Conghaileach
17th May 2003, 19:13
''The CEO of USA, Inc.''
Printed on Wednesday, May 14, 2003
By Raff Ellis
YellowTimes.org Columnist (United States)
(YellowTimes.org) ’Äì When George W. Bush came into office, he announced
that henceforth, government would be run like a business. No more of that
inefficiency and skullduggery of the Clinton years. With George W. as CEO
of USA. Inc., government would run on time; meetings would be short; and
complex issues would be presented to him on no more than three typewritten
pages. What's good for American business is good for the country.
And perhaps no administration in history was as prepared for the job of
transforming the federal government into a corporation than the Bush team.
Most of the president's intimate advisors, including the vice president and
secretary of defense, have long resumes as businessmen, as well as
politicians. If anyone could whip the company, uh, country into shape, it
would be these seasoned executives.
Now that they've had more than two years on the job, I think it's time for
the American people to grade their report card. When George W. Bush took
office, the Dow Jones average stood at approximately 10,785. Today it
stands at around 8,600. But that's just one indicator, and anyway, it's not
the president's fault, his supporters say, because he inherited these
problems from the Clinton administration.
Yet a quick glance at the records of our businessmen-cum-bureaucrats
suggests another, more plausible reason of why things have gone south: the
"executives" in Bush's USA Inc. are acting the way they did in business:
telling lies, breaching ethics, practicing cronyism and feathering their
own nests while cutting benefits for the average worker.
It should come as no surprise, of course, because George W. didn't make his
fortune from his business acumen but from sweetheart deals and unethical
drift. While an officer of Harken Corp., he pocketed over $800,000 by using
insider information to sell Harken stock a week before it tanked. It's the
same insider breach that caught Martha Stewart and ImClone. The difference
is that, unlike the president, she was not an officer of the company.
In fact, the Bush family has a long, well-known litany of business failures
and sugar-laced deals of the type rarely offered to those without political
power and the ability to pay back. Both of Bush's younger brothers, Neil
and Jeb, were involved in the crash of large Savings & Loans in the 1980s,
joining the cadre of unscrupulous businessmen who made millions while the
taxpayer ended up paying $500 billion to clean up the mess.
And that's just the family. VP Dick Cheney denied his oil services company,
Halliburton, did business with Iraq during the embargo even though it was
shown to be true. Now, while in office, he continues to receive
compensation from Halliburton as it is being awarded contracts for pumping
oil and reconstruction work in Iraq. That used to be called conflict of
interest, but now its become business as usual.
And the list goes on. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is well known as
a profiteer who never let ethics stand in the way of a lucrative business
deal. He was on the board of a company, ABB in Switzerland, when it sold
light-water nuclear reactors to North Korea in the year 2000. Back in
1983-84, Rummy met Saddam Hussein, the future threat to the security of the
U.S., as an envoy of Ronald Reagan. He was lobbying to get a Bechtel-built
oil pipeline approved that would route oil from Iraq to Jordan.
And let's not forget Attorney General John Ashcroft, who often wears his
morals on his sleeve. He, too, has skeletons in his ethics closet that
include political payoffs. As governor of Missouri, Ashcroft declared an
"economic emergency" to push through an 18-mile, $140 million freeway right
to a major contributor's property. He also received (and didn't report) a
favorable deal on a boat from a contributor who got $1 million in Missouri
state contracts.
The case could be further augmented with an examination of the dispatched
Thomas White, former Secretary of the Army, and Harvey Pitt, former SEC
Chairman. But you get the idea.
When asked why he robbed banks, the famous robber Willie Sutton honestly
answered, "Because that's where they keep the money." In today's world,
it's too risky to emulate old Willie and because "where the money is" is in
the executive suite. Why rob a bank with a gun when you can fleece the
company you work for with a pencil?
The business practices of the last decade in corporate America have led to
a decline in quality and services in many areas of our economy. The
captains of industry learned that hiring part-time workers is less
expensive because you don't have to supply them with costly training,
health insurance or pension benefits. Such cuts in costs and services have
resulted in lower quality or higher prices for many essential goods, not
the least of which is health care and drugs. And we see the same pattern
emerging in government. Many citizens go without proper medical care or
insurance because the government can't muster the wherewithal to provide
for them due to the higher priorities of military spending and tax cuts.
As a result of this "business approach" in USA Inc., we have higher
unemployment (some 2 million jobs lost since Bush took office), fewer
people with health coverage, an education system that lacks proper funding
and veteran's benefits being slashed. These issues are virtually the same
as those that these former corporate executives resolved by robbing their
shareholders and raping their employees. Cutting costs for social programs,
the environment, and cutting benefits to the little people allows the
administration to finance small things like a war with Iraq (also with the
abundant use of "temps" from the National Guard and Reserves), while
running up huge deficits for programs to pay back their corporate friends
in the defense and energy sectors. These grateful beneficiaries will, in
turn, use some of this largesse to lavish contributions on their
benefactors, helping them to remain in office. It's something these
businessmen have been doing all their executive-suite lives, only now it's
the citizens and taxpayers who are being raped.
Perhaps Mr. Bush and his cronies who run USA Inc. would do well to remember
this warning from Franklin D. Roosevelt:
"The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the
people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes
stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in essence, is fascism
-- ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other
controlling power. Among us today a concentration of private power without
equal in history is growing."
Is it time to turn out the businessmen and give government back to the
politicians?
[Raff Ellis lives in the United States and is a retired former strategic
planner and computer industry executive. He has had an abiding and active
interest in the Middle East since early adulthood and has traveled to the
region many times over the last 30 years.]
Raff Ellis encourages your comments: [email protected]
YellowTimes.org is an international news and opinion publication.
YellowTimes.org encourages its material to be reproduced, reprinted, or
broadcast provided that any such reproduction identifies the original
source, http://www.YellowTimes.org. Internet web links to
http://www.YellowTimes.org are appreciated.
Printed on Wednesday, May 14, 2003
By Raff Ellis
YellowTimes.org Columnist (United States)
(YellowTimes.org) ’Äì When George W. Bush came into office, he announced
that henceforth, government would be run like a business. No more of that
inefficiency and skullduggery of the Clinton years. With George W. as CEO
of USA. Inc., government would run on time; meetings would be short; and
complex issues would be presented to him on no more than three typewritten
pages. What's good for American business is good for the country.
And perhaps no administration in history was as prepared for the job of
transforming the federal government into a corporation than the Bush team.
Most of the president's intimate advisors, including the vice president and
secretary of defense, have long resumes as businessmen, as well as
politicians. If anyone could whip the company, uh, country into shape, it
would be these seasoned executives.
Now that they've had more than two years on the job, I think it's time for
the American people to grade their report card. When George W. Bush took
office, the Dow Jones average stood at approximately 10,785. Today it
stands at around 8,600. But that's just one indicator, and anyway, it's not
the president's fault, his supporters say, because he inherited these
problems from the Clinton administration.
Yet a quick glance at the records of our businessmen-cum-bureaucrats
suggests another, more plausible reason of why things have gone south: the
"executives" in Bush's USA Inc. are acting the way they did in business:
telling lies, breaching ethics, practicing cronyism and feathering their
own nests while cutting benefits for the average worker.
It should come as no surprise, of course, because George W. didn't make his
fortune from his business acumen but from sweetheart deals and unethical
drift. While an officer of Harken Corp., he pocketed over $800,000 by using
insider information to sell Harken stock a week before it tanked. It's the
same insider breach that caught Martha Stewart and ImClone. The difference
is that, unlike the president, she was not an officer of the company.
In fact, the Bush family has a long, well-known litany of business failures
and sugar-laced deals of the type rarely offered to those without political
power and the ability to pay back. Both of Bush's younger brothers, Neil
and Jeb, were involved in the crash of large Savings & Loans in the 1980s,
joining the cadre of unscrupulous businessmen who made millions while the
taxpayer ended up paying $500 billion to clean up the mess.
And that's just the family. VP Dick Cheney denied his oil services company,
Halliburton, did business with Iraq during the embargo even though it was
shown to be true. Now, while in office, he continues to receive
compensation from Halliburton as it is being awarded contracts for pumping
oil and reconstruction work in Iraq. That used to be called conflict of
interest, but now its become business as usual.
And the list goes on. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is well known as
a profiteer who never let ethics stand in the way of a lucrative business
deal. He was on the board of a company, ABB in Switzerland, when it sold
light-water nuclear reactors to North Korea in the year 2000. Back in
1983-84, Rummy met Saddam Hussein, the future threat to the security of the
U.S., as an envoy of Ronald Reagan. He was lobbying to get a Bechtel-built
oil pipeline approved that would route oil from Iraq to Jordan.
And let's not forget Attorney General John Ashcroft, who often wears his
morals on his sleeve. He, too, has skeletons in his ethics closet that
include political payoffs. As governor of Missouri, Ashcroft declared an
"economic emergency" to push through an 18-mile, $140 million freeway right
to a major contributor's property. He also received (and didn't report) a
favorable deal on a boat from a contributor who got $1 million in Missouri
state contracts.
The case could be further augmented with an examination of the dispatched
Thomas White, former Secretary of the Army, and Harvey Pitt, former SEC
Chairman. But you get the idea.
When asked why he robbed banks, the famous robber Willie Sutton honestly
answered, "Because that's where they keep the money." In today's world,
it's too risky to emulate old Willie and because "where the money is" is in
the executive suite. Why rob a bank with a gun when you can fleece the
company you work for with a pencil?
The business practices of the last decade in corporate America have led to
a decline in quality and services in many areas of our economy. The
captains of industry learned that hiring part-time workers is less
expensive because you don't have to supply them with costly training,
health insurance or pension benefits. Such cuts in costs and services have
resulted in lower quality or higher prices for many essential goods, not
the least of which is health care and drugs. And we see the same pattern
emerging in government. Many citizens go without proper medical care or
insurance because the government can't muster the wherewithal to provide
for them due to the higher priorities of military spending and tax cuts.
As a result of this "business approach" in USA Inc., we have higher
unemployment (some 2 million jobs lost since Bush took office), fewer
people with health coverage, an education system that lacks proper funding
and veteran's benefits being slashed. These issues are virtually the same
as those that these former corporate executives resolved by robbing their
shareholders and raping their employees. Cutting costs for social programs,
the environment, and cutting benefits to the little people allows the
administration to finance small things like a war with Iraq (also with the
abundant use of "temps" from the National Guard and Reserves), while
running up huge deficits for programs to pay back their corporate friends
in the defense and energy sectors. These grateful beneficiaries will, in
turn, use some of this largesse to lavish contributions on their
benefactors, helping them to remain in office. It's something these
businessmen have been doing all their executive-suite lives, only now it's
the citizens and taxpayers who are being raped.
Perhaps Mr. Bush and his cronies who run USA Inc. would do well to remember
this warning from Franklin D. Roosevelt:
"The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the
people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes
stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in essence, is fascism
-- ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other
controlling power. Among us today a concentration of private power without
equal in history is growing."
Is it time to turn out the businessmen and give government back to the
politicians?
[Raff Ellis lives in the United States and is a retired former strategic
planner and computer industry executive. He has had an abiding and active
interest in the Middle East since early adulthood and has traveled to the
region many times over the last 30 years.]
Raff Ellis encourages your comments: [email protected]
YellowTimes.org is an international news and opinion publication.
YellowTimes.org encourages its material to be reproduced, reprinted, or
broadcast provided that any such reproduction identifies the original
source, http://www.YellowTimes.org. Internet web links to
http://www.YellowTimes.org are appreciated.