Political Leaders: Treat Your Citizens Like Customers—or Go Broke

Appreciate them and learn their concerns, preferences, and priorities

The four following anecdotes carry a similar message. They should seriously alarm city, state, and country leaders everywhere.

A CEO of a multibillion-dollar California company, and lifelong resident of the Golden State, told me at a dinner that he was moving his business from California to the Rocky Mountains. He wanted to be a “customer” of the state of Colorado, not the state of California anymore. His needs as a customer overrode his love of the Southern California lifestyle.

I just read this week that between 2010 and 2011, England’s total number of taxpayers with an annual income of more than 1 million pounds went from 16,000 to 6,000—that’s right—in one year. The British press is going nuts because a certain percentage of those 10,000 taxpayers flat out left the country. Apparently their own personal finances, and possibly small-business ownership, are more precious to them than their national loyalty or patriotism.

A young American CEO in Washington informed me that he just moved the headquarters and business operations of his building supply company to St. Thomas. He said he could no longer survive the taxes and regulations as a “customer” of the United States, so his business became a customer of St. Thomas.

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Comments

Citizen-Customer

My wife and I as small business owners in Western Georgia are more than frustrated that we are not being heard by those who matter the most: the voters. Other business owners hear and understand the sacrifices and plight of small business owners in the U.S. First of all, being a millionaire does not mean you have $1M dollars/month cash flow to spend as you wish. Second of all, $250k/year income does not equate to $250k/year disposable income. When did it become disdainful in the U.S. to succeed in the U.S.? If our voting employees start treating us, their employers, like greedy evil rich capitalists with no thought for the needs of others maybe we will get tired of it all and start living up to the name they have given us! For starters, suppose we stop giving Christmas bonuses, vacation time, holidays, charitable donations, parties, and a heated and air conditioned shop to work in? Then I could affort to give up my day job and start collecting a paycheck for the first time in 10 years of operation.

If you voted for the guy who believes small businesses are nothing more than ATM machines for the government, and that we are not paying our fair share, trade places with me for the next 10 years or so. And by the way, you might have to give up ball games, fishing, TV, and time with your friends to make sure the lights are turned on at the shop long before sun-up, and turned off long after sunset.

Mark & Marie J.

To IRB4UR

Thank you for your comments. When did we decide that creating jobs and being a risk-taker is evil? I take my hat off to the small businessmen.

Politics Quality

Dear Jim, I was born in northern Italy, but I'm saying of myself that I was born on the wrong side of the Alps; meaning that I would have preferred to be a north-european citizen. Nowadays, this statement doesn't hold valid anymore: if I could flee the EU, I would. My partner is Croatian, but Croatia will join the EU in 2013 ... so? It's the newest form of epidemic: a politically-correct disease. Thank you.