Herman Cain's Twisted Politics

In the Republican presidential hopeful field, in which candidates rise and fall like so many prairie dogs, Herman Cain has recently risen to number two status. A business guy with no prior experience in political office (though he ran for Senator of Georgia in 2004), it is impressive that he has done so well. In fact, his entire life is impressive, if you don't think about it too much.

Mr. Cain can genuinely claim to be a rags to riches story. In contrast to President Obama, he came from a working class black family, growing up when being black was a serious disadvantage (he was born in 1945). Also unlike Obama, he was good at math, and so he received a B.A. in mathematics in 1967 and a M.S. in computer science in 1971. Thus he somehow avoided the typical fate of men of his age bracket: killing or being killed in the jungles and cities of Vietnam. He did work a bit for the Navy as a civilian before going to work as an analyst for Coca Cola.

So Mr. Cain is a smart guy, he dodged the draft and used his smarts to get ahead in business. Nothing wrong with that in so far as it goes. Any prol doing well in business is alright with me. He was no entrepreneur, to be sure; he was a corporate man. He was given increasing levels of responsibility at Pillsbury. They eventually made him President of their Godfather's Pizza subsidiary.

That is when Herman learned the lesson that he'd like to teach the entire nation. He took the over 900 stores of the money losing division and he made the division profitable. Did he do that by improving employee spirit, a clever advertising campaign, or inventing a better pizza? No. He made two lists: profitable stores and unprofitable stores. He closed almost 500 unprofitable stores. All the employees had to find new jobs. Herman's economic conservatism in largely colored by that success. He bought Godfather's from Pillsbury, using borrowed money. He was a king, the head of his own 400 store empire. The paupers who were his ex-employees should have taken more time with their math lessons; they deserved whatever fate awaited them.

Meet Herman Cain, the man who proved that hard work and business acumen and permission to swing an ax can make anyone a CEO multi-millionaire. The man who believes welfare and the laziness it inspires are what is keeping poor people down. The man who does not like government handouts, except when they are military jobs and contracts.

Get ready for a caining, or a caning, if you are among the irresponsibly unemployed. Herman Cain is the True Conservative who will cut, cut, cut government programs the way he cut Godfather's Pizza. He'll cut taxes too, those terrible taxes that slow the rise of bright fellows like himself up the social ladder.

Strangely, Herman Cain served on the board of the Federal reserve Bank of Kansas City from 1992 until 1996. How did he, with no banking experience, get appointed to a such a post? I suppose we'll have to read his new book, "Magical Me," to find out.

You would think that at least a slight understanding of macroeconomics would be required to be a Federal Reserve board member. Things that seem to work out on a small scale, say for an individual business, can become a disaster if done on a large scale. You may have noticed this in 2008, during the CEO panic. CEO's began laying off workers, even before demand dropped, even at corporations that were very profitable. Surprise, when enough CEO's had fired enough workers, we were in a severe recession.

While each individual termite benefits from eating the house, and the whole colony benefits for a while, eventually the house falls down.

When Herman takes away people's food stamps, he may think that will force them to go out and earn a living. Instead the corporate supermarket chains and mom & pop corner stores alike will go under. When he cuts back on funding for education, he thinks parents will pay for private schooling, but instead the streets will fill up with delinquents. When he takes away Medicare Social Security, he thinks seniors will quietly curl up in the streets and die. They might, but most of the nations doctors and nurses and biotechnology CEO's will be joining them in the streets.

After 4 years with Herman Cain, he'll probably just close up America, because the entire nation will be unprofitable.

I wish I could endorse a math guy for President, but it isn't how good you are with math, it's what you do with it. If you close your mind to the bigger realities of the world, and just use it to count and hoard beans as Herman Cain has, then math has been wasted on you.

Still interested? Herman Cain for President