Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for February 23, 2016

And it seemed like a capital idea.

Real businesses wouldn’t cut staff to such a degree that production (the very source of profit) comes to a near halt.

Forbes disses the "government should be like business meme. Summary: one exists for social value, the other for profit (without which existence ceases). There may be some things the two should have in common – like transparent accounting – but the prime directives are very different.

Ever hear of Bain Capital? Destroy, sell, and run with the profits. Kinda’ like the conswervatives plan for government, and they’ve done a bang up job of it. Afghanistan and Iraq are their models.

What biting satire. I’ll remember it and try to chuckle next time I’m at the US post office or the DMV.

You! In the front row….Row! Or get paddled!….They got rid of the drummer?…

The emperor has no legs…..

Thanks, Wiley. I remember this one as one of my favorites, along with the Phoenician ship with the board table on the upper deck.

The rest of the propulsion team is located off the bow, pulling ropes tied to the ship. They are especially motivated because for them it is either sink or swim and their overseers are sharks. And they work practically for free!

Meanwhile, there are seventy-four guys in Bangalore also rowing this same boat.

Businesses need to entice employees to work for them. Governments conscript and steal. What else is new?

Now if the boat were smaller… but then the emperor wouldn’t be able to haul as much schwag to hand out to all those voters…

Didn’t realize Wiley was this clueless. No hope for him.

The comments and commenters are doing the expected. Some of it’s funny. Some of it’s true. Some of it’s clueless (exoticdoc2, obviously). I did notice one thing overlooked. There’s too many production workers in the cartoon.

I think we’re gonna need a smaller boat.

lol proof that business has no clue, didn’t realize Wiley could be right in skewing business and the Greed is God scam.

love the way the Rigthies deflect, deny and do anything but admit the truth. lol

Whoa – flashback time! That’s what George Bush said when he took office in’01.“Ah’m the first president with uh MBA, an’ Ah’m gonna run the country like a business.” And with that he took off the entire month of July (or was it August?) after only being in office since January 20.He came back just in time for 9-11.

gotta be room there for interns :-)

Analogy with problems. Layout is not ocean going.

And the captain wanted to go water skiing!

The voters of Michigan put a businessman in the statehouse, and look what happened. Government is not a business. It should focus on people, not money.

“But ‘In-a-gadda-da-vida’ is the only drum solo I know.”

These guys aren’t even rowing with both oars in the water !

You know what a government that is run like a business is called?A dictatorship.

Could this be the fate of that businessman-turned-politician who thinks he is the Emperor circa 2016 A.D.???

A siginificant note: All the call for firing everyone at the Veterans Administration, overlook the FACT that it is understaffing and overloads of patients causing the real problems. Qualified people can’t be retained, not because of salaries, but because the stress of the constant workload, overworked and stressed, that drives them off the job. Geographic location of facilities in many cases makes retention or new hires difficult at well.

Those wait times that were ’forged" had a lot to do with one doctor or phsychologist carrying patient lists 3-5 times as large as would be seen in that “outside” world of medicine. Too many vets, too many wars, not enough staff.

Last time I was at the DMV to renew my license, I was in and out in 20 minutes..Last time I had to straighten something out at the bank, it took 2 hours.

Except business manages to hire the appropriate level of staff.

Obviously you haven’t looked for floor help in a large store recently.

Apparently none of you ever read about Cornelius Vanderbilt—the father of the anti-trust movement. Just for giggles: Google GEO prisons. Google Accenture. Google Halliburton food services. When you get rid of public service, you’ll see what the 1099 economy REALLY costs.

Of course there are anecdotal instances of good service within the post office and the DMV. Let me provide a story of my own:I shipped several boxes of books through the USPS. Out of twelve shipped, four were lost. I can’t begin to describe the buck passing, the service window doors closed in my face, and complete lack of responsibility I’ve experienced. Some of the boxes that we did receive were tampered with.

There’s much more to this, but for brevity’s sake I’m just giving a general outline. When there’s no unaccountability, this is what happens. These workers wouldn’t last a single day in a private company with this level of “customer service”, but they can’t be fired, and they know it.

If you think this is an exceptional bad case, just check out yelp.com in any city re: the USPS

ragtime78rpmThe Post Office was privatized several years ago. Sure, the senate rubber-stamps the corporation’s choice for Postmaster General, just like it does the commercial bank’s choice for directors of the Federal Reserve, but has no control over policies or day to day operations.

Except the business based ship would be crewed by willing rowers who were actually quite capable at rowing.

Except the business based ship would be crewed by willing rowers who were actually quite capable at rowing.

To restate my question re MONY in other terms, how many firms would cut jobs to the point of near-zero production?

Touché Wiley. Touché.

Always remember that the main focus of Enron was brokering power.

Better force the “workers” to do what YOU think is best. What do they know? Da, Comrade?