What would Bill Gates Do if he was running for governor and was
telling everyone he was the guy to help create new jobs and bring
Michigan back to it's economic glory days?
Betya by golly he would have developed a vision, drafted a plan and
then run the plan through one of those fancy-smancy Harvard business
economic models to see if it would actually work.
Turns out that Rick Snyder, who suggests he is just like the nerdy
Mr. Gates, is not like him when it comes to the use of economic models.
Sure Snyder has a vision and he's got his handy-dandy Ten-Point
Plan to reinvent Michigan but when asked if he used an economic model
to gauge the results?
Well he confesses, he did not.
Asked to slap a number on the extent of his job growing prowess the
other day, the Ann Arbor business guru noted, "We're going to create
thousands and thousands of job. It's going to be a gradual basis
though."
Give him credit, all the other candidates in both parties have
steadfastly refused to promise how many jobs they would help to foster.
After all if they made a pledge, and didn't fulfill it, somebody might
write a blog about the failure.
So Snyder boldly wanders where career politicians fear to go but
when asked to back it up with some solid research on his job creation
blueprint, he came up short.
Question: "Have you run through an economic model to see how many
jobs would come out the other end or is it just a crap shoot on your
part?"
Answer: "I don't think either characterization is the right one.
There's not an economic model but it's not a crap shoot."
Wonder what Mr. Gates would say about that?