Mitt Romney President? Smile, You're Fired

The scene takes place during a debate in the Republican primaries. Newt Gingrich is having trouble. He needs an idea, something to revive his campaign which has been struggling inexorably. To colonize the moon! That should please Americans, who still dream of being pioneers, and who adored Kennedy and his “new frontier.” So Gingrich is proud and visibly pleased with his announcement, saying:

“I do not want to be the country that, having gotten to the moon first, turned around and said, ‘It doesn’t really matter, let the Chinese dominate space, what do we care?’ I think that is a path of national decline, and I am for America being a great country, not a country in decline.”

Romney: “I spent 25 years in business. If I had a business executive come to me and say they wanted to spend a few hundred billion dollars to put a colony on the moon, I’d say: ‘You’re fired.’”

“I like being able to fire people,” he claimed.

He is an authoritarian boss and is proud of his power. In November 2008, in a column in the New York Times, he had already decided that Detroit – General Motors – should be left to go bankrupt.

Last January, half-jokingly, in defending the fact that Americans can choose and switch between insurance companies whenever they want, he played the sympathetic boss, saying, “I want individuals to have their own insurance. That means the insurance company will have an incentive to keep you healthy. It also means that if you don’t like what they do, you can fire them. I like being able to fire people that provide services to me.”

This is far from the image of a positive boss, one who creates wealth and employment.

In addition, last May, while being questioned about the 145,000 jobs created by the “stimulus plan,” Romney said, “Let’s send them home.”

This position has preserved the former governor of Massachusetts for a long time, certain that it would make for a decisive advantage in a time of economic crisis. A boss who knows about success should know what to do with a country in a downward spiral.

12 Million Jobs Promised … but Where?

After a few weeks of media hype coming from the Democrats, we thought that Romney was unsuccessfully trying to erase the image of a boss without a heart, certainly the image of a boss who makes his fortune by firing people.

In the debate that put him against Barack Obama last Wednesday, the Democratic candidate did indeed make use of his new empathetic weapon, his ability to understand the difficulties of the most humble, even though he may not resemble them.

Then the boss suddenly tore up the costume that seemed to have pleased Americans. Besides Barack Obama, there was only one other human being on the game board: the moderator Jim Lehrer, a big figure in PBS. Romney couldn’t help himself from showing his desire to reduce state subsidy by attacking poor Jim: “I’m sorry Jim. I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS.”

So, inevitably, when Mitt Romney promises to create 12 million jobs, some people have doubts, while others ask themselves if they will be in China, or in India.