In the first paragraph below are some questions that were asked of me by one our Bizar Financing members followed by my response. I hope my answers prove useful as you ponder the choices we must make in the November elections.

"Hi, Gordon, I saw a Romney plea for funds come by with your 'like' attached to it. Just wondered if you think that LBO and hedge fund rules should apply to the economy as a whole? Do you think not enough of that is the source of our current problems? Do you really think wealth trickles down? Are rules as fair as they were say 40 years ago? Is more wealth concentration better for the country vs. a growing and thriving middle class? These and creative capital destruction and survival of the fittest all have roles, but there is no such thing as a truly free market since rules and info are not equal so there is a lot of wishful thinking in all that, I think. Just curious. Just felt I had to challenge you."

Amazing! I try to stay out of the political track since I believe both major political parties have lost their way. So I’d like to assure you I never attached a “like” to a Romney plea for funds. But, having said that… I’m happy to weigh in on the current election choices. For the record, I’m a flaming moderate upset by the reality that each party is controlled by its more radical elements and is bought and paid for by moneyed interest on both the left and right. No matter which party wields power, the middle class will pay the bills, and the greedy on the left and right will continue to extract their pound of flesh at our expense. The sad news is that the good folks in the middle are malleable to the ideology that shaped our filters allowing us to bend to the party message instead of standing insistent that the realities match the rhetoric.

Do you really think the rules were fair 40 years ago? Or isn’t it just possible that wealth has always had its advantages? Since the dawn of the industrial age, the fat cats made the rules for the rest of us and it doesn’t matter if those rules originate in the executive suites and boardrooms of the large corporations or at the top of the union power pyramid. They aren’t made for our benefit. The greed of “Wall Street” damn near destroyed the world economy. But the greed of Teachers’ Unions is just as surely destroying the intellectual content of America’s youth and with all of us paying the bill. I could ask if you really believe that government run health care is really best for middle class Americans? Does this make any sense when provably government is the most cost inefficient and fiscally abused of any of America’s institutional structures?

So I agree the hedge fund rules are counterproductive. Even worse are the rules that allow banks to trade for their own account in a conflict of interest with their clients where if they lose their own money the government bails them out. But how was that fixed by the current administration that put its weight behind the bailout of the auto industry unions at the expense of the company bond holders who had the contractual and legal rights to the first claim on the assets?

But here is where I must depart the conversation as you framed it, because I believe you are asking the wrong questions. The beauty of capitalism and free enterprise in America is that as the wealthy and powerful wrote their self-indulgent rules, despite their intentions, the rest of prospered beyond those citizens of any other nation under any other system ever existing on the face of the earth. Right now the direction of the two parties could not be more different. The Democrats would move us toward more government, less personal choice, less personal opportunity and fewer freedoms. The Republicans would move us toward less government, more personal choice, more opportunity and more freedom.

For me it’s that simple. So the pragmatist in me gives Romney and the Republicans my vote this time around. But that’s all they get from me is my one vote. I do not believe that strongly in either party to give either of them my “like.” At best they get my vote as the lesser burden. After the election, no matter who wins, my efforts will be to get the winners to match the realities to their rhetoric. Equally as important, I will be giving our Bizar Financing entrepreneurs the strategies, structures and tools they need to prosper no matter which ideology prevails.

I wrote the above before President Obama’s recent comment became media buzz. His statement was:

If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.
Somebody else built that.

This revelation into his ideology and thinking is so profound it cannot be ignored. If you are an entrepreneur…if you seek to be an entrepreneur…if you believe that its individual people seeking a more prosperous life who create wealth and not government, then you understand how important it is for you to be proactive in our political process between now and the November elections in favor of moving the pendulum away from the left and back to the center.

What do you think?

by Gordon Bizar

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 18th, 2012 at 8:59 am and is filed under Bailouts for Entrepreneurs, Bankruptcy, Business, Business Acquisition Strategy, Business Education, Business Finance Strategies, Business Growth Strategies, Business Opportunity, Business Research, Business Startup Strategies, Business Strategy & Structure, Business Tax Leverage Techniques, Cutting Costs, Dealing with Government, Entrepreneur Street Smarts, Financial Leverage Techniques, Global Business, Government Grant Money, Protecting Business Assets, Psychology of Success, Revitalizing the Economy, Selling Your Business, Social Consciousness in Business, Success Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.