Recently by James Altucher: 10 Things I Didn't Learn in College
In 1980, being a young, strident young journalist and essayist at the age of 12 I decided to call up the Federal Elections Commission and get a list of all of the candidates who were officially running for President and Vice-President. There was the usual crew: “James Earl Carter”, “Edward M Kennedy”, etc but then there were a lot of offbeat characters as well.
For instance, Clifford Finch, the governor of Mississsippi, was running for President. I never did figure that one out. Although, I went down there (my first plane trip ever) spent a week staying at the house of his campaign manager, Norman Harris, and Finch made me an “honorary colonel of Mississippi” (for those who don’t know, Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame is only an honorary colonel so this means either I should set up a chain of some sort (“Missippi Fried BLTs?”) or it means if you are from Mississippi and run into me you better BOW DOWN and pay some RESPECT.)
Another guy I spoke to was Jim Boren, who had decided not to run for President but run for Vice-President. His campaign slogan was: “When in doubt, mumble.” I called him to interview him and he had an extension of that motto: “When in doubt, mumble. When in trouble, delegate. When in charge, ponder.” I liked his style. He also said, “I haven’t done anything for the past few years so I figure I’m qualified.” He spent the summer of 1979 in Alaska, “looking for absentee votes.”
Finally he says, “I just want a good job, with good food, and to meet some nice people.”
So at least there is a precedent for me to run for Vice-President although I’m going to take a different stance.
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Apparently there is a several minute period between the time the Vice-President is sworn in and the President.
During that time, it can be argued, the Vice-President is acting as sort of an interim President. I have a lot of things I can do during those few minutes.
First off, one can ask: why not just run for President?
Answer: are you crazy? Look at all these debates you have to go to. The Vice-President, AT MOST, has to go to one debate. Who do you think I am? John F. Kennedy?
Second, it costs about a billion dollars to become President. It also costs Coca-Cola a billion dollars a year to convince people that Coke is good for them and not just unhealthy carbonated water with 16 teaspoonfulls of sugar.
So maybe using this new platform being developed by the Rothshchilds (thanks to Bob Wenzel for pointing this out to me) maybe I can run directly for VP and get on the ballot in all 50 states.
And I have a very specific platform. It would only take me a few minutes to issue all of the executive orders and then I promise I will resign.
In other words, not only will I be a one-term Vice-President, I will be a ten minute Vice-President.
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Executive Order #1: Immigration. As long as they don’t have criminal records, anyone can come into the United States. As for current illegal aliens, I’d get rid of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 which made it illegal to hire an illegal immigrant.
Here are my questions about immigration that I have for people who are running for President.
- Where the hell did you come from? Or, if not you, your ancestors.
- Who is cleaning the dishes and prepping the food at EVERY restaurant in NYC. Even when I go for expensive sushi, except for the Japanese sushi guy on display at front everyone else hidden in the back is from Mexico.
- For the first time in 50 years, Indians and Chinese are staying home and starting semiconductor companies. The head of a major graduate school said this is the first time he’s seen a year over year decline in Indian applicants. That’s bad news! The Indian Institute of Technology is the best undergraduate tech college(s) in the world! We need the grads of that school to start semiconductor companies in the US.
- Its not like that law protected American jobs. Born and raised Americans don’t want to be nannies or slice up onions for a living (on the whole).
- In fact, official employment went down because people started to hire freelancers to do jobs so as to remove the risk they were officially hiring an illegal immigrant.
- My wife was at one time an immigrant. She fought hard to come to America, stay in America, survive in America, and succeed in America. That’s what America is about.
- What about terrorists? Only 2% of currently illegal immigrants are from the entire Middle East and that includes Israel.
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Well, what if they are already an illegal immigrant. No problem! Amnesty! Unless they have a criminal record. Then get out! There’s 12mm illegal immigrants out there.
Executive Order #2: TAX HOLIDAY! No taxes for a year. Oh wait, who would pay for all the bombing in Afghanistan? Who would pay for the food sent to our 18 year old girls who are shipped to Iraq? Ok, ok, I see your point. Let me get back to this one and handle a few other important executive orders first. But first, let me ask you this: who is a better allocator of your money: YOU or Timothy Geithner? If the answer is Timothy then feel free to send in your money. If you think you will do better for the country with your money (spending it, hiring people, etc) then don’t write a check. At ease, soldier. Do what you were doing. Keep collecting taxes on corporations. But no more individual income taxes. I need my money!
