Yet, for all this, I do think that, from the ubiquitous earmarks that Congress now awards each year by the hundreds or thousands to private parties, to the potential running of major businesses, it will be very bad for the country if the values of politics increasingly infest the private sphere, as they already have to a significant extent and as will become more pronounced if government doesn’t rapidly get out of the business of business. Obama vigorously claims that government will not try to run businesses, and that it will get out as quickly as it can, but the media is filled today with reasons why this may not happen, and the truth is that when government gets involved with owning businesses, it often stays deeply involved for a long time, especially because so much money can be at stake, and gets involved in business decisionmaking. This would probably be very bad if now replicated in the next five to ten or twenty years. We do not need smiley-faced glad handers, those who go along to get along, the charismatic, non-working, lazy, personality boy, political types running huge businesses. We need the analytical, the workaholic, the detail oriented, the relentlessly goal oriented, the person who can combine these traits with fairness to employees and the public. You know, it is already the case that government is bought and sold by wealthy donors and by those who can deliver votes. This conduces not to competence and usually not to fairness, but instead, generally, to the rich getting richer, to favoritism to the nth degree, and to ordinary people getting left out. We don’t need more of this in politics -- we have way too much of it there already -- and we don’t need any of the values these traits represent in business.*
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In addition, one hour long television book shows, shown on Comcast, on which Dean Velvel, interviews an author, one hour long television panel shows, also shown on Comcast, on which other MSL personnel interview experts about important subjects, conferences on historical and other important subjects held at MSL, and an MSL journal of important issues called The Long Term View, can all be accessed on the internet, including by video and audio. For TV shows go to: www.mslaw.edu/about_tv.htm; for conferences go to: www.mslawevents.com; for The Long Term View go to: www.mslaw.edu/about_LTV.htm.
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