-By Gary Krasner
I thought Mitt lost, by my standards. My standards is that if you had points to make and didn’t make them, you lost the debate. Obama made the best use of a miserable record, by being more adept in rebuttal, and having another moderator rescue him occasionally.
Romney has imbeciles as advisors. They didn’t prepare him well. Mitt’s answers were poll-driven, repetitive and uninspiring.
Here is an example of how Mitt should have responded to Obama’s Lilly Ledbetter law, which Obama ALWAYS cites to make Romney look like Don Drapper on Mad Men.
EXAMPLE:
Romney: Mr. President, I believe US presidents should receive the same salary, but not the American people who work for a living. I was fortunate enough to meet Alice Jones, a retired prepress operator in Ohio. Alice was a very proficient computer operator. The managers of her company could measure her performance, as they could the other workers, and see that she worked faster and made few mistakes than most others.
And guess what, Mr. President, Alice’s greater effort and performance was rewarded with a higher wage. in fact, anyone who showed talent and was more productive was similarly rewarded.
THAT’s the reality of the workplace, Mr. President. You should talk to workers—-in the public and private sector. They are individuals. They want their competence and dedication to be recognized. When I succeeded in my work at Bain Capital, I was compensated accordingly. Alice and millions of other workers would prefer to be recognized for the work that THEY do as well. Talented women like Alice Jones do not want to be held down by mediocrity—-the philosophy which you are promoting, Mr President.
Proficient workers in the real world carry a reputation for excellence, and are thereby able to command higher salaries wherever they go. That is why Michael Jackson of the Chicago bulls received a higher salary than a bench warmer on the same team. That is why your multi millionaire buddies in hollywood obtain salaries that places them in the top one tenth of one percent.
But the problem with your notion of “equal work for equal pay” is simply that people perform at different levels. And it is not only unfair to ignore that, it engenders less motivation and then you see productivity decline. That is what had destroyed the Soviet and Chinese economies.
Mr. president, if you were paid according to your performance, you would be the lowest paid president in history.