I am so freaking tired.
But I'm off on Friday, so it's cool.
Some quick updates:
- I'm going to be moving pretty soon, so there might be a few days where there is no update in the coming weeks.
- I went to the USC Football game this past Saturday with my buddy Scott and had an awesome time. They were up 42-0 on Berkley at halftime, which was awesome because those Nor Cal fans like to talk shit (Sorry
Bananas).
- The Chargers officially blow. That's all.
- Had a decent time at my college homecoming this weekend. Can't believe I graduated 5 freaking years ago!
Ok so now on to my mini-rant.
Here in California, we're in the midst of a Gubernatorial election cycle.The Governator is termed-out (thank god) and the man who I think would make possibly the greatest governor ever, Gavin Newsom, is only running for Lieutenant Governor. This leaves us with Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman.
Jerry Brown is a former Governor who is running again after being elected to nearly every office in California at some point. He's incredibly honest, even sometimes to his own detriment, and definitely a dying breed among politicians. He lives very modestly and is an advocate for the little guy, however, has a penchant for taxing in order to help pay for things.
Meg Whitman is the former CEO of eBay, which she makes sure to point out every 5 seconds as though that qualifies her for the highest office in the state. She keeps touting this amazing "plan" to balance the budget, which strangely resembles every other failed Republican economic plan ever.
Still, everyone, including Whitman herself, keeps pointing out that because she successfully ran a corporation, she will be able to do an amazing job as Governor. I'm not quite sure when this happened, but at some point people started assuming that if someone successfully runs a company, they will transfer that over to the political arena with the same results. Outside of Michael Bloomberg, it's absolute bullshit.
There's a reason that an MBA is different from an MPA (Masters in Public Administration). Politics and business are different in many ways, but i'll give you the key component: people.
A business needs people to operate, however, people can be let go or leave. A business chases a bottom line which makes the owners and top-level people richer. When a government operates in this fashion, you end up with recession, poverty and, eventually, revolution. A government can't just let people go, and in America, rarely are people leaving for a rival country. China isn't sitting there offering Americans a better salary or benefits to come to their country. When the top-level people in the country are becoming richer thanks to the government, everyone else tends to get poorer. A business model is not acceptable for a government.
As Governor, your primary duty is to make sure the people in your state have the opportunity to obtain gainful employment, and if not, are able to receive unemployment or other benefits until they return to the workforce, thereby preventing homelessness.
You have to care about people and work diligently towards improving their lot in life, not making money and getting richer. Until Meg Whitman and people like her understand this, her and those like her, will continue to fail.
