Archive for the ‘Anti-business’ Category

Who you hang around with says a lot about you …

September 23, 2011

Headline: Pres. Obama hires, hangs with and pays off  folks with “little or no credibility among grassroots businesspeople”

Interesting read with some notable snippets from  Forbe’s: How The President Helped Kill Progressivism, Capitalism And Moderation

Obama’s progressivism is shaped by his fellow academics, who have enjoyed unprecedented influence in this administration, as well as closely aligned classes such as affluent greens, urban land interests, venture capitalists and the mainstream media.

Obama’s stimulus … largely missed the recession’s biggest victims: minorities, the working class and the young.  The president instead chose to service the needs of organized constituencies such as public sector unions, large research universities and “green capitalists.”

Obama … has surrounded himself not with entrepreneurs but consummate crony capitalists — chief of staff Bill Daley (scion of the Chicago machine family), General Electric‘s Jeffrey Immelt and proposed Commerce Chief John Bryson, who has spent much time as a master manipulator for a large regulated utility.

These figures have little or no credibility among grassroots businesspeople. They are seen as being more adept at working the system than succeeding in the free market.

Ken’s Take: There won’t be a significant economic turnaround until business is on board.  Period.

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A mockery of longstanding bankruptcy law …

July 11, 2011

When the history is written on Pres. Obama’s strained relationship with American business leaders, I think that the GM non-bankruptcy bankruptcy will be tagged as the the first critical shot fired (by the President).

Just in case you forgot, here’s a recap excerpted from Reason:

Many experts suspect that  GM could have obtained private bankruptcy financing if it had presented a credible restructuring plan addressing the cause of its malaise: the uncompetitive costs of its unionized work force.

If it couldn’t, then the government could have offered guarantees to private lenders for the amounts they loaned, which likely would have been smaller than the bailout.

But the administration took matters in its own hands, using taxpayer dollars to commandeer the bankruptcy process to protect key constituencies, while giving short shrift to others.

  • It gave Chrysler’s secured creditors, who would have had priority in a normal bankruptcy, 29 cents on the dollar.
  • Chrysler’s unions, on the other hand, got more than 40 cents, even though they are equivalent to low-priority lenders.

This made a mockery of longstanding bankruptcy law, something that will make credit markets wary of lending to political sacred cows in the future.

I think CEOs could have lived with Obama firing Richard Waggoner as CEO … and then firing his replacement, Fritz Henderson … and then firing his replacement, Ed Whitacre.

But, ignoring the rule of law and subordinating secured creditors to one of Obama’s core constituencies — overpaid union hacks – was over the top.

If there were any hopes of turning around the relationship, the Administration’s moves to keep Boeing from operating a plant in right-to-work South Carolina dashed them

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Joe Wilson was right … “you lie”

February 10, 2011

On Monday, President Obama told the Chamber of Commerce that he’s pro-business and would cut both regulations and taxes.

That was Monday.

On Tuesday, the White House proposed to allow cash-strapped states to raise unemployment-insurance taxes.

Last year, Obama’s stimulus law expanded eligibility for unemployment … and the duration of its payments.

Now, the White House is moving to impose tax hikes on employers to pay for it.

Let me get this one straight.

Extend unemployment benefits … then add an employment tax that makes workers more costly … then act surprised when some of the more costly workers are canned – adding to the unemployment rolls and costs … and then raise taxes on employed workers … and so on.

Not exactly a virtuous cycle …

Every time I start thinking these guys can’t be THAT stupid … they prove me wrong.

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