Bloomberg Thinks Obama Needs Business Advisers

GQ Magazine has a surprisingly intimate interview with Mayor Bloomberg in their latest December issue, which celebrates their Men of the Year, including actor Jeff Bridges, Stephen Colbert and rapper Drake. While Bloomberg denies (yet again) that he's considering running for President, he does engage in a little Presidential criticism: "The president, I think, needs some better advisers. He campaigns "I'm gonna do A," and then he doesn't do it. Now he's pissed off the supporters and the opponents," he said of President Obama. And today, Bloomberg had a suggestion of who those new better advisers could be: Business people.

Asked about the interview today, Bloomberg told reporters, "One of the things that I've urged the president to do is to get some business people in his close tight circle. One of the president's jobs is to promote American business around the world, sell our products around the world, get people from around the world to come and invest here." Specifically in the GQ interview, he criticized the President for his wavering stance on the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero, which Bloomberg defended over the summer: "...you know, if you're going to stand up for the mosque Friday night, you don't walk away from it Saturday morning."

Bloomberg saves most of his bile though for those damned parasitic reporters and bloggers: "I am a believer that the public is a lot smarter than the press—that they don't read the press, listen to the press, remember what the press wrote. If you go out in the street and say, "Who is Monica Lewinsky or Gary Condit?" a lot of people wouldn't know."

The Mayor also discusses former Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, who once said "There's no Republican or Democratic way to pick up the garbage," and who Bloomberg considers a sort of role model. He also gives an elegant summation of what he believes makes this city different from other international metropolises:

But New York is different, because we live as a mixture and they live as a mosaic. In London, there is an Arab quarter, if you will, an Irish quarter, a Roma quarter, whatever. In New York, in one block you have signs in Arabic and in Korean and in Spanish and English. New Yorkers, I don't know that they like each other or socialize together, but they go down the same steps to the subway, they hail a cab at the same corner, they buy their coffee at the same Starbucks, their newspaper at the same kiosk—and so people who look different, act different, sound different, smell different, dress different, whatever, they are not threatening, because you are next to them all the time. That gets people to work together in a way here that's not true elsewhere.

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By Ben Yakas in News on December 2, 2010 5:55 PM

Comments [rss]

Love Your Life

From the asshole who sold NYC, expected from a businessman, less from a politician. Wait, is there a difference? In his case he is helping out his billionaire friends.

cmdrogogov

Yes, he should be like bloombag and vote himself and his cronies a third term. oh, wai-

The unfortunate thing that bloomie doesn't understand is that a government is not a business. The government exists as an impartial organization to provide basic services for which there is a limited supply and an unlimited demand, and other situations where the marketplace is unable to provide an efficient solution.

The marketplace cannot supply an unbiased judiciary, police force, unemployment, military nor healthcare - and we've all seen the results of what happens when you rely on a market to provide solutions to these problems. In many cases they just make the issue at hand worse.

Putting a self-confessed 'businessman' in a position of authority and responsibility over these services is ridiculous. It's like putting Alan Greenspan, a man who didn't believe in financial regulation, in charge of the Fed! It's like appointing Robert Bolton, a man who doesn't believe in the effectiveness of the United Nations, as the United States main envoy to that organization.

The results are plain to see. These people do not belong in Government, because they do not believe that the way government is organized and operates can provide solutions to these issues. So they start trying to run it like a business... and things go wrong.

Additionally wtf is this bullshit
"But New York is different, because we live as a mixture and they live as a mosaic. In London, there is an Arab quarter, if you will, an Irish quarter, a Roma quarter, whatever"

- It's news to me that there are different 'quarters' and that people from those different quarters don't use the same underground system???... from what I remember in the UK people of different races actually mixed and integrated far more successfully with mainstream society than they do in NY.

ANGRYGOD11

The interesting part about the American private sector is when they trying to provide a public service while trying to make a profit, and fail badly enough to demand, not ask, public subsidy money. All private subway lines in NYC went bankrupt and just recently private bus lines were absorbed by the MTA.

JohnnyLes

Bloomberg is totally right.

pyco

Bloomberg saves most of his bile though for those damned parasitic reporters and bloggers: Mr Bloomberg is full of 'crap' and all he talks smells
like crap,,, Why did he recently invest a bunch of money outside this country
and not in our infractructure... *bloomburg take hike!
By the way I am a Blogger Jose: latinosdecabarrus.com

Reflect

Bloomberg thinks.... is an oxymoron

Business people are looking too business like these days haven't u heard..
And we do have quarters here, there just not called those.

Its called racial inequality.

This country I hate to say.. is just so give me your tired and your poor so I can make rich off there back.. just today me and a cabby (members of the public) were talking of this very same thing. the press and the public more like lemmings and the offspring of lemmings. But as lemmings get kicked out of there place to live and hath no food to eatuth...

It doesnt take a rocket scientist to see we and the American Dream have been bamboozled. Lemmings get pissed off and protest too dont cha ya know.

as far as monica and whatever else he said yea were too young to know you old bag...

BQE

it also doesn't take a rocket scientist to write in grammatically correct sentences with correct spelling and to organize coherent criticism. unfortunately, you have been bamboozled: you think you got a decent education.

handsomedevil

they don't read the press, listen to the press, remember what the press wrote. If you go out in the street and say, "Who is Monica Lewinsky or Gary Condit?" a lot of people wouldn't know.

Yeah, people don't remember lots of things. I don't really see how that makes them "smart" as opposed to, say, "dumb."

nicemarmot

Um...what the hell city does Bloomberg live in? Last time I checked there was hardly anybody but rich white people living in his neighborhood. And there are lots of neighborhoods in the city that are strongly one ethnicity or another. Also I really want to know what block has signs in Arabic and Korean and Spanish and English, because I've never seen it.

ANGRYGOD11

There are blocks like that in Jackson Heights and Flushing with more than a mere four languages. There is a commercial building on Union Street, near Northern Blvd, in Flushing, NY with these, Pushan, Urdi and some others I don't know.