Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - Meggy goes down - in flames Part XVII - Dr Jay debates Meggy.
Meg Whitman, former CEO of eBay and California gubernatorial candidate, has recently declined several requests for a public debate. However, on Sunday, May 3, 2009, Jason Houston persuaded Mrs. Whitman to hold an interview, televised live at prime time, to the entire state of California. Here is the transcript of that interview:
JASON: Meg, what is your platform for running for governor of California?
MEG: I am the best, smartest and most accomplished candidate there is because I, single-handedly, turned eBay from a 30-person flim-flam into a multi-million dollar flim-flam. eBay and all Californians have me to thank. Without me, eBay's CEOs would never have become multi-billionaires. They owe it all to me. The federal government has even commissioned adding my face to Mt.Rushmore because I am so brilliant.Even Henry Ford can’t make that claim!
JASON: But, hasn't eBay fallen on hard times? I mean, during the ten years you ran eBay, you kept raising sellers' costs, you endorsed shill bidding, you refused to enforce your own codes of ethics, you encouraged fraud to proliferate on the site, you refused to pay fines levied by states and countries the world over, you arbitrarily suspended users who hadn't sold or purchased anything, your stocks tumbled, PayPal became a fraud on its own, you never wanted to develop customer service, every communication was by form letter, you blamed every eBay problem on the user... Is this a good way to run the State of California, Meg?
MEG: Oh, most definitely, Jason. California, like eBay, is made up mostly of hillbillies and rednecks who never finished high school. This is the same platform I have always used successfully on eBay: as long as you can keep people confused, anything is profitable.
Take the California tradition of raising the state sales tax by one cent each time there's a major earthquake. They always promise the tax will be repealed after one year. But the people of California are so stupid, they never noticed the tax never gets repealed! Or the state lottery, whose profits were promised to go to California's schools. Yet, not a single dime ever arrived at any school. You think anyone ever noticed? Don't kid yourself! California's budget is upside-down under water because we pay our politicos beau-coup wages, far above the COL index. But those really dumb fools - who are paying the lion's share of taxes anyway - keep on paying and paying and paying, without ever questioning where the money is going. See what I mean?
And you have the balls to ask how I made eBay so successful?
What new brand of opium are you smoking, Mr. Houston?
JASON: But a lot of people are questioning whether eBay hasn't shot themselves in both feet with their destructive policy changes. Is this the way you would run California?
MEG: Again, most definitely. The informed people who have legitimate complaints are less than one tenth of one percent of the population. As long as these numbers are in our favor, a few loud-mouth rhetorics don't stand a snow cone’s chance in hell. Look at my attack on Australia. We called their bluff by instituting illegal changes anyway, even after their silly government warned us we couldn't. Did they sue us? Of course not! Since we have no physical address, we were untouchable! This has been eBay's global imprint the world over. What's good for eBay is good for California.
JASON: And how would you turn California right side up?
MEG: Like I did with eBay, I always strive for 100% honesty in everything we say about ourselves. I swear, I have never lied, hidden the truth, evaded responsibility or stretched the facts. In fact, to prove that claim, my staff has just created a fresh new doctrine for California’s Chambers of Commerce. This is our bluntly honest revised Official California Profile:
STATE FLOWER: Lemon Tree
STATE CAPITAL: Pacoima
LICENSE PLATE SLOGAN: “The GoldDiggerState”
STATE BIRD: Vulture
STATE SONG: “Born in East LA”
STATE FOOD: McDonalds
STATE LOGO: Gold Miner with Empty Pan
STATE CAR: 1991 Chevrolet Caprice
STATE CELEBRITY: Charles Manson
STATE MOTTO: “Let the Buyer Beware”
JASON: Do you have other optimistic plans?
MEG: Yes, I can fix California the same way I fixed eBay. eBay got so crowded, we needed to do some industrial-strength house cleaning. So, we instituted a lot of unpopular, crooked, communistic, unfair and mostly illegal changes. The result? People bailed eBay like rats off a sinking ship!
There's no reason the same can't work for California. This state has been overpopulated for decades. The way to keep the budget in line is to drain off the overflow. Just like we did with eBay, we’ll make it so expensive, people will leave on their own without being asked. Then California will revert to the pleasant, clean, safe, fun place it used to be. And look what's happened since we fixed eBay. Now that we've run off the riffraff, eBay is, again, the fun, safe, honest place it used to be.
Isn't it?
JASON: Well, I haven't seen any evidence of that yet, Meg. But, as they say, hope springs eternal.
