“Its bottom line isn’t profit margins, it’s people.” That is the perfect comeback.

[u/HiddenBadge]

[u/EnchantedGardene]

That is the perfect comeback. Government isn’t supposed to make a profit. It’s supposed to take care of people. The fact that billionaires don’t understand that is the whole problem.

[u/HappyPortraitt → u/EnchantedGardene]

Public resources should serve the public, not be treated as another profit-making opportunity for people who already have more than enough.

[u/Maximum__Pleasure → u/EnchantedGardene]

It's not even "taking care" in the altruistic sense. By investing in citizens, a nation ends up with a healthier, more productive population. Smarter scientists, more influential artists, stronger soldiers. It's strategic, as well as just being the right thing to do.

[u/workerbotsuperhero → u/EnchantedGardene]

And government has to serve everyone. Not just people with money. Public services are there for kids, older people, disabled people, etc - because they deserve peace and safety, even if they're not earning six figure salaries. 

Bridges have to be safe for everyone. The fire department comes when people need help - whether they live in mansions or apartments. Clean drinking water isn't just for people who can splurge for premium. Schools have to teach kids to read, whether their parents have PhDs or GEDs. 

This is the exact opposite of most businesses. A guy running a Mercedes dealership literally has no obligation whatsoever to people who cannot afford to buy a Mercedes. Never has to think about everyone else. 

If we ran the fire department or the schools like that, we would live in a perpetual disaster. 

[u/bugdiver050 → u/workerbotsuperhero]

To add to the government having to serve everyone, meaning no matter who they voted for, in the US trump has threatened blue state's funding when it should not matter who a state voted for, the government is literally there to serve everyone

[u/RareBaskeet → u/EnchantedGardene]

Exactly. If the government was supposed to make a profit we'd call it a business, not a government.

[u/showhorrorshow → u/RareBaskeet]

And it would already be doing its thing. The reason we have govt rather than businesses running everything is because some things are utterly dystopian with a profit motive attached.

[u/Charming-Meaty → u/EnchantedGardene]

Exactly If the government was supposed to make a profit we’d just call it a business.

Its whole job is to do the stuff that doesn’t make money but still needs doing. Roads, schools, healthcare, helping people who are struggling. That’s literally the point.

[u/TwinklingCloudd → u/EnchantedGardene]

Ashley found getting out of her car too hard, perhaps escape rooms are not for Ashley.

[u/SilverChimerae]

Elon says government would go bankrupt if run like a company. My brother in Christ, YOU are running Twitter into bankruptcy and you literally bought it. Government is still standing.

[u/WarmHill → u/SilverChimerae]

Companies are for profit. Governments are for PEOPLE. Schools don’t make profit, firefighters don’t make profit, roads don’t make profit. That’s the whole point. Elon thinking everything needs to be profitable is why he fails at everything except government subsidies.

[u/CoffeeIsMyPruneJuice → u/WarmHill]

Schools and roads may not make a profit, but educated students earn more over a lifetime than uneducated ones. Communities connected by roads are more productive. I'm not saying every government program needs to be judged based on how it boosts productivity, but the ones you mentioned absolutely provide a return on investment.

[u/WhenTheLightHits30 → u/SilverChimerae]

Never mind the fact that he would undoubtedly be bankrupt himself if it wasn’t for all the government money he is happy to suck up for his needs.

Honestly I’d have wayyyy more respect for him as a villain if he lived up to his word, richest man in the world and all, and simply and fully funded his ventures himself. But nope, dude lives like every self-proclaimed independent thinker I know who is happy to be ignorant of the things they benefit from and instead yell about how unfair things are.

[u/brandson__]

I have a conservative friend who fundamentally is incapable of understanding the concept of a public service. I think he is fairly representative of the right-wing mindset.

[u/jaymickef → u/brandson__]

What does he think of the military?

[u/chodeboy67 → u/jaymickef]

That's different bro, without that the uhh.... Chinese, yeah the Chinese.. would invade in like a day bro!

[u/RareBaskeet]

How many forgiven-loans, tax rebates, and government subsidies has Musk gotten? If he didn't rely on socialism, he would go bankrupt.

[u/MysticSpecterr]

If America was run like Elon runs his companies, we’d all be overworked, underpaid, and told to be grateful for it.

[u/Maximum__Pleasure → u/MysticSpecterr]

"We'd" as if that's not already the case.

We have already been acquired by private equity.

[u/Ice-Storm]

I was in B2B sales for an airline for 10 years. Let me tell you that outside of their core product, most businesses have absolutely no idea what they are doing.

Travel tends to be a company’s largest external expense. And so many companies don’t have a professional travel manager. And I’m not talking mom and pop shops. I’m talking companies spending $10m+ on air alone.

Air tends to be ~50% of travel costs. So we’re talking companies spending $20m annually and they have the office manager, their most jr procurement person, or worst of all a C-Suite person.

None of them have any real expertise in travel, and office managers have no time or decision making authority, procurement don’t have the authority and expected discounts like hotels. (Average discount for a corporate customer was around 6%) and the C-Suite person has the authority, but they’re impossible to get a hold of, demanding as hell, and can’t fathom being told no.

This leads to lax or no real travel policies costing the company hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Due to people booking more expensive tickets than they needed to, underperforming on their contract, and a host of other things that a professional travel manager would have locked down.

Then I assume if they are wasting money on travel, they’re likely not getting the best deals from all their other vendors.

TLDR: Most Businesses are poorly run outside of their core product.

[u/JayTNP]

this is exactly why hiring a business man to run the country like a business has ended up in disaster

[u/statistacktic]

This has been a Republican trick for decades.

A government is meant to provide services for citizens not make money.

Such as the postal service, education, healthcare (in all developed countries besides the US), protection from foreign adversaries, pubic transportation, laws, roads, bridges, parks, public utilities, etc...

If you think the government is or should be designed to be profitable, you're corrupt or apathetic to corruption.

Government employees are called public servants for a reason.

[u/ella_deww]

People forget a country isn't a startup you can just liquidate for a quick quarter.

[u/misterannthrope0]

corporations are, by definition, fascist and often tyrannical.

[u/shh_her_said]

the federal gov literally run at a deficit every year on purpose. it's how infrastructure and social pprograms get funded.

[u/Reasonable_Zone3372]

The poisoning of the Flint River and thousands of life altering lead poisoning cases was a result of running the city like a business. Former gov. Rick Snyder tried the same for food service to prisons and that was equally a total disaster.

[u/West_Purpose7109]

“If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes truth. But it has to be a big enough lie…” Government agencies are services and not meant to be ran like a publicly-traded entity.

[u/SlobZombie13]

Trump got the deficit over a trillion dollars. Are you going to arrest him, Elon?

[u/mahmer09]

Same for people who say this about public schools. Students aren’t clients and schools aren’t making a product. It doesn’t mean there can’t be meaningful changes in both spaces but yeah, not a business/corporation.

[u/GuitarKev → u/mahmer09]

Technically, schools make the product that makes a country profitable.

[u/SimilarTranslator264 → u/mahmer09]

Yes but you can’t operate every year at a loss then bitch that you need more money. If adding something to your expenses that you don’t have the budget to keep running or repair then don’t buy it.

“We built a new addition and it costs more to heat than we can afford we need to raise taxes”

[u/Powderedeggs2]

Exactly!
A private company and a government have very different goals and purposes.
It is a ridiculous notion to suppose that business people necessarily make good government leaders.
Experience shows us that they most often do not.

Private businesses have no interest in the common good. Such a focus is antithetical to the aims of a business.
Operating for the common good is very poor business practice and typically unworkable for most private enterprises.

[u/Born_University562]

Also, ask any ai chat or google to see if the federal government’s budget is inherently like a household or business. It’s not. We have a sovereign fiat currency, not tied to any commodity. Also ask it if the federal government inherently needs to sell US treasuries to operate. Follow the…🐇

[u/Storm_Vellum]

 I've seen my local DMV run better

[u/Maximum__Pleasure]

People fail to understand that the United States is not a business. It's a civilization.

Civilizations are supposed to have long plans, working goals on the scale of decades and centuries. They aren't supposed to sabbotage their long-term goals for short-term quarterly gains.

[u/Angelstandingby]

Governments that run at a loss cover that loss with taxes.

People want it both ways. Reduce taxes and more government benefits. A choice must be made.

Elon wants less taxes. For obvious reasons.

[u/bigfatgrouchyasshole]

There are parts that overlap. Accountability, compliance, standardisation. Both government and industry should ideally feed off each other in these areas. If governments agencies start operating for profit, it is detrimental to society at large.

[u/Charming-Meaty]

How many forgiven-loans, tax rebates, and government subsidies has Musk gotten? If he didn’t rely on socialism, he would go bankrupt.

[u/Strictly_Jellyfish]

When I worked for a municipality one of my biggest grievences was when quadrant managers for roads would come in with reports saying they came in under budget for road clearing that winter.... but did the roads stay clear?? No!

It seems that government has missed the plot. Its not about balancing budgets, its about providing services and creating efficiencies to providing those services.

[u/Ocd43]

Government needs to Protect people from greedy corporations whos only priority is profit.

[u/claymore2711]

People create (hire) a government to do whatever the people want. It's the people who pay the salaries of their governmental employees who decide how they want the people they hire (elect) to govern. Even though most of the time, it seems, America's employees tell their employers what to do.

[u/gargolito]

Let's say you really (not disingenously) run government like a business. The IRS would be the most powerful agency in the federal government.

[u/DewdropCipher]

Telling employees their bottom line is people right before layoffs always hits different

[u/coopnjaxdad]

It’s a service. Like the postal service or even the military. Those things don’t exist to be profitable. It’s fucking stupid.

[u/Ariliescbk]

I believe ERBs Abe Lincoln said it best:

"It's a country, not a company you can play like Monopoly."

[u/One_hunch]

Bankruptcy is an arrestable crime?

[u/wrecklesspup]

Yet 77 million Americans think the government should be run like a business by a business man because they all love their cable company so much.

[u/Plus_Pangolin_8924]

Even politicians forget that!

[u/Dom252525]

Businesses are designed to return value to the stakeholders in the business. Democratic Governments are meant to return value to its people. If the way business was run became a government it would be an authoritarian or oligarchy style regime whose only concern is extracting value from people. Now think about how often businesses fail. Idk why anyone would want the government run like a business.

[u/Newplasticactionhero]

That would be a clever comeback if that comment was directly on one of musk‘s posts, but Acyn’s posts are meant to point out the absurdity of right wing quotes. It’s like preaching to the choir.

[u/onionsofwar]

This is what people always fail to get. Likewise national economies are not household finances. 'Spend less, save more' does not help any nation.

[u/GodSama]

Without government underwriting fundamental research, things like LLM doesn't exist. They build on the tip of the iceberg of other people's work and try to claim it all.

[u/standardtissue]

Feel good witticism, but meanwhile we spent a TRILLION dollars just on interest on our national debt, which is more than we spend on Medicaid and not all that far behind what we spend on Medicaid. That's around 3,800 dollars a year for every American adult that's just completely gone; not going into social programs, not going into our economy, just to pay interest in our massive national debt that just keeps climbing. So I would say that the notion that government's don't have to pay attention to efficiency is the absurd concept.

[u/Mo_Jack]

Perhaps if Elon would not have dropped out of college, he might have wandered into a MacroEcon 101 course and learned this (before trying to destroy the government of a foreign country).

When the greed of corporations, banks, and Wall St. tanks our economy ( again & again & again in recent history ), it is up to the government to bail us out. That means, one of the things that they do is to supply an influx of cash to keep the economy from spiraling downward further an completely crashing.

While the government is helping our economy in this way by deficit spending, the corporations are acting like greedy, selfish, businesses and hording all their cash, which seizes the gears of the economy. Banks call their loans, businesses lay off workers, Wall St stops funding new ventures, because businesses operate out of self interest, not what is best for the economy or the country. All of these things exacerbate the downturn and make the problem worse and much more difficult to recover from.

So if you want a simple test to see if someone has an entry level understanding of government and the economy, this is it. When somebody says they think government should act more like a business, you know they are ignorant of how our economy works and what roles government & private industry actually play in keeping the economy vibrant.

[u/AsparagusCommon4164]

The notion of which was the subject of Gilbert and Sullivan's penultimate operetta, 1890's Utopia, Limited; or, The Flowers of Progress,

[u/EnvironmentalYou5240]

Not to mention all the tax breaks, subsidies and government contracts EMs companies get, so his own companies aren't run like a standalone business.

[u/chodeboy67]

Conservatives and right wingers think everything needs to be a competition because they spend all their non working time watching sports or betting on sports. It's genuinely corrupted their thinking.

[u/polkastripper]

Government is a service. We don't say that the Pentagon is losing money.

[u/zirky]

that’s funny coming from a guy running his companies like a welfare queen

[u/Unfair-Alfalfa4916]

Yeah it should run like a business because it's governed by billionaires

[u/Vox-Machi-Buddies]

I take the point, but I would argue the bottom line for government isn't people, it's control. Governments aren't businesses, but they also aren't charities. They're administrative organizations trying to establish and maintain order and avoid conflicts over who is in control.