And yet the question remains, does Mitt Romney have a big penis? http://gawker.com/5875621/everybody-on-c+span-is-talking-about-mitt-romneys-huge-penis

What I want to know is why this asshole doesn’t run his own damn family like it was a company. Children are obviously unproductive workers and need to be fired. Wife has to either earn her keep or give blow jobs all the time. Relatives have to pay to eat at his house during thanksgiving.

Just what America needs, Romney eagerly applying his “creative destruction” technique to social security money.

Carlin wrote a whole show describing Romney.

The NYPost asshole’s paean to Romney’s methodical viciousness is echoed in this TNR piece.

Synposis: Contrary to the “Mitt’s almost like Obama” meme often used by Republican operatives to court nervous indies sickened by the GOP freak show of Perry et al, Mitt is in fact Obama’s opposite. Mitt is much more ruthless, for starters. He won’t be stopped by the kinds of parliamentary gimmicks that have slowed down BHO so much, and Mitt will destroy the safety net, environmental rules, etc., with the ruthless efficiency he showed as a vulture capitalist.

Mitt has a lot in common with GW Bush, besides the hyper-privileged background and lack of actual compassion or fellow-feeling for those of us in the 99%; for one thing, everyone who advises Mitt and who would staff a Mitt-ministration is a Dubya person.

You know, if you had shown this to me out of context, I might have thought that it was praising Obama and burying Romney. It would be easier on my poor brain than to remember there’s people out there who think that Gollum was the moral core of Lord of the Rings, and that that’s a good thing.

George the Dimmer was also a Harvard MBA….he tried to run this country like a corporation, too. Just like one of Mitt’s companies that he bought. Took it over and cleaned out the Treasury. Only thing is, we don’t get to declare bankruptcy. I do know Republicans have been short selling this country for years, though. I guess the typical Republican voter still hasn’t figured it out yet – you don’t elect private service politicians for public service work. It never works.

As any motivational speaker will tell you, in business winning is about reaching the top. If you’re only on the ground floor when Romney takes over, he’ll put you on the roof!

Apparently this “businessmen can fix it” ploy goes back to Hoover and probably before that, but the one I saw in real time was Ross Perot, with his “Country’s a car! Jes’ pop the hood!” and “Simple as that!” and “There are Greek soldiers in my daughter’s wedding cake!” and so on.

Krugthlu explains some of the more salient details about why it’s all bunk, but then you probably already read it.

We don’t teach civics any more, which is why so many people have been convinced that government needs to be run like a business or a family, instead of like a government.

The only comfort I can take is the sure knowledge that the next 10 months will be all about the horrible, horrible deficit and the horrible things the horrible deficit will do to us. And if the GOP takes the reins of government again in November, we can look forward to another decade of “deficits don’t matter.”

“another decade of “deficits don’t matter.”
Actually I think we will be thinking of those as the good times. I feel a Romney administration would push the world economy over the brink and China would be the next Empirical power. It would be a race to see if that or the Northwest passage opening occurred first but it would happen

A poor attempt at satire by Fleming. He still made a pretty good case against Romney or anyone like him. As for Obama, he may not be running the government like a corporation but he is certainly running the government for the corporations.

Mitt is in fact Obama’s opposite

A plus or a minus?

Awww, Fleming was epic there. How out of tune with your own stupidity do you have to be to write something like that? Alas, the mindset that “profit” is the only true indicator of “success” and “efficiency” has this country by the balls, and as long as the Mittsters among us are allowed to squeeze away while being cheered on by the Flemings, the lost art of caring for other people (real people, mind you, not corporate people) will remain lost — to the detriment of social niceties like democracy and civilization.

But, hey, let’s not let that get in the way of putting the country through the Bain Capital wringer… should be a fun ride ahead.

“…he worked hard to trim costs and do whatever else he could to make a business successful. If elected president, he might look on the economy with cold, cynical eyes that judge everything by how profitable it is.”

I’m so glad that Frank (who the fuck is he?) Fleming notes how businesses are so much more efficient than government. Just imagine how much more efficient nuclear power, factory farming, and petroleum corporations would be without tax breaks and government subsidies.

This lie that government is just a waste of money and business is so much more efficient will eventually strangle the economy. The adversarial relationship between government and business is crucial to keep all the players honest. Otherwise, business can simply tell the government what it wants and the government complies.

Oh, wait.

Yeah, we’re pretty much fucked.

Other than being more ruthless, I don’t see anything on that list that Obama hasn’t done or tried to do.

Perhaps the Dems in congress will stand up for us if mitt tries.

Boxturtle (perhaps the sphinx will turn a handspring)

You know, it really proves the stupidity that while they talk about getting government out they still want to rule over your sex lives and uterus.

Oh, and the audacity of the biggest Government Welfare businesses wanting to get rid of the government. I guess they think we will no longer notice our tax dollars going for subsidies, grants, and research that they profit from.

Yeah, I had to go read the original piece to see which side this guy was on. Apparently he doesn’t realize that Gollum was one of the bad guys.

“Precious, precious money!” And to get that money, he worked hard to trim costs and do whatever else he could to make a business successful.

“I want you to know, it hurts me as much as it hurts you to steal your pension fund, drive this company into the ground, throw you out on the street, invest in extortionist health-insurance companies you’ll no longer be able to afford, and do my best to eliminate your social security. It’s hard work, I almost work up a sweat when I have to lift that heavy Mont Blanc pen to sign away blocks of people’s lives.”

Hard work? The hardest work that panty-waist, plastic hair-do, painted-on smile, douchebag has ever done in his life is probably picking up the telephone to summon a crew of Mexicans to rearrange his gardens.

My thoughts exactly. Everything he said explained why Obama is preferable to Romney. Railing against “career politicians” is getting old. Except for a very brief period, Lincoln was a politician his entire adult life.

Yep. There’s a word for that. Begins with “F” and ends with -ism (or -ist). And, this being the United States of America, if WE’RE GONNA give it a go, we’re gonna GO BIG. I’m confident this will make Adolph and Benito look like rank amateurs.

Hungary is already leading the way, so we don’t have to go with WWII leaders for hints, we’ve got current examples.

The “gubmint should be run like a bizness” crap is beyond ripe as well. Bizness has customers & employees, gubmint has citizens. There will always be people who can’t earn enough to support themselves because they are disabled, injured, elderly, etc; if gubmint is to run like a bizness, do we ‘fire” these people by letting them die in the gutter a la 1880′s?

Hmm, maybe that’s why Newt likes to harp on history – he’s planning on leading a return to the brutality of the 18th and 19th centuries where the main rule is be rich or die. It rather solves the Social Security issue, yes?

Anyone who lauds the “efficiency” of business has never worked for a large corporation. They piss away money like it was water. I remember when I worked for Harcourt and was on the annual state caravan to present reading materials to teachers around the state – this goes on 4 days a week for 10 weeks – and Harcourt couldn’t seem to figure out how to do it with fewer than 5 bodies on the ground at each and every stop. Worse yet, our InFocus projector kept breaking down, but instead of letting me buy a new one or providing a new one at an approximate cost of $750, they continued to force me, week after week, to ship the crappy broken one back to them so it could be “fixed”; whenever it got sent in for “fixing”, I would have to go rent one from the local A/V rental place at a cost of $500 per week. Then they would ship back the allegedly “repaired” projector, which might work for a day, if that, before malfunctioning again, and back I would go to rent the $500 per week projector. In short, over the 10 weeks of the caravan, Harcourt spent $5000 and who knows how much on shipping and “repairs” to not-fix a projector that could have been replaced for about 15% of what they spent on not fixing it. I could only conclude that they got some tax advantage out of doing things this way, because there was no other reason for it.

This is the same Harcourt who merged with Houghton Mifflin a few years later, piling up so much debt in the process that when the bottom fell out in 2008, they had to fire over 750 employees – most of them sales reps.

Yeah, these are exactly the type of folks we want running government.

And the people who laud the “government as business” model are pretty much the very same lot who bitch and moan incessantly about the US Postal Service, which may be the most efficient organization ever conceived or operated by human beings.

If Ayn Rand had written Lord of the Rings, Gollum would have been a hero, eventually joining up with Sauron to make the mines run on time. Saruman would be the guy who was almost good enough to run with the big boys, but who went soft at the crucial moment.

I seem to recall, during those darkest of years, while a Hollywood actor of little reputation performed his scortched earth policies from the safety of the White House, a representative of Reagans own party took to the floor of the House to proclaim “Governments dont turn profits”.

Honestly, the “who gets the money” arguement comes down to this: its either the rich or the poor who get gummit money. Its gonna be one or the other. Those of us in the middle, well, we get the shit sandwich. I for one favor the money going to those in need.

“…the US Postal Service, which may be the most efficient organization ever conceived or operated by human beings.”

A small aside: I used to live in MA, and the post offices there were wondrous and effective. Lines moved quickly, packages got processed, everybody was an expert. Then I moved to TX, and the post offices became like caricatures from a bad sit-com. One surly, sleepy employee slowly processing requests, while two or three others chat in the back. What the heck? Please, Postmaster General, close the local office.

Ok, that’s hysterical to me. My local post offices in Brookline and Allston, MA were the caricatures of slow lines, surly employees, never smiling, not open when you need ‘em.
Then I moved to Texas (well, Oklahoma first, same description applies) and universally, with only the rarest exceptionsin 25 years, all the clerks, from small-time Okla to city of San Antonio, the clerks are friendly, welcoming, helpful (suggesting cheaper ways to ship, for example, searching for special stamp, etc), nearly always smiling, even at Christmas [in the days when everyone shipped by USPS).

Not using this to say, “You’re WRONG!” Just that ymmv…specific examples do not necessarily extrapolate to a whole system.
Just had to laugh, because your experience so exactly flips mine.

Whatever your opinion of the workers at your local PO, or the length of lines/slowness of service at the counter, the fact remains that the system as a whole is the very model of efficiency. Coast-to-coast delivery in 5 days or less for $.44? It would be a bargain at twice the price.

FWIW, I like the folks at my local PO, though I often have to wait in line. My take on that is that the counter is understaffed, and they have to deal with some customers who are total morons/flakes. Me and the woman in line behind me had the whole line in stitches a few weeks before Christmas as we editorialized (good-naturedly) about this woman who had been at the counter for 20 minutes or more, because she waited until she got to the PO to put her gifts in the gift bags, then had to find a box that they would fit in, then had to re-pack them when they didn’t fit in the box she had picked out, then had to sign all the cards she had bought and determine which gift bag each was supposed to go into, and on and on and on…all of which she waited to do until she was at the counter in front of the clerk. He of course had her step to the side to get all her shit together after about 10 minutes of dealing with her…but it wasn’t his fault she was a moron slowing down the line. I’m sure there are bad postal employees just as there are some bad employees pretty much everywhere, but even then, it’s not all their fault that you have to stand in line.

It’s all very well to yammer about drowning govt in the bathtub. I personally know of *some* big wastes of money in the public sector, and I would like to see some fat trimmed where there is truly “fat” (eg, I don’t consider most teachers, fire fighters or PD a “waste” of my money).

The flip side is that most of these libertarian-conservative shills, like Romney & his bleating “fans,” just want to privatize govt operations in order for the 1% to make more money for themselves.

We, the people, are sold a line of goods about how privatizing will “eliminate waste & save money.” It’s possible that privatizing will result in more productive employees/staff, but it’s often NOT the case the operation costs LESS. Usually it costs MORE, sometimes a LOT more bc the piggy fat-cats at the top (who really are pretty useless) gotta make a lotta big buck$$.

So it’s usually a load of hogwash about getting rid of govt to “save money” or whatever other stupidities the dittoheads love to fart about. What it all comes down to is some rich, usually rightwing, hucksters are out to take the money and run. Just like Romney DID (and continues to reap the “rewards”) at Bain.

Just had to laugh at that one, too, because I had the same thing happen to me a couple weeks before Christmas. But what I found amazing was how gentle and patient the postal employee was with her. Imagine having to deal with customers like that repeatedly throughout the day, for weeks on end. That line about “going postal” is really unfair.

Whether Mitt or Obama wins, the goal of the occupant of the White House the next four years will be more corporate control:

Thinking about how MLK ended “oh yes masta sir, sorry for all the troublez, youz wontz be hearing from me no mo’ sir” – as the only way to survive in much of black economic America.

Mitt, and Obama, want to bring it back, but this time for the 99%, not just for those with a darker skin color.

If you vote against Mitt, it is because of your failure to handle your envy and your hate of success, and if you vote against Obama you are unappreciative of how bad it could be in refusing to acknowledge his long term view and accomplishments to date.

Anyone who lauds the “efficiency” of business has never worked for a large corporation.

This.
I don’t know how anyone who has worked for a large corporation could honestly laud their efficiency, unless they were head-up-the-ass privileged fops like Willard who have never set foot outside the executive suite.

I used to work for Ross Perot’s company, and that Kafka-esque authoritarian bureaucratic hellhole made a complete joke of his campaign rhetoric about “gettin’ under the hood and fixin’ govmint”, not to mention “freedom”.

It’s the standard Repuke tactic of claiming to be experts at things they know nothing about because they swim in a fetid political culture where they are never called on their lies — like “schoolteachers have it easy” or “country club prisons”; I have never heard either of these situations described as such by anyone who was a tacher or a prisoner.