Run it Like a Business??

by Ruth A. Sheets

It has been at least 25 years since I first heard the phrase “run it like a business.”  This was in reference to activities at my graduate school.  I assumed that the speaker meant that we should stay within our budget and be systematic about how things were done.

OK, I got that.  Than I heard it in relation to a church.  That seemed a bit odd because I don’t usually think of the two in the same  context.  I thought it meant the budget thing again, but then I learned it had something to do with contracts and investments too.    

OK, that makes sense.  Good investing makes it possible to do things you otherwise might not be able to do for your church and the community.

As the years have passed, I hear “run it like a business” in reference to so many aspects of life it has become a trivial phrase.  I am not so sure about the validity of “running” anything but a business “like a business.”

We have created a business myth in America that lets us think that the experience a person gains in running a company or working at high levels of commerce or finance qualifies them for almost any other position of power you can name. 

In the past couple of decades or so, businesses have not exactly covered themselves in glory.  Union busting, cutting wages, outsourcing jobs, overworking remaining employees, providing the cheapest medical benefits if any benefits at all, jeopardizing the livelihoods of American citizens by selling unaffordable mortgages, leverage buyouts, lowering quality of products and services.  Greed rules.  Particularly poor and working class folks have been duped into believing that someday if they work hard enough they will be among the wealthy.  You get the picture.

I am pretty sure that I don’t want anything I am directly associated with “run like a business.”  We Americans often find it pretty easy to swallow swill when it is clothed in phrases like “free market” and “opportunity.”

I am not saying that there is no value in the free market and of course, opportunity is essential, but lately, business has worked out that free market is only free to those who are rich enough to participate. The opportunity doesn’t reach to all citizens, especially those against whom the deck is always stacked.

Now, we are told that the best person to lead America is a businessman, Mitt Romney, just because of his business experience.  How does that qualify him for anything?  His brand of business is based on profiting on the misfortune of others. His brand of business involves avoiding the taxes that support everyone, setting himself apart from everyone else because they just didn’t work hard enough to get what Romney worked hard enough to get.

Besides being build on a lie, this approach to management is destructive, devisive and patronizing.  There is no respect or appreciation, only the smell of money and the shape of dollar signs.  I choose to believe we can do better.

GOOD BUSINESSMAN?

by Ruth A. Sheets

Mr. Potter was a "good businessman" in A Wonderful Life

Lately, it seems that we are bombarded with the idea that Mitt Romney is such a great businessman that, of course, we need him as president.  I can’t help but wonder what his definition of a “Good Businessman” is.

If one examines the kinds of POLICIES Romney and his supporters are in favor of, it MIGHT NOT seem anything like good business practice. 

Is it good business to. . .  

- give the banking industry self-regulation even though they have proven unable to effectively regulate themselves, nearly bringing down the world economy?

- cut your workforce, then blame the lack of high profits on a tax rate that is too high, not on the fact that people don’t have enough money to pay for your product or service.

- use the “drill baby drill” mantra before the real safety hazards are understood.

- use up natural resources with no solid plans for what will happen when the resource runs out – have they forgotten what is happening to the fishing industry?

- destroy whole sections of THE ENVIRONMENT so that no one else can use or enjoy it in order to acquire coal, timber, and minerals as cheaply as possible. 

   

- outsource jobs and continue to be subsidized by taxpayers for the cost of moving abroad, or moving to other states where they don’t have to deal with unions or environmentalists.

- pay their CEO’s, CFO’s and other high-level folks huge salaries while they lay off thousands of workers, trained people, potential customers?

Mitt Romney and his supporters see no problem with companies like the investment firm where he worked making huge profits from the misfortune of other companies.  Romney claims it is deserved because they take such high risks.  The reality is that there is almost no risk, just a loan shark way of doing business that brings high profits to investment firms.

This model seems amoral.  If these are good business practices, we are in trouble.  State and local governments all over the country are in the process of privatizing many jobs that have been public and have been working well for a long time.  The worst part is that the business practices described above, the lack of morals, and the role of greed do not bode well for anyone.  Officials will exchange good living wage jobs for a quick buck. 

So, when Mitt cries that he is a “good businessman” that may not be a compliment.  He is telling us that he and his supporters plan to dig us in deeper than we already find ourselves.  But, he and his will come out just fine. 

We, the 99% need to be vigilant, although I am not sure that will make much difference these days.  The money these “good businessmen” can spend can buy us and shape our reality and we won’t know it until it is too late.