Thank you for your thought provoking post. Rant /on Just what is Presidential material to you people? The guy who will sign off on the biggest budgets with the least accountability? Ever increasing pork-fests for the well connected? For purposes of this discussion, I’m going to define human activities by systems, measures of success, and management. Systemic success is measured by the ability of that system to gain increasing influence over other systems (Power) and increasing its resources (Money). Management involves indentifying and mitigating risks that could pose a threat to that system. The ultimate success of various systems and the whole is their ability to support one another in certain fundamental aspects. Systems can be broken down by scope of influence. One can think of a nation or the world community as a macro system. A business entity, a political organization, or a religion can be considered a subsystem. An individual can be considered a micro system. The long term viability of a macro system requires the activities of subsystems and micro systems to be aligned with the management imperatives of the macro system. It is fine for smaller systems to compete with one another for resources as long this competition does not devolve into parasitic behaviour againt the macro system. Crony Capitalism and pork barrel projects misallocate power and resources to sub and micro systems who effectively bypass the rigors of open market competition, thereby diminishing incentive to innovate or maintain maximum efficiency. This has the effect of weakening the macro system by making it less competitive with other macro systems, such as country versus country. Relative macro systemic performance has been highlighted by differing pandemic response success and the selection process of, the quality of a nation’s leaders. Pandemic response as a measure of macro systemic performance: Covid-19 was identified in January, 2020 has having unique attributes with undefined risk. China shuts down during a time when they could ill-afford to so because of fiscal constraints and trade war stresses. China was able to break their pandemic, although reinfection is likely if they lapse in enforcing policy concerning infectious diseases. US suspends travel with China and eventually impliments a lockdown. Unfortunately, the US reopens without a well thought out plan and soon sees a resurgence of infections. The US failed to fully indentify the threat and take appropriate action to mitigate the threat. Why? Competing sub-systems that don’t consider the needs of the macro system. This was shown by differing priorities of the political parties based on perceived changes of balance of power due of pandemic effects on economic performance. For decades, US voters have been presented with “Least of the worst” choice for political leadership. Voters interests have long been not represented by elected officials. This manifests itself externally through protests and internally through diminishing productivity in silent protests. In other words, people will not be loyal to or support a system they feel does not represent their interests. A system type that adversly affects another system’s to retain its ability to remain competitive will cause long term harm to the macro system. Competing for resources are one thing. Affecting one’s ability to compete for resources is another thing entirely. For readability reasons, I have left out other points and lines of reasoning that address externally organized activities of other attempting systemic influence. However, in short a solid system is not as easily influenced by harmful entities. The United States reached its economic, political, and influential peak when its culture in aggregate valued high personal integrity, hard work, and believed ones fortune was based both on overcoming competitive forces and providing a truly useful product or service for their community. Back to Biden, Trump, and Carson. Biden has not accomplished anything impressive in his fifty year political career. Biden is a great case study on the futility of retaining establishment politicians. According to some, Biden is losing is mind to dementia, without vociferous arguments otherwise from his supporters. The strongest choice for leadership of the macro system known as the US is an 80 year old man who is mentally disabled? Trump has delivered on some important promises and continues to address some of the systemic issues that our country faces. However, Trump dropped the ball badly on the pandemic, in some cases needlessly harmed foreign relations, and has approved massive spending without accountability. Further, Trump’s leadership plans if reelected seem unclear. What are Trump’s plans going forward and how does he intend to accomplish them? Enter Ben Carson. Leader in a very competitive field, neuro surgery. Loyal to his wife. Loyal to Trump. Ethical. Dedicated. Prolific innovator. Exceptionally smart. Look up Ben Carson’s wikipedia page, read one of his books, or talk to some of his former students. Worry that Ben takes the Bible literally? Nobody is perfect. Given the previous two choices for US President, it seems we can handle that kind of “fault”. Or is it going to be “In pork we trust”? For as long as it can last, anyway? Rant /off
So you think I believe Biden is presidential material, or Trump? LOL. We haven't had presidential material since Eisenhower and JFK. It's been a race to the bottom ever since and just when I think we may be getting close to hitting bottom another group of screwballs show up with a shovel. This year it's a steam shovel. Isn't anyone in their right mind wants that job in todays world.
Our Presidential selection process should be vigorous, but not the perputual freedom and peace of mind threatening guantlet it is now. This is a systemic deficiency. Fundamentally, almost all the people driven to endure it are narcissists. This makes someone like Ben Carson an even more impressive potential Presidential candidate as well as an exceptionally rare opportunity for competent leadership. I am tired of feeling obligated to apologize to foreigners for our Presidental leadership. Bush, Jr’s overreach. Obama’s pathetic weak display in front of Putin and subsequent over compensation. Trump’s clumsy handling of a lot of things he touched. I’m tired of paying directly or indirectly for pork barrel spending (Edit: AKA Growing government as a ever larger % of the economy) that mainly benefits the well connected few, whether it was record spending (Debt as a % of GDP) and lack of accountability under: Bush, Jr. Obama, spent even more than Bush. Trump, spent even more than Obama and still going strong. I guess political leadership wants there to be lots of money flying in our final years of monetary and system viability. Perhaps our individual focus should be to grab as many of those dollars and convert them into something useful for the long Winter ahead. Our system is currently unable to effectively indentify and mitigate threats or select competent leadership. We are in full failure mode. We still have a large economy and military, but for how long?
Obama cut the deficit in half Bush took a budget surplus and turned it into a 1.2 trillion dollar deficit Trump took a 600 billion deficit and turned it into a 4 trillion dollar deficit