Via Instapundit (again), this is a pretty remarkable chart.
Nick Schulz looks at difference between Obama’s cabinet and all other presidents beginning with Teddy, with a background in the private sector. He writes:
When one considers that public sector employment has ranged since the 1950s at between 15% and 19% of the population, the makeup of the current cabinet — over 90% of its prior experience was in the public sector — is remarkable.
To which one can only add: how can you respect or relate to the private sector, when you have so little exposure to them? How can you help the private sector when you don’t think they have anything worth listening to?
Remaking America.
November 25th, 2009 | 1:49 pm | #1
How can you help the private sector when you don’t think they have anything worth listening to?
The great unwashed masses don’t have anything worth listening to. They merely have lots to be told.
November 25th, 2009 | 1:54 pm | #2
And while we are at it, do you ALWAYS have to blog on religion, politics, baseball, family, war and recipes? Can’t you write about something light, like Michelle’s dress?
Have a Happy Thanksgiving.
November 25th, 2009 | 2:18 pm | #3
Combined, they have a great deal of experience sucking at the teat of mother state. Isn’t it sweet they want to help her to grow so much.
November 25th, 2009 | 4:31 pm | #4
It is my view that the rise of professional politicians is something to deplore. Those who have never worked outside wonkery, think tanks, “advisers”, “research” etc. will often be totally unaware of the consequences of what they’re doing.
With the result being ill thought out legislation of the kind we Britons have been subjected to like almost no other ostensibly free country, under Blair/Brown.
Now, people can get useful experience in the public sector & learning little or nothing in the private sector. But I will give concede this, conservatives tend to be better than leftists at having experience of the big bad world.
But I am now thinking that it was not ever thus. Say what you like about unions, but before their demise they offered a real way for people born in humble families & used to working-class occupations to rise through the ranks & get used to running things.
Now that they have become less important, is this one of the causes of the decline in social mobility?
Before 1979, a lot of leftist politicians were skilled in the ways of the world. Often they learnt the wrong lessons, but they had something that has subsequently been lost. Now, it seems in America there are a lot of businessmen & professionals who become Democrats. But too many wonks & lawyers & not enough salt of the earth folk.
I can really point to ways in which a few MPs who’d had to grit along in low-paid jobs or on welfare, wondering how they’d pay their bills, would have helped if they’d raised their voice. They could have derailed some of the sillier laws.
I often raise this with other leftists. When they talk about “diversity”, of course it’s a problem if women & ethnic minorities are willing & able but are blocked, & this probably does happen to an extent. But firstly, there is also class disadvantage (which, of course, many minorities & women face as well) & secondly, crucially, it is NOT diversity in any proper sense of the word if they all have the same opinions & don’t feel able to challenge the boss. So you’d better be careful what you laud as a big deal.
A lot of the world’s great achievements have been made by people of independent wealth, often from the landed gentry, who were their own men & didn’t care if people turned against them, & they didn’t have masters to command them. Charles Darwin springs to mind as such a man, & there are a load of others.
The problem so often comes up in scientific research. To my mind it is nightmarish to imagine either the government or businesses pulling the strings, demanding an immediate economic return for their support.
What to actually do? Maybe we should all just go back to sleep
November 25th, 2009 | 5:49 pm | #5
Very interesting that the recent presidents with the fewest cabinet members who had experience in the private sector were Kennedy, Carter, Clinton, and Obama. I must say, however, that Obama’s apparent disdain for accomplishments in the private sector is in a league of its own.
November 25th, 2009 | 6:11 pm | #6
It would be nice to see Term Limits and the Fair Tax implemented to remove some of the appeal of the “professional politician” career field. Term Limits would give any politician fewer ways to control time to build an empire, and the Fair Tax would give him fewer ways to punish or reward people by how money was taken.
November 25th, 2009 | 11:40 pm | #7
If you have zero experience in the private sector which just happens to produce the major portion of revenue base of government either direct or with jobs that bring in tax, how do you make decisions? You load up your cabinet with those with proven success that really understand how to drive that sector. Obama not only has the least in the history of the last century, but those he has are Clinton retreads or come from the sector that was massively broke and needing government bailout. So who does he turn too? Well Jeff Immelt of GE is one who seems to have his ear. Of course GE is also knee deep into healthcare information and imaging and much more and none of his business will be hurt by any move to date. He also just happens to have control of NBC and MSNBC and also has huge stake in the coming debate on climate change and government control of energy. Since Obama has zero experience, and his cabinet is also just about zero experience, how does he determine if GE is raping the household?
November 26th, 2009 | 12:01 pm | #8
What are the chances of the mainstream media reporting this?……
….yeah, that’s what I think too.
November 26th, 2009 | 6:43 pm | #9
LOL- and I come at it from a different angle, looking at people askance who worked in the private sector and then go to the public, usually trying to get benefits for their friends back in the private sector, at the expense of the common man. Sort of like Paulson, destroying some banks and saving others- amazing how his closest friends in the private sector have benefited from his policies, but most of the rest of us haven’t!
December 3rd, 2009 | 4:59 pm | #10
[...] triangulation as Bill Clinton was- has never worked in the private sector, and – as indicated by this chart- he has no appreciation of it; he has no idea what it means to be a businessman, and to offer goods [...]
December 3rd, 2009 | 8:12 pm | #11
[...] at triangulation as Bill Clinton was- has never worked in the private sector, and – as indicated by this chart- he has no appreciation of it; he has no idea what it means to be a businessman, and to offer goods [...]
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