By Scott St. Clair | The Save Jersey Blog
When I think of business people, I never think of politicians, bureaucrats, political bosses or crony capitalists. Yet that’s pretty much what you see in the NJBiz.com’s list of the Top 100 business leaders in the state, with the top five named in The Star-Ledger aptly fitting the description.
From Gov. Christie on down, the top five are all current or former elected or appointed government officials, with a political boss mixed in for good measure.
The next 10 is more of the same. The closest anyone comes to being a “business person” are two executives from highly regulated companies, which means they do the bidding of the government.
New Jersey is bereft of anyone with the stature of Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Jack Welch or any of the best-performing CEO’s in the world as named by the Harvard Business Review.
I had to go all the way down to number 36 to find Goya CEO Robert Unanue before it was back to legislators, mayors, regulators and the like.
We’re consistently ranked the least business-friendly state in America. Maybe that’s because we have so few real business people in the state to show how it’s done. Politicians, bureaucrats, political bosses and their cronies don’t qualify.
I love it when professionals who own their own practice consider themselves “business” savvy.
OMG. Unreal. This organization is taking nominations: http://atlasshruggedcronyawards.com