Amazon for President!

What about having Jeff Bezos and the management team at Amazon.com run the business operations of our country? U.S. economic independence can only be regained through a concerted, long-term effort. We owe it to future generations of our republic to elect leadership capable of getting the job done. As a nation we must stop raising the debt ceiling and borrowing from foreign governments just to keep ours open for business. We must think outside the box of our divisive two-party political system and seek innovative solutions together. As voters we must voice our collective displeasure at the lack of commitment shown by our elected representatives in the face of our fiscal emergency. Only by engaging the best thinking and practices of a leading U.S. business do we have a shot at resolving the most critical fiscal challenges facing our nation. The compelling conclusion is that the best candidate for the job is Jeff Bezos and the Amazon.com management team. A Note for Readers: The content and theme of this essay is purposely quite similar to the others in The Presidential Essays series, including Apple for President! and Walmart for President! (also available on Amazon.com). This version has been customized to reflect Amazon’s unique qualifications and readiness as the proposed candidate for running the operations of the executive branch. Most elections offer at least two candidates, and each of us usually views one as more qualified than the others. These essays offer an opportunity to compare highly qualified but very different candidates. Although the title Amazon for President! is, I hope, somewhat provocative, the subject matter is serious. As citizens, we can no longer stand around passively hoping that a new economic platform will somehow spontaneously take shape and raise us out of our economic difficulties. Our government’s unapologetic addiction to borrowing and the pervasive financial challenges of many of our citizens are two clear indicators of the magnitude of the challenge. Our current form of government—operating under the same structure first adopted when our Constitution was ratified in 1788—has not kept up with the complexity and pace of our times. Consequently, no individual president—no matter how brilliant or gifted with leadership and other skills—can show the way forward in the creation of a new economic platform. We need a flexible democracy to meet the challenges of the times. Creating a shift of the magnitude now required will necessitate applying the best of our political leadership and the best of our private sector acumen and brilliance--all in the service of reengineering our government and economy. Amazon for President! is an idea whose time has come. William Keiper is the author of The Power of Urgency: Playing to Win with Proactive Urgency, Life Expectancy: It’s Never Too Late to Change Your Game, and The Presidential Essays series, including Amazon for President!, Apple for President! and Walmart for President!