I once worked for a company that ran on something like the Republican business model

[Orrex]

That is, the company cut all spending to a bare minimum, including the elimination of employee health insurance and the on-site cafeteria, while making sure to protect the salaries and bonuses for the executives.

At the same time, the company did everything it could to reduce incoming revenues, again while protecting the executives' salaries and bonuses.

The result? The company went bankrupt and sank without a trace in about two months, but in the process of liquidating all assets, they made sure to pay the executives their severance and retirement packages. The rest of us simply got kicked off the property.


So what kind of a fucking idiot would recommend that any income/spending system be based on a model that's wholly irrelevant to the system in question?

As a matter of fact, the aforementioned company is a complete fiction, but it IMO illustrates the point that you simply can't run a business---much less a government---as a zero-revenue system, regardless of what our esteemed Republican legislators would have us believe.

[DCKit]

1. Because, as you stated, the executives got paid. What else is there?

Any more questions?

[Orrex]

4. Ah yes--as long as the important people are taken care of.

It's all so clear to me now!

[Ikonoklast]

2. Depends which side of that equation you were on.

I see one side did perfectly fine for itself, and the other...not so good.

The end result was a foregone conclusion waaay before any of those fiscal austerity measures were put into place, those in the know knew what was coming, and made damn sure they swept up whatever they could into their corner.

If the Republicans want to run the government like most businesses, they must first admit that most businesses fail within three years.

[moondust]

3. Maybe God decided it wasn't meant to be.

I suspect those executives had convinced themselves that they were very, very special and the whole enterprise was all about them and their careers. Everything was as it should be but some divine force intervened; it certainly wasn't their fault it failed.

[Bozita]

5. You worked for Mitt Romney?