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3 CommentsTranscript below.
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28 CommentsNow before you get start reading this post, I did not include all the different things that were being done to fix the economy or the many positive numbers that were coming out of 2000. I just focused on signs that the economy was slowing down and Bush’s plan to fix it. I looked at New York Times articles from June 2000 to Inauguration Day in 2001.
This is a blatant attempt to fortify liberals with ammunition against the Bush revisionists who cannot and will not take responsibility for the Recession of 2001. Yes, the signs were there that a slow down was imminent, even occurring in different segments of the economy. However, the job of the President and his administration is to mitigate those economic slow downs, so they don’t turn into a recession.
Economies are cyclic, but the economy does not have to go into a recession as part of a slow down. Just look at the administrations of Kennedy, Johnson and Clinton to see years without recessions.
The question I come away with all of this is how much notice did the Bush Campaign and then Transition Team need in order to move the economy in the correct direction? I believe eight months is enough time.
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17 CommentsWinthrop Smith — son of one of the original partners of Merrill Lynch Pearce Fenner and Smith — gave an occasionally angry eulogy for Merrill Lynch at the shareholders meeting that was to approve ML being sold to Bank of America:
Today did not have to come. In the past it was Merrill Lynch that came to the rescue of Goodbody, White Weld and Becker. It was Merrill Lynch that strong and successful firms like Fenner & Beane, CJ Devine, Smith New Court, DSP in India, Midland Walwyn in Canada and Mercury Asset Management wanted to join. Merrill always thrived in times of turmoil and grew market share. Today did not have to come.
Today is not the result of the sub-prime mess or synthetic CDOs. They are the symptoms. This is the story of failed leadership and the failure of a Board of Directors to understand what was happening to this great company, and its failure to take action soon enough.
I stand here today and say shame to both the current as well as the former Directors who allowed this former CEO to wreak havoc on this great company.
Shame on them for allowing this former CEO to consciously and openly disparage Mother Merrill, throw our founding principles down a flight of stairs and tear out the soul of the firm.
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6 CommentsLast week, Senator Shelby from Alabama spoke out about government subsidies for manufacturing in the US. He is definitely against and thinks that subsidizing manufacturing is French.
The CEO from Compuware writes to the Senator to remind him of the subsidies his state provided for Mercedes Benz:
I am sure you were adamantly against the State of Alabama offering lucrative incentives (in essence, subsidies) to Mercedes Benz in the early 1990s to lure the German automobile manufacturer to the State.
As it turned out, Alabama offered a stunning $253 million incentive package to Mercedes. Additionally, the State also offered to train the workers, clear and improve the site, upgrade utilities, and buy 2,500 Mercedes Benz vehicles. All told, it is estimated that the incentive package totaled anywhere from $153,000 to $220,000 per created job. On top of all this, the State gave the foreign automaker a large parcel of land worth between $250 and $300 million, which was coincidentally how much the company expected to invest in building the plant.
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