich and on and on) because they profess one thing and do another.
Gay marriage has nothing to do with this. Gay marriage is simply about equal rights under the law.
Then, you put out this ignorant tripe:
Really! The short-term profit driven businesses like Enron, Lehmann, Madoff, Countrywide had big unions? You are just plain stupid for saying that.
What these failed businesses had in common was executive greed and the search for the almighty maximum short-term profit over long-term stability.
It is also easy and simple-minded to blame the fialure of GM and Chrysler on unions? I am sure the unions forced GM and Chrysler to make huge gas guzzlers….or cuased they to pay for heavy health care premiums that other governments paid for with their competitors.
No unions are not the problem – but health care and poor management decisions are.
What amazes me is how someone with such limited ability to understand complex issues can be so “happy”. I guess when you live in a fantasy world it is easy to be happy.
@30: A good business (like Microsoft)?
You mean a business that can’t get anything right the first time, that seeks to manipulate the market so only their product is used and that started by buying out another person’s software (DOS).
Umm, not exactly an innovative example of how a business should be run. Microsoft has been lucky, timely, agressive, monopolistic…those are not particularly good traits for government.
@43: or do you agree with Puddy that:
A) There are WMDs in Iraq
B) Bush is a great President
C) Bin Laden does not matter
D) Health care is not a priority and we have great health care in this country
E) Global warming is not true and we should drive gas guzzlers.
F) Only democrats are racist* (*making sure we go back to before 1964 before citing any real data).
G) the free market solves all problems (especially when the banks fail and Bush bails them out).
And these are just some of Puddy’s dumb ideas. For a supposedly intelligent person (in his own mind), Puddy sure has a lot of stupid ideas.
Wow NutsTooTight you spouted of big time Donkey jockstraps:
Enron – luved Bill Clinton before they liked George Bush. Clinton help Ken Lay get some big time overseas power connections.
Lehmann – Already discussed their political contributions of Richard Fuld, CEO of Lehman, who gave 63% of his political contributions ( to Dummocraptic candidates.
Madoff- Made off with lots of Dummocraptic Large Large Large (Billions for Steve)
CountryWide – Favrit lender of Chris Dodd
#42, The right does it all the time too.
Example: Someone, somewhere, is taking advantage of Welfare, so by god, we have to dismantle the whole system.
A) There are WMDs in Iraq – 13 countries including Italy France and Russia thought so too. Butt don’t let facts stop the continual ranting of NutsTooTight
B) Bush is a great President – kept us safe after 9/11. Puddy asked NutsTooTight long ago was he hoping for a terraist attack before 1/20/2009? If y’all HA libtardos remember almost all HA libtardos passed on the question. BTW NutsTooTight it’s a known fact NK has said more to Obama in the last few months than all of GWB’s presidency. Showing strength matters.
C) Bin Laden does not matter – Well We see what “the messiah” is doing. Bombing Paki civilians to their maker huh?
D) Health care is not a priority and we have great health care in this country – Where has Puddy said this moron? Puddy said the use of British or Canadian health care systems for the US to base theirs on is faulty.
E) Global warming is not true and we should drive gas guzzlers. – Did you know according to EPA since 1980
* Fine particulate matter has declined 40%
* Peak eight hour ozone levels declined 20%
* Days per year exceeding the eight hour ozone standard has fallen 79%
* Nitrogen dioxide air concentrations dropped 37%
* Sulfur dioxide air concentrations dropped 63%
* Carbon monoxide air concentrations dropped 74%
* Lead air concentrations dropped 96%
* the concentrations of SO2
F) Only democrats are racist* (*making sure we go back to before 1964 before citing any real data). – What? Puddy has placed the comments of libtardo racists here and as always you possess 24 hour libtardo memory disease!
G) the free market solves all problems (especially when the banks fail and Bush bails them out). – Bush listened to Tim TurboTax Geither and Paulson and we know they were good buds of Robert Ruben Clinton Treasury Secretary and Lawrence Summers now with Obama.
See ya NutsTorquedTooTight
Wow Puddy, your memory must be going again. How many times have I posted that Enron gave more money to your hero Bush than to any other politician and to the entire democraticv party.
How many timnes do we have to talk about the special relationship Kenny Lay (Kenny boy) had to Bush and how Dick Cheney had Kenny boy at the secret “energy” summit of oil companies.
Wow – once again you are just plain wrong and stupid. Your old excuses are getting pretty old and tired. You keep trying to claim those guys were democrats….when the republicans gave them the tools to destroy the banking system with their greed.
Did you forget what texas republcian WROTE the law that allowed the breakdown of the banks?
Where is your memory? How many times do I have to post on Phil Gramm? Why aren’t you able to remember information?
Puddy says:
Really, where are they? Why have they not been found after 6 years? I guess you are the only one left who beleives that crap.
Of course, even if there were WMDs in Iraq – they had no missiles to deliver them so they were never a threat to the US. Just another lie by Bush/cheney. We invaded Iraq based on lies, period.
Puddy says:
Really, well that is not even the proposal we currently have – BUT their systems work better than ours. They are healthier, get better care overall and pay much less. Period.
But I guess the actual facts are hard for you to understand. You prefer your anectdotes.
@52: Puddy copied what you wrote NutsTooTight.
Speaking about faulty memory, you were the one who postulated the Canadian and British health systems are better then the US fool when CBS News and others said they had big time issues. Of course they pay less, they are taxed more.
You forgot about the girl who had to wait three years for knee surgery. Or how a dog gets a hip replaced faster than a human in Canada. Man you are CAPITAL STUPID.
41 Puddy, like so many right-wing ideologues, does such a good job of demonstrating his own ignorance and delusion that it’s sufficient to let his rantings stand on their own.
NutsTooTight, Puddy never disagreed that Ken Lay gave to GWB. You seem to forget he gave $420 Large to Dummocrapts and 100K to Clinton’s 1996 inauguration. Enron was completely dependent on the Export Import bank and the World Bank to guarantee its loans and finance it to the tune of $7.2 billion between 1989 and 2001. Then Enron fell apart.
Puddy also told you former Treasury Secretary Rubin, then the new chairman of Citigroup, called Peter Fisher, a senior Treasury Department official and asked Peter to consider advising the bond-rating agencies to not immediately downgrading Enron’s debt. Why? Well as Puddy said before it was due to $$$$$$$$.
This is well known.
Epic fail Puddy tries to move the goalposts @39:
Which bears not in the slightest on your assholic and patently false statement about Ballmer and Gates @32, the one I dismantled @36.
Your inane game doesn’t work, dude.
Liquid Fart Art@54: reread #41. Puddy sees reading is not fundamental to you!
Everyone can see N has lost it. Puddy gives link after link and N claims Puddy was dismantled. The only goal posts are the ones missing from your mind.
Another What-A-Moron comment!
Here let Puddy help you again N da fool. Besides the actual direct deposits, they gave to PACs:
BTW N – BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS IN DIVERSE GEOGRAPHIC ENVIRONMENTS PAC is one of the ACTBLUE PACs. LA PAC NNE is another Dummocraptic PAC. AMERICA FORWARD LEADERSHIP PAC is a Dummocraptic leadership PAC WASHINGTON SENATE VICTORY (D) is a local Dummocraptic PAC, etc., etc. etc. Too bad you can’t add too fast.
Too bad there are facts and then there is N. N is running away from de facts.
That’s EPIC FAIL fool!
Bill Gates gave $87,266 Democrat + all the PACs – SMACK
Steve Ballmer gave $70,850 Democrat + all the PACs – SMACK
Each gave $100K to “the messiah’s” inauguration committee. Looks like way more than $100K each to Puddy. SMACK
And whack-a-mole N is still arguing over these facts. SMACK
Another what-a-moron statement from N SMACK
Original statement
Who does “the messiah’s” inauguration? The Dummocraptic Party.
Nuff SAID!
58 C’mon man….there are other places on the Internet for that.
Somehow, the title of this thread makes me think of Rex Harrison singing “Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man” in My Fair Lady.
Way to go Puddy – once again, you lose.
Ken Lay gave MORE monery to George Bush than to the entire democratic party.
Your crappy statistics and lack of citations cannot refute that.
You can bluster all you want – but your hero Bush was in the pocket of Ken Lay and Enron. Period.
Your hero Phil Gramm wrote the laws that allowed the banks to get greedy and cause the financial collapse.
I hope I don’t have to post all those links again – have you forgotten so easily?
Do you only remember selectively things that are anti-democrats?
What credibility do have left?
Puddy says:
Did you know according to EPA since 1980
Funny you should mention that – the declines in automobile emissions are largely responsible for that. These declines occured due to ……government regulation.
And who opposed these regulations at the time…..republicans. Who claimed they would ruin the auto industry…..that killed itself with their own incompetence 30 years later.
NutsTooTight: And you bold for what reason. Puddy doesn’t dispute Lay giving much to Republicans. Let’s check some facts AGAIN
Ken Lay gave a total of $17,000 to GWBush 2000 presidential campaign – NEWSMEAT
Enron’s two biggest political donations to House members went to Democrats. Fact!
#1: Ken Bentsen (D-TX) $42,750
#2: Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) $38,000
#3: Joe L. Barton (R-TX) $28,909
#4: Tom DeLay (R-TX) $28,900
#5: Martin Frost (D-TX) $24,250
#6: Charles W. Stenholm (D-TX) $14,439
#7: Chet Edwards (D-TX) $10,000
#8: Doug Bereuter (R-NE) $10,000
#9: Larry Combest (R-TX) $9,820
#10: John D. Dingell (D-MI) $9,000
#11: Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) $8,500
#12: Edward J. Markey (D-MA) $8,500
In June 1996, Enron’s gave $100,000 to Clinton and the Dummocrapts four days before India final approved the Enron $3 billion power-plant project. FACT!
Bill Clinton helped Ken lay get Billions in loans from the Export-Import Bank. Fact!
Ken Lay slept in the Clinton White House FACT!
Your hero Bill Clinton took the advice or Robert Rubin and signed the laws that allowed the banks to get greedy and cause the financial collapse. Fact!
Your hero Bwaney Fwank stopped potential legislation in 2004-2005 to start some regulation. Fact!
Your heroine Maxine Waters stopped potential legislation in 2004-2005 to start some regulation and called it a lynching. Fact!
Former Treasury Secretary Rubin, then the new chairman of Citigroup, called Peter Fisher, a senior Treasury Department official and asked Peter to consider advising the bond-rating agencies to not immediately downgrading Enron’s debt. Fact!
Regarding the EPA stuff. Since all those are down, where is the great Climate Issue? Fact!
So easy to make contact when his NutsTooTight!
Puddy – wrong about everything and all too willing to let us know about it.
Have a good weekend, Puddy. Play some golf or something.
Steve, drinking the Stupid Solution. Political contribution facts from NewsMeat fool!
Stop swallowing. It’s making you stupid again.
Stupid Solution. Yeah, I slipped some to Ensign and Sanford. heh- Worked like a charm. Hmmmmm, who’s next?
Did you give it to Kilpatrick, Paterson, Sam Adams, and Spitzer too?
Did you give it to the US Dummocrapts who spied for Cuba? Walter Kendall Myers & Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers got some? He was a former State Department employee and great-grandson of Alexander Graham Bell.
I’m just fucking with you, Puddy. Those guys didn’t need a Stupid Solution. As Republicans, they’re dumbfuck stupid to begin with.
“Kilpatrick, Paterson, Sam Adams, and Spitzer”
I take it that those guys aren’t has-been Republican moral degenerates. After all, if they were, they’d all have gigs on Fox News.
I tell you what, of all the strange Republicans I’ve run across, this guy takes the cake.
Why you run with that crowd, Puddy, I’ll never know.
@69 “I tell you what, of all the strange Republicans I’ve run across, this guy takes the cake.”
Oops, I take that back. For a moment there I had forgotten about those two pervs of ours, Marvin and Mr. Klynical. My bad.
Steve…the resident FagGoat.
@69
Steve, you need to pay attention more. Each of those are Deviant Donkey
Ahh, unions. Where people work hard to not work too hard cause you might run out of work. Unions FUCK UP every business. Look at the industries ruined by them. Shameful.
@70…Don’t leave out The Piper, who regularly marches around in a skirt with no underwear, while fellating an octopus in a blanket.