The Democratic Party is currently trying to choose the
candidate that they hope will be able to remove the Occupant of 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue this November. While Bernie Sanders, America’s favourite
“socialist” has had a narrow victory in the New Hampshire primaries, the field
looks pretty confused and inconclusive. While Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth
Warren may be popular on college campuses, its easy for the Republicans to
portray them as “crazy socialist” (socialist being a dirty word in American
politics). The former Vice-President Joe Bidden is an uninspiring candidate and
a cloud of suspicion on his basic integrity lingers from the Occupant’s
impeachment hearing (there are enough Trump supporters who argue that their
hero was victimized because he was trying to dig up dirt on Joe
Bidden). While Pete Buttigieg may have many of the “right credentials,”
(religious combat veteran) and comes across well on TV, he’s had problems
attracting people of colour and the question remains – is America, the land
that has yet to elect a woman, ready for a homosexual?
There is, however, one candidate that may have a chance of
upsetting the Occupant. That candidate is Michael Bloomberg, former Mayor of
New York and founder of the Wire Service that bares his name (in the interest
of disclosure, I’ve been fairly successful at getting people interviewed by
Bloomberg when my main source of income was PR work).
Mr. Bloomberg is in many ways not the ideal candidate. After
three years of a “billionaire” in the White House, having another billionaire
as president may seems like a recipe for disaster. Mr. Bloomberg has vowed to
fund his campaign out of his pocket and this has made him vulnerable to
attacks. Both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have pointed out that Mr.
Bloomberg’s vast fortune in politics is precisely the problem of politics being
dominated by “Big Donors.” Mr. Sander’s attack on Mr. Bloomberg’s wealth can be
seen at:
Mr. Bloomberg has not been flawless in his campaign and has
made mistakes. His “stop, question and frisk policies,” while Mayor of New
York, which happened to target brown and black men have come to haunt him. Mr.
Bloomberg’s flaws as a campaigner can be found at:
Having said all of that, there are reasons to pay attention
to a Bloomberg candidacy and to even want that candidacy to succeed. In many
ways, Mr. Bloomberg is the “real” version of why people voted for the Occupant.
One of the reasons why people voted for Trump in 2016 was
his often-publicized wealth. Not only did people site his wealth as plus, they
also said that as a successful businessman who would run the country like his
successful businesses.
I’ve heard someone argue that Donald Trump’s wealth made it
impossible for him to be bought and he was not beholden to big monied interest.
The voting public have also argued that if they went with Trump his experience
in getting rich would help them get rich too. Think of it, Donald Trump started
a show called the “Apprentice” which was all about people killing themselves
for the opportunity to work for Donald Trump and find a path to riches.
If you can apply that argument to voting for Donald Trump,
you have to apply that very same argument to Michael Bloomberg, whose wealth is
many times what Donald Trumps’ is (Forbes estimates Donald Trump’s net worth at
around three to four billion. By contrast, Mr. Bloomberg’s wealth is estimated
as 40 to sixty billion).
Using the wealth factor to compare the two men is important
in as much as Mr. Trump makes it central to who he is (we are talking about
someone who sued Forbes for underestimating his wealth). What’s particularly
important here is not so much the net worth but how they made their money.
Let’s start with Mr. Trump, since he talks the most about his billions. Mr. Trump made it in real estate, an old-fashioned industry. Mr. Trump consistently brags about how he has the best buildings in the best city in the world, which is an indication of his superior intelligence and by extension his right to run the country.
However, there are several problems here. Firstly, a good
portion of his wealth is inherited. In fairness, he’s built on what he’s
inherited. However, his skill was not business management or creating something
new. In his journey to more wealth, Mr. Trump needed to be bailed out from
bankruptcy by his father on more than one occasion. As he’s argued that John
McCain shouldn’t be a war hero because he was captured by the enemy, we should ask
if he’s really a businessman as he’s needed to be bailed out on several occasions.
Let’s not forget that Mr. Trump is associated with business that are considered
easy to make money in, namely real estate (buy land, they’re not making more of
it) and casinos (the house always wins). Mr. Trump’s genius is not management
but producing hype. His real asset is his brand, where people pay to put the
Trump name on their buildings. While a good brand is an asset (I’m part of the
brand building business), there’s a problem in that brands can be damaged
easily – think of Trump University.
Mr. Bloomberg has built a different type of business and
while he was not born into poverty, Mr. Bloomberg did not inherit the wealth
that Mr. Trump did. The original capital came from his stint at Salomon
Brothers (It takes skills to build capital over a period of years in the
investment business) and the genesis of what we call Bloomberg LP came from his
insight that large finance houses would pay for top quality information
delivered as quickly as possible. Mr. Bloomberg understood that this could be
done through the development of the right technology. What we call Bloomberg LP
a precursor to today’s tech unicorns. The testament to Mr. Bloomberg’s
competence as manager and business builder can be seen from the growth of Bloomberg
LP from nothing much to a multibillion company employing 20,000 plus people in
167 countries.
The left wing has mistakenly used Mr. Trump’s famous managerial
incompetence to discredit the notion that CEO’s can become successful Presidents.
In Mr. Trump, America did not get a businessman or managerial genius – they got
a bullshit artist who got promoted beyond his level of competence. By contrast,
Mr. Bloomberg is a real businessman who has built something. Mr. Bloomberg had
an idea and executed it. A person who can come up with fresh ideas and execute
them is the very type of person the world needs at its helm.
That’s not all that favours Mr. Bloomberg. He was a competent
Mayor of New York, which is a complex global city. While Mr. Bloomberg is by no
means a saint (there are reports that Bloomberg was a bit of a fraternity and
there have been law suites leveled at Bloomberg LP for sexual harassment), Mr.
Bloomberg has kept his private life just that – private.
Mr. Bloomberg has at the very least pretended to respect the
rules, something which Mr. Trump seems to ignore. Mr. Bloomberg left the company
he founded to become Mayor of New York and there is no indication that there
was any peep of Bloomberg LP benefiting from Mr. Bloomberg’s position as Mayor.
The area in which Mr. Bloomberg should be applauded for is keeping
his family out of his business and his political offices. Mr. Bloomberg’s
second daughter, Georgina, who is an established equestrian in her own right
(she overcame a spinal disorder) and is reported to have said that “Having the
last name Bloomberg sucks.”) Mr. Bloomberg’s kids have not used their name as
an asset to be milked for its worth.
Perhaps the best thing about Mr. Bloomberg is that he knows
how to hurt Mr. Trump’s ego. When Mr. Trump tried to mock him for his short
stature, Mr. Bloomberg hit back, talking about the Occupant’s fake tan and fake
hair – the message could not be clearer – Mr. Bloomberg may be a short man but
his achievements are gigantic – Mr. Trump by contrast is a weak and insecure
man using political office to hide his obvious flaws.
America, which became the world’s greatest power in history
on the premise that an individual could succeed on his or her own talents
regardless of birth, stature or religion, should be lead by a man who built
great things through his talent rather than continue to stick with a man so
weak that he can’t take on anyone stronger than a 16-year-old with Asperger.
No comments
Post a Comment