o'xperience - Percent of o'who? appointees with private sector experience

From: bb Sent: Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Did you happen to catch Glenn Beck's show recently where he had a graph up that showed past presidents and the percentage of each president's cabinet appointees who had previously worked in the private sector. You know a real life business, not a government job? Remember what that is? ... A private business?

*Roosevelt - 38%* *Taft - 40%* *Wilson - 52%* *Harding - 49%* *Coolidge - 48%* *Hoover - 42%* *FDR - 50%* *Truman - 50%* *Eisenhower - 57%* *Kennedy - 30%* *LBJ - 47%* *Nixon - 53%* *Ford - 42%* *Carter - 32%* *Reagan - 56%* *GHWB - 51%* *Clinton - 39%* *GWB - 55%*

*And the Winner Winner Chicken Dinner is.........................*  *Obama - 8%*

*YEP, EIGHT PERCENT!!!!!!!!!!!! And these are the guys holding a "job summit" this week? This ought to go really well!!!! I'm gonna go out on a limb here, I know, but I'm gonna go ahead and predict.... IT AIN'T GONNA WORK BRO!!!!!

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Opposing opine:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/dec/02/glenn-beck/beck-says-less-10-percent-obama-cabinet-members-ha/

and, the original source (excerpt) from:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/24/michael-cembalest-obama-business-beltway-cabinet.html
Commentary: Obama's Business Blind Spot
by Michael Cembalest, 11.24.09

In a real departure from history, the current cabinet has almost no private- sector experience.

(photo:  Michael Cembalest)


In meetings last week, I was asked what the U.S. is likely to do about jobs. While the pace of hiring has slowed, the "probability of finding a job" and the Conference Board's Help Wanted Index are by a large margin at their lowest levels in 60 years. There's talk of tax credits for hiring new workers, increased public sector employment bills, hundreds of billions in new stimulus, etc.

In a quest to see what frame of reference the administration might have on this issue, I looked back at the history of the Presidential Cabinet. Starting with the creation of the Secretary of Commerce back in 1900, I compiled the prior private-sector experience of all 432 cabinet members, focusing on those positions one would expect to participate in this discussion: Secretaries of State; Commerce; Treasury; Agriculture; Interior; Labor; Transportation; Energy; and Housing & Urban Development (a).

Many of these individuals started a company or ran one, with first-hand experience in hiring and firing, domestic and international competition, red tape, recessions, wars and technological change. Their industries included agribusiness, chemicals, finance, construction, communications, energy, insurance, mining, publishing, pharmaceuticals, railroads and steel; a cross-section of the American experience. [I even gave partial credit to attorneys focused on private-sector issues, although one could argue this is a completely different kettle of fish]. One thing is clear: The current administration, compared with past Democratic and Republican ones, marks a departure from the traditional reliance on a balance of public- and private-sector experiences.

It's not a surprise that these days, private-sector engagement strikes some as pointless. The prevailing sentiment is best expressed by one of Secretary Geithner's own deputies: "Why would we consult the very executives who got us into this mess?" and Congressman Barney Frank: "The private sector got us into this mess. The government has to get us out of it." To a large extent, this cynicism is a byproduct of the colossal mismanagement of many financial and automotive firms. The following chart shows the companies that lost more than their entire 2007 book value, both in absolute terms, and as a multiple of pre-crisis book value (b). This is one of the worst legacies of the crisis: a sense that the private sector is poorly managed, greedy and completely inept (c).

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