No Good Times for Big Business -- They're Mad as Hell and Not Gonna Take It Anymore
Regular Joe and Jo-ettes don't spend enough time thinking about how federal policy shapes their lives on a day-to-day basis. Even in good times, most people are just too busy trying to keep their heads above water and makin' a wave when they can -- and these times are far from being Dyn-o-mite.
And if you can connect those dots you might see how I could end up at a high-end conservative activist Tea Party at the Fairmont Chicago, Millennium Park hotel during an Executives' Club of Chicago panel discussion on "The Impact of Washington's Decisions on the U.S. Economy."
Usually Executives' Club events are moderate affairs -- clubby, business-focused and a little tepid -- but Wednesday afternoon there was fiery, anti-government passion on display. And in the audience, more than a few jaws hanging open.
For instance David Chavern, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, declared that 2008 had been the slowest legislative year in decades but 2009 had immediately launched us into the most pressing core issue debates of our time where "business is the problem and government is the solution." He went on to predict that 2010 will be "the mother of all tax years."
Chavern handed the mic off to Norman Bobins, Chairman of The Private Bank & PrivateBancorp, who ripped the government's post-Lehman Brothers failure efforts to avert another Great Recession. "I do not believe we need more regulation or legislative oversight from Congress," he said, struggling with his prepared notes. "We don't need that level of micromanagement -- too much regulation will only drive people out of the system, not make things better and it'll lead to another meltdown."
Bobins was downright meek compared to William Doyle, fertilizer giant PotashCorp's President and Chief Executive Officer. Doyle offered that "Washington can't see a cornfield and has lost sight of how a truly efficient organization operates," and that "the current presidential administration is too focused on special interests to prioritize the country's urgent needs."
The rest of the discussion -- with the exception of former Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson's thoughtfully moderate comments -- pretty much went on in that same "we're not going to name names, but you know who's screwing our way of life" fashion.
It was suggested that the 2009 economic stimulus plans were not successful because they didn't drive retail sales as well as the previous administration's tax rebates had. The proposed Waxman-Markey climate change legislation was panned. China was lauded for investing 80% of their economic stimulus on infrastructure in contrast to the 80% the U.S. spent on "social welfare" programs. Downfall via devilish details and economic demise from inflation was predicted.
After about 20 minutes, people got up and started leaving in droves -- both because the hour had grown late and because the angry froth was starting to wear on those in the crowd who generally don't consider unemployment benefits for peons who aren't still making seven-figure salaries "social welfare."
My take-away: if these are the type of business people at the top who think they're going to lead "the American people" out of the gloom and into economic prosperity, I'm afraid us Regular Joes and Jo-ettes are screwed.
It's not that there wasn't truth in some of their complaints. It's not that you don't go to a business networking event expecting to hear captains of industry defend their turf at the expense of federal leadership that's been at the helm for all of seven and a half months.
It's that to say there was no hope on the stage is a tremendous understatement.
"This administration" needs to realize that no matter how hard it tries to be conciliatory, collaborative, and responsive to the needs of some parts of the business community, a lot of big businesses are mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore.
None of them really talked about profits or share. No one talked about people in any sense -- not as employees, or as consumers, or even as shareholders -- it was just whining and finger-pointing about all that's wrong with our current fiscal, economic, and monetary policy and the political leadership helming it. No innovative suggestions for how to "right this ship."
These are the doldrums, Joe and Jo-ette, and it's simply no wonder why you don't give a rat's ass about Washington D.C.'s impact on the U.S. -- or Chicago -- economy. Even the people who do care don't have you in mind.
If three representatives comprise any sort of worthwhile sample at all, then what we can glean is that Big Business is not as interested in making big plans or big money with big ideas as they are in blaming Washington D.C. for all that ultimately ails you.
Ain't we lucky we got 'em?
Esther J. Cepeda writes about regular Joes, business, and much, much more on www.600words.com
Follow Esther J. Cepeda on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@ejc600words
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Ms Cepeda,
They are "mad as hell"?
Why?
When are these folks going to wake up?
They , not us, screwed up...
They had their "cake" and "ate it too"
They are mad as hell?
Well, in the words of "Twisted Sister"
"We (the people of the United States) "ain't" going to take it, No we ain't going to take it,
Were not going to take it anymore"
They can "Sit and Spin":)
One should not be surprised that the largest corporate beneficiaries of Reaganomics and Bush-onomics would think that they've done a spectacular job for America's free market. Their lobbyists spent 20 years changing tax and import laws and regulations to allow them to move jobs formerly held by Americans to China, Taiwan, and India.
They made great profits for themselves and the one-percent of Americans who own the bulk of corporate stock, by importing goods and selling them to the same middle class which lost its jobs to foreign factories run by said U.S. corporations. In the eyes of these executives, they liberated Americans as a result of deregulation and tax reform (which shifted all of the corporate tax burden to middle-class American).
The failure of Reaganomics was to believe that supply-side strategies should be long-term, rather than using them as a temporary intervention to correct what are imperfect markets. Instead, Reagan and Bush II embarked on the longest period of corporate welfare in the history of our economy, and these executives cannot believe that the party might be over.
They're mad because the Obama administration has glued the cookie jar lid shut! They are crying because the can no longer cheat and pillage they way they've been accustomed to in the past. Get used to it! Things will never be the same and they have themselves to blame; they shot themselves in the foot!
Very well said!!
Totally agree. They knew things would change for us, they just didn't realize that meant things would have to change for them too.
I've been watching them drive the middle and low income people out of my town for years now and I've often wondered who was going to be left to "serve" this folks, at their restaurants, stores and car washes after we were all run out of town.
Read Matt Taibbi's latest article in Rolling Stone and you'll realize that nothing has changed or will change as long as Goldman Sachs ex-execs continue to hold such high postions in government. Since Reagan, Wall Street has owned the White House. I'm beginning to think health care reform and everything else is just one big attempt to keep us distracted from the continuing rape and pillage of the middle class by Wall Street.
If these guys are still tone deaf to the real reasons behind the economic collapse, then only 1 Obama will not be enough to effect change. They will oppose change at all costs as they are afraid to be stripped of their turf and influence. We need another kind of entrepreneurial leadership to replace these old guard, one that works for progress with society and sensitive to the environment instead of only lusting for profits.
Interesting -- TRULY successful business leaders -- like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, for instance, aren't whining around and blaming government, or blaming anyone.
These guys -- a fertilizer czar, a BANKER and a mouthpiece from the US Chamber, the organization that never met a worker they didn't hate -- are small potatoes. They are nobodies.
And they were throwing red meat to "their" crowd -- although good news that people started walking out.
As they said to the robber barons -- if you don't change your ways, doing things that HURT the American people, look out for government regulation. And we know what happened to them.
Of course no one has even proposed much regulation, beyond the banking thieves, so these guys must be doing some prophylactic protesting.
But if they continue to try to screw their workers and screw their customers, there WILL be regulation and they can either change now and avert it, or refuse to change and take it.
The Headline should read: I am mad as hell at Big Business and I'm not going to take it anymore.
They gobble up entrepenurial businesses then either dismantle the parts or start cost cutting and ship the jobs overseas. They care not a wink for the origins or the products or the people working for those companies. It is destroying the backbone of this country.
We are creating a feudal society with Big Business holding all the property and power to dispense money. They are their own government.
We used to have laws that protected us from monopolies. We seriously need to rethink how business is done in this country. If you produce nothing are you really a business or are you a gambling house?
If you dismantle manufacturing facilities here and recreate them in another country are you really an American company? If you are paying your employees a decent wage, paying stockholder dividends and your management salaries are commensurate with their actual worth isn't that enough? Do you really need to pay a CEO $50 million plus bonuses? Do you really need to make the company public to begin with thereby creating an obligation to shareholders, boards of directors who then have a say in the decision making which of course means they need to drive profits because they want more money FOR DOING NOTHING?
We have put our livelihoods in the hands of hedge fund gamblers.
"My take-away: if these are the type of business people at the top who think they're going to lead "the American people" out of the gloom and into economic prosperity, I'm afraid us Regular Joes and Jo-ettes are screwed."
These people envision creating a world underclass, with themselves in the high towers above the rest of us living on our backs. They'll never get the message unless strong public figures with backbones (i.e. Alan Grayson, Elizabeth Warren) are the ones who 'lead us Regular Joes and Jo-ettes' and slap them down again, remind them that we outnumber them.
They're crying all the way to the bank.
"but Wednesday afternoon there was fiery, anti-government passion on display"
They're addicted to luxury and huge profits and they're throwing a temper tantrum because their greed has bled the country dry and the government's had to rein them in.
BFD. Let them rant.
Conspicuous by its absence is any understanding of how their own fate is tied to that of regular Joes. They won't see improvement without lowering the unemployment numbers. They are also in denial about who it was squeezing regular Joes all along -- it was their bass-ackwards belief that everything that seemed good for them was best for the average Joe....that everyone lives and dies by their good fortune, not the other way around. They killed the goose that laid the golden egg, their own customers.
They squeezed so hard that only stimulus and sacrifice by them will resuscitate old Joe (er...keep the jobs here and not overseas maybe?) but still they deny cause and effect and will never willingly submit to the regulation that would have prevented the mess we're in now.
If the government did not interfere (read regulate) in the "free" market we'd all be working for just a few large companies, living in company housing and buying our clothes and food from the company store. All the while being chewed up and spit out by the corporation.
This month the Supreme Court will make a decision about whether or not companies can give money directly to campaigns. If they vote on the side of the corporations we can look forward to corporate control of the government for at least two generations.
Personal freedom does not = corporate freedom.
I believe it's called Pottersville.
Better grab your cardboard to shanty up against the Nike wall. I agree with most of the comments I've read on this article. Not sure what "Pottersville" is, but I do believe that without oversight of the free-market, we truly are going to be indentured to the "Company Store."
Reminds me of the song "Sixteen Tons" that I remember listening to in the 50's when I was a kid.
I want to congratulate all the folks commenting on this article...most are well thought out comments...nothing for shock value...that permeates a lot of the threads.
Let's have a pity party for big businesses who screw the American people, control our govt., pay their executives 1000 times more than their employees, and pay as little taxes as possible all in the name of progress. The rich just keep getting richer because they bark louder. I say put a muzzle on them.
The idea that big business is supporting is Not sustainable!! We cannot keep the past levels of consumerism and survive on the planet. We need to have a different way of measuring our prosperity and wealth...perhaps through peace, cooperation, and a happy sustainable way of life.
The current situation in the world is that everyone wants to live the "good life" and be super consumers. This is just not possible. The earth cannot sustain it. It will destroy the entire system. The power of wealth is upsetting the balance of how things were and is having a dramatic negative effect on the global system.
The power of wealth---extended through corporations and individuals--- is used to acquired goods, territory etc without accountability to anyone or any nation state. This 'business as usual' cannot continue as it will destroy the whole system with its lack of responsibility and accountability to the whole. There is not any system presently to set any limits laws or means of keeping things straight, production and positive.
Ordinary people must begin to organize and create cooperative systems based on our unity instead of the freedom to compete and dominate without any countering force.
When Big Business starts to band together, the party in power WILL lose power.
Says who? The people will band together and defeat the desires of BB.
Unless the people start to band together...
Obama must be doing something right to have these folks mad as hell. Keep it up, Obama.
Yes....keep it up. Unemployment way up.
Get used to the unemployment going up...part of the recession that BushCo foisted on all of us a year ago with the meltdown. We won't see a turn around for at least two years. It took eight years to create this mess...these business types were all a part of the problem. Where is the outrage AGAINST the Chamber of Commerce that has advocated trade agreements like NAFTA, CAFTA, to move more and more American jobs out of this country and not even benefit the poor where the jobs went to??? Where is the outrage over all the HB1 Visas that were granted by BushCo and a Repub Congress that deprive our own college graduates of decent paying jobs here in America because these same business people want foreigners to work for them for $12-!5K a year less? All of them have created a race to the bottom for our entire economy so that "a few" at the top could make out like bandits. Business has no loyalty to America...it is profit at any cost, even if it is to the American economy and the people of this country.
Yeah, because unemployment didn't start climbing under 8 years of Bush, just 8 months of Obama.
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