What job experience would you like to see in a Presidential candidate?

[Pat Mustard]

@Nomad I meant someone who can show they’re able to balance a budget and generate wealth. I wouldcaveat that with calls for transparency, honesty and not taking advantage of others solely for personal gain.

Balanced budgets are the last thing a country needs. In good times the money coming in will be more than going out, in bad times governments should use deficit spending to mind the poorest and stimulate growth.

At all times debt should be used to fund infrastructure projects. But debt is rarely a problem for governments if return on investment is greater than one to one. For projects governments should involve themselces in, eg education, health, infrastructure, public transport, environment management roi is always better than one to one, often returning more than €10 for each one spent long term.

The biggest problem with modern macroeconomis is that it assumes state debt is like household debt, and therefore has a low ceiling of utility. It doesn't, and even less so when the state prints its own specie and that is generally trusted.

---

IDK that budgeting and "wealth creation" are actually relevant to good governance. Look at where that's got us so far.  Good governance seems to be an issue of creating circumstance..not wealth, and letting better qualified people figure out how to pay for whatever that entails.  

The wealth and balanced budget sets have given us massive debt and poverty while simultaneously failing to create advantageous circumstance.  It's almost as if they have no fucking clue how to do this.......

Balanced budget laws have one goal, to cut state spending so that there are only two options for necessary projects, either go without or get in private companies. In the las 100 years there has not been one public good or service delivered by privite companies which wasn't far worse and far more costly than the state doing the same job (and I include stuff like electricity &heating in this). Letting the job go undone is a worse outcome yet.