People trying to punish the CEOs who advise him are harmful to our country, and worse than the politicians that make decisions to further their own careers instead of do what's best for their country/state/county.
All I'd like to establish is that it is, at this point in the conversation, not reasonable for you to write as if you don't understand the objection people have to these meetings.
Obviously. The point of my OP was that there shouldn't be liabilities to advising the president (liabilities for endorsement are another matter).
> You're repeating yourself needlessly.
Because the central point of our disagreement is whether being on the economic council is an endorsement or not. Musk and Kalanick both being on the council and loudly leaving it, but not telling any of the public that the advisory council is an empty photo-op seems unlikely to me. So I wanted to get your explanation for why that would happen, but you twice didn't respond to the question.
Despite what they may say, tech leaders don't go to these things in the hope of seriously influencing the administration. They're grown ups, and most of them pay lobbying operations. All of them understand that nothing important starts at a giant polished wooden table occupied by their competitors on one side and the news media on the other.
You honestly believe Tim Cook woke up the morning of that last meeting and thought to himself, "the best thing I can do with my time today is to sit down at a table with Donald Trump and Eric Schmidt"? Of course you don't.
The reality is: Trump's invitation to these events is coercive, in the sense that Cook will make news by not attending, and 50% (well, OK, 39.2%) of the US market will be irritated by that news. Attending is problematic, but if he shuts up, it's less problematic than not attending. So that's what he does.
It's for a similar reason that Musk and Kalanick don't hold press conferences decrying the theater of these photo op meetings. The political photo-op is as old as cameras, and tilting at windmills offers them nothing but downside.
Which brings us back to the reason we're irritated that Cook and Schmidt go to these things. The current calculation they're making says they lose less by going, and effectively providing a soft endorsement, than by boycotting. That's because their own employees --- who overwhelmingly oppose the Trump administration --- are allowing them to get away with it. If even 5% of Google's employees credibly threatened a work stoppage of any sort over Schmidt's co-opting of their work to endorse Trump, Schmidt would not be allowed to attend; the costs to Google would outweigh the benefits.
That said, I think I've been pretty clear that I don't expect you to agree with me; I simply expect you to stop writing as if you can't imagine any reason other than (I suppose) bloody-mindedness that people would have a problem with Cook and Schmidt and Pichai attending these meetings.
Good democracy:
- fierce competition in the election
- choose winner
- work together as much as possible to do what's best for the country
Replacing step 3 with "do as much as possible to obstruct the winner and hurt the country until we win again" is stupid. It slows us down and weakens the functioning of the democracy.
Nothing wrong with anyone saying "We are fully against policy X". There is something wrong with "We are fully against policy X, so we will harm unrelated things: Y and Z (the economy in this case)".
I'm curious, do you feel the same way about insurance companies that expressed dissatisfaction with the Affordable Care Act and stopped participating in the exchanges, or do you view that decision as purely business-motivated?
No it's not. The president has an enormous jurisdiction, and you can cooperate on some issues and abstain on others. And you can advise on all of them.
> there is some objectively good direction for the the economy as a whole which is clear to all
It is clear to all that the economy is best off if the titans of our economy give their thoughts to those making policy and decision. I'm not saying everyone has to help the pres do whatever he wants, but withholding advise from the president in the area of economy because you disagree with his stance on immigration is nothing but spite that harms the country.
Count me out of this, please. If there's evidence of a pattern of bad decisions that are deleterious to the economy as a whole - something each person has to decide for themselves, obviously - then I think it's better not to assist with that process. Otherwise you risk enabling bad outcomes.
- executive power should be wielded (WITH | WITHOUT) input from leaders of the economy
I'm not arguing that we should elect Trump. It's done. Now that he wields exec power, you think that "WITHOUT" is the better choice above? Why?
> - executive power should be wielded (WITH | WITHOUT) input from leaders of the economy
That's not anything remotely like a syllogism; it's just a dichotomy.
A syllogism is a structured argument consisting of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion that follows from the two premises.
A more relevant question is whether it's worth it for leaders of the industry to publicly pretend to give input to a person who they know will ignore it.
I don't think that's clear to all, but, in any case, the “titans of our economy” or going to do that whether or not they participate in formal executive commissions or not.
It seems more like Trump sits at the table with people to have his own photo taken. Which is not much of a surprise because that has been his entire career for the past 30 years.
Not to mention that it was clear from the start that Trump was never going to listen to them anyway. Just about everyone on that board said no to the Muslim ban. He did it anyway.
Just because you didn't get the outcome you wanted doesn't change that fact.