Elect Steve Jobs President of the United States 888
Will Foster writes "There is a groundswell of support for electing Steve Jobs President of the United States." I'll vote for him if I can write in my vote -- with a Newton stylus!
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Elect Steve Jobs President of the United States
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Today is a good day for information-gathering. Read someone else's mail file.
I don't know (Score:0, Interesting)
I also see a lack of any real content on the page, or at least a lack of content I couldn't find in my apple
Not that I think this is a bad thing, I just don't want to see
CowboyNeal for president. (Score:5, Interesting)
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No", said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd", said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did", said Ford. "It is."
"So", said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them", said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes", said Ford with a shrug, "of course".
"But", said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"
"What?"
"I said", said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?"
"I'll look. Tell me about the lizards."
Ford shrugged again.
"Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them." he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it." - Douglas Adams, So long, and thanks for all the fish, chapter 36, 1984
Kent: Senator Dole, why should people vote for you instead of President Clinton?
...
Kang: It makes no difference which one of us you vote for. Either way, your planet is doomed. DOOMED!
Kent: Well, a refreshingly frank response there from senator Bob Dole.
Kodos: It's true, we are aliens. But what are you going to do about it? It's a two-party system; you have to vote for one of us. [murmurs]
Man1: He's right, this is a two-party system.
Man2: Well, I believe I'll vote for a third-party candidate.
Kang: Go ahead, throw your vote away. [Kang and Kodos laugh out loud] - The Simpsons, 4F02
"It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it." - Eugene Debs
The problem in living in the post-ironic era... (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, say what you will about Jobs, but he certainly got a LOT more done in his 20's and 30's than our current President, and by all accounts wasn't that much more of a jerk.
And Jobs's rescue of Apple certainly shows that he has an extraordinary ability to balance short and long term needs. Given what they've had to work with, technically, from Motorola for the last few years, can you believe that Apple is not only extant, but profitable?
Anyway, I'd probably vote for him over a fair number of other politicians. While we know a lot of his youthful indiscretions, I think that's just because he's been famous for so long. I imagine our previous two presidents were just as wild in their youth. The real question is how good a job who he is now could do, and I'd say the evidence is promising, or at least intriguing.
For all the "Jobs is a visionary" rhetoric, running a company on a knifes-edge like Apple has been for the last half decade implies a good ability to roll with the punches, and be flexible when appropriate.
Re:I don't know (Score:1, Interesting)
Please explain how a company that (arguably) has 3% of the computer industry's marketshare is a monopolist.
Apple still sells software for its own systems that it refuses to port to other systems.
You think that's bad? Ximian STILL won't port Gnome to Windows!
They refuse to open their architecture.
IDE drives, standard ram, usb, firewire, ethernet, 802.11a/g. What exactly in a Mac isn't part of an open standard?
Re:I don't know (Score:4, Interesting)
Weren't you around when monopoly was downgraded from 'Near complete control of a market' to 'Makes a product that isn't free'?
Re:well. . . (Score:5, Interesting)
If Jobs got to be the president of the USA, that would not be the first time that Perot got burned by Jobs. Perot was one of the largest investors in a little venture which was at one time known as NeXT. [jlc.net]
Re:That would be soooo perfect (Score:2, Interesting)
Jaysyn
Re:Wrong Steve (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Plutocracy has one advantage (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
No, but the internet browser was invented on one of his machines (NeXT workstation)
*cough cough* Vested interests? (Score:2, Interesting)
Is it right to elect the CEO of a major corporation as president? Corporations have more than enough political power in America as it is. Something like this blatantly caters to vested interests. I suppose this isn't much worse wrt vested interests than electing Bush as president in light of his interests in the oil business, but that doesn't legitimize doing it again. I would regard a major industry leader running for president with deep suspicion. Even if he/she ostensibly broke off all ties with his/her company and the industry, I am doubtful they would be able to eliminate any and all bias.
Now, Stallman, on the other hand...;p
Steve wouldn't want the job unless... (Score:5, Interesting)
For those of you that don't know, when Apple got round to issuing employee numbers, Steve Jobs was pretty peeved that he couldn't be employee number 1 as Steve Wozniak had already nabbed that priviledge for himself. Unable to convince Wozniak to change, Jobs took employee number 0 rather than be stuck behind Wozniak with the employee number 2 tag.
keynote... (Score:2, Interesting)
JobsForPresident.org on Linux? (Score:1, Interesting)
>>Apache/1.3.27 (Unix) ApacheJServ/1.1.2 FrontPage/5.0.2.2510 on Linux.
Re:Stupid - only the moderation (Score:2, Interesting)
Jobs as President is a stupid idea. WTF is the parent offtopic?
Wozniak might be a good idea, but I guess form over substance is the American Way.
Re:Plutocracy has one advantage (Score:2, Interesting)
In NYC we sort of have that situation with "Mayor Mike" Bloomberg. Paid for his campign out of his own pocket, won in a relative landslide (after outspending his opponent somthing like 2:1) and is now bascially doing whatever he thinks is the right thing to do.
As a f'rinstance, since he didn't get any help in his election from the NYC Teacher's Union (the UFT), he can just announce (as he did the other day) that he's implementing a crackpot new, across the board, elementary education curriculum that he and his school superintendent (who's not an educator by training or avocation) dreamed up, without running it by the actual teachers first.
He actually said the other day that he's not trying to get re-elected, he's just trying to do what he thinks is right.
Make of this what you will but I think it does sort of answer the question. No, he wouldn't be beholden to anyone and could do whatever he thought was right. Be careful though...he wouldn't have to do what you (or "the voters") thought was right, just what HE thought was right.
Caveat votor.
BFL
Re:Wrong Steve (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Wrong Steve (Score:5, Interesting)
You guys must be kidding! Insightful? The guy thinks Dubya is up there doing "leadership"?
No doubt we're going to invade Iraq to free their people and bring them democracy, right? And clamping the international price of petroleum forever has nothing to do with it, right? And funneling several hundred billion dollars through the defense industry while ignoring the growing crowds of unemployed has nothing to do with it, right? And giving the top 5% income bracket lots of new tax breaks and only giving the rest of us a few hundred bucks has nothing to do with it, right? And imposing the Christian version of the Taliban on us has nothing to do with it, right? And suspending our rights to privacy and due process so we don't get in their way has nothing to do with it, right? And, and...
Dude, pass me the fucking pipe!
About voter turnout.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Turnout for primaries and local elections can fall *really* low.
I'm describing this because election theory is a personal interest, and because election stats are often misused to try to prove political arguments. The VAP problem shows how little the press knows what they're talking about. But I suppose Election 2000 cleared up the press's competence clearly enough. (Have you heard of VNS? Another wellspring of disaster. Groan.)
ANYWAY, the relevant point is that there's no obvious reason to assume that Mac users vary from the population at large. Many are too young or have other disabilities preventing voting. Some don't show up to vote. Also, I have no idea what Apple's 5% of computer sales translates into as a percentage of individuals. Nor are we users complete slaves: only some of us would vote for Jobs. It's thus a very long shot that Mac users would come anywhere near the 19% of turnout that went for Perot. Perhaps, joined by enough others, they could form the nucleus of a significant bloc. (I wonder what kind of candidate Jobs would make? I'm sure it would be interesting, but I'd rather he stay with Apple.)
Reasons Jobs for Pres. isn't a sound idea.... (Score:2, Interesting)
1. This is the guy who believed America would buy the $10,000 Lisa computer in droves. When that failed miserably, he ended up having the remaining inventory bulldozed into a Utah landfill. (So much for his ex-hippie, eco-friendly image, eh?)
2. This is the guy who, after that major mishap, went on to create another of the world's largest computer failures with the NeXT systems. (Granted, these were cool machines - but he burnt through something like 50 million in investors' money, again making the mistakes that doomed the Lisa. Namely, charging far too much money for a system that didn't have the software/applications behind it to sell it. In fact, I believe he blew about 15 million of Ross Perot's own investment money on NeXT.)
3. This is now the guy who, despite putting on a good show and illustrating good public speaking skills, enjoys keeping secrets from the public (used the "Keynote" software for a year before telling anyone the product existed, for example). I don't think America really wants a leader who keeps things completely secret from the people.
4. This is also a guy who seems to have a constant problem with exaggeration. Most of his "insanely great!" new things are more what I'd just call "good ideas". His bragging about the new Safari web browser being 2x to 3x faster than IE on the Mac is another exaggeration. I've timed it on several different Mac systems, and it's *maybe* 1.4x as fast as IE on *some* pages. Other times, it's actually slower or right about equal speed.
Re:Wrong Steve (Score:3, Interesting)
Somehow though I find it easier to blame GW for his foreign policy, than to blame Jimmy Carter for his national policy. Maybe if I were more hawkish I would rationalize the other way though -- we could have started bombing OPEC members for example, until they agreed to lower their oil prices.
Re:Wrong Steve (Score:5, Interesting)
How could you know that? Big Brother should keep his nose out of our spending habits anyway.
Not really a valid statement - the IRS looks at our spending habits, quite rightly.
Still, grandparent's point is correct... If you give a tax cut to people who are strapped for cash, they'll spend that tax cut - it will go back into the economy. If you give a tax cut to people who are not strapped for cash, they'll spend part of it, and put the rest in savings - taking it out of the economy. This helps no one except that one person.
This is the flaw in trickle-down economics - %100 of the cash does not "trickle-down" to the lower levels... instead, each level takes a cut, putting some of what they receive into savings, and when you get to the bottom, there's none left.
"If instead of giving $20,000 to one wealthy person, you gave $5,000 to 4 middle class people, you'll get more spending."
It doesn't work that way. The government doesn't have any money to give. It has no wealth and generates no wealth. "Giving $20,000 to a wealthy person" is actually "refraining from confiscating $20,000 that a wealthy person has earned."
This is semantics and doesn't actually reply to grandparent's point.
Beyond that point on diction, you've overlooked a key fact. Let me ask you a couple questions. Would you say that most employers are rich or poor? Have you ever been hired by a poor man? Perhaps, but it was probably for a low-paying, undesirable job. Obviously, employment makes people richer than they would be otherwise. If employers have more money (through tax breaks or otherwise), they are able to pay more and better salaries. Smart employers would use that extra money to invest in their business, which usually entails a need for more employees, rather than splurging it on themselves. It's simply smart investment strategy. Higher salaries attract a higher caliber of applicants, and in turn, generally causes more growth for the business. Not all rich people directly hire people, but they invest their money in other businesses. More growth in business leads to more employment opportunities. As technology improves, machines take over low-paying jobs. This produces more efficiency, more wealth, and more sophisticated ways of doing things, which produces more high-paying jobs for people.
Yes, to a degree - smart employers (in fact all employers, smart or dumb) only spend part of their income investing back in their business... they also save part of it for their retirements, personal wealth, etc. Less than %100 of their income returns to the economy.
Most importantly, it is immoral for the government to tax people more than it absolutely has to. In discussing tax cuts, the government always asks, "Can we afford tax cuts?", but when discussing tax increases, they never stop to consider that the taxpayers are thinking, "Can we afford tax increases?" The taxpayers are forced to make sacrifices, but the government never considers doing without anything. It doesn't realize that it will stop getting golden eggs if it kills the golden goose to retrieve all the eggs inside at once.
That's a good point. Let's see who have proposed more spending... Hey, in every session of congress, it's the Republicans who are for increased spending! I completely agree with you, we should vote them out of office.
Seriously, though, this is the biggest spin that the Republicans have made - that Democrats are for 'big government' and Repubs are for 'fiscal responsibility'. In the last 50 years, Republicans have all been for increased spending at the expense of the federal deficit, and Democrats have all been for decreased spending and balanced budgets. Clinton did balance the budget and pay down the deficit by a sizable margin... Bush Jr. immediately unbalanced the budget and pushed the deficit back up - pre 9-11, too.
It is none of the government's business how anybody spends their own money. It should let all of us, rich and poor, keep as much of our money as possible and not be concerned with what we do with it.
Yes... except that it is the government's business how much money you earn vs. how much you spend... hence the IRS and taxes. They aren't looking at which pr0n magazines you're buying, though. Don't turn this discussion into FUD.
-T
Re:Flat tax? (Score:4, Interesting)
A flat tax with no exemptions or deductions would ensure that the rich paid their share. And in your example, the poor guy paid $30 for the same government services the rich guy paid $300 for. Somehow, I doubt he used as much governmental resources as 10 poor people. And don't forget that due to exemptions and deductions he got $285 of that $300 back in a refund. At least with a flat tax both people get to keep the same portion of THEIR OWN money. The rich might keep more, but that's hardly unfair since they make more in the first place. Perhaps you'd rather they were taxed $930 out of that $1000 so both people ended up with $70? What's the incentive for improvement then?
Anything but a flat tax with no exemptions/deductions either favors or is unfair to the rich. Graduated tax with deductions/exemptions is a smokescreen so the truly rich can avoid paying taxes while he tells the poor he pays more than they do.
By the way, I'm not rich.