Reuters Insider - (Business) haters gonna hate – but who gets hurt?
13/03/2015 12:56
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Description: Don't vilify American business according to
Reuters columnists and business gurus Jack and
Suzy Welch.
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Short Link: http://reut.rs/U7M3dw
Transcript (May be auto-generated)
Don't vilify American business. It's the only way back to prosperity according
to Jack and Suzy Welch. Jack of course is the CEO of General Electric for more
than 20 years. Suzy is the former Editor of the Harvard Business Review. And
they are both founders of the Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer
University. Welcome back from summer vacation. Thank you. So you've been out
there. Do business leaders really feel vilified right now? Is it that bad? The
polarization is incredible. I mean, this Administration has gone through
insurance companies, hospital companies, oil companies- you pick them. Who's
missed? Who's been missed in the assault? So of course there are some feelings
in business that they're not very well liked. Vilified might be an overstatement
but certainly been challenged. And I don't think it's just by the
Administration. I think there's a cultural movement where it is very acceptable
and popular to have business as the bad guys. And so I think it's at both end.
It's coming from above and it's coming from your neighbors alongside. And I do
think that people in business have their backs up because of it. Why has it just
become so acceptable to be able to either talk about business in a way that
might be derogatory in some ways? Why do so many people do it now? Well, first
of all, we've forgotten how we got to this prosperity. In the end, big business
is the source of prosperity. My money doesn't create on trees. Money comes from
successful businesses, paying taxes, the employees paying taxes. So we've
forgotten some of that. We've forgotten the process. And there are several
reasons why people have a rationale if you will to hate business. There's the
tenants of socialism are out there, spread the wealth. There's too much greed.
We have phrases like 'corporations on people'. We have phrases like 'you didn't
build that'. We have lots of phrases that are driven very broadly to point out
the face that there's inequality. We want more, 'spread the wealth'. I think-
actually, I was just reflecting that when I was in business school which was 30
years ago or so, 25 years ago, there was actually a course on depictions of
business in the media. And so we looked at movies and books. And back then, they
were still, business was sort of the bad guys. Oh, this is not a brand new
thing. I mean, it's always been a Daddy Warbucks kind of view of business. The
reason why it's intensified right now is I think because of the political
environment. And so you're hearing a lot about because Mitt Romney is in
business, whether or not business is good or bad. That's what heightened it. But
as Jack said, there are people, there's a group of people who would adhere to
some or all the tenets of socialism which has a leveling aspects to it. Some
people have very personal reasons for not liking business. They've been laid
off. They had a terrible boss. They've seen greedy, dumb people get ahead. They
just feel like business is where people get burned.
I love it in the column- you have the example of the guy down the hall that was
playing beer pong or it was like the sports guy or that guy, and then he goes on
and he's like this hedge fund genius. Well, before we get to that one, okay,
there's a third one. A lot of things happened in the downturn here that- worst
downturn since the Great Depression where people lost their homes, their jobs.
So, holy cow, why did that happen? Did the banks do it? Did the regulators do
it? People don't ever feel regulators do anything bad to them or Washington does
something bad to them. The banks are a great target, throw things at the
financial institutions whether they'd be hedge funds, private equity or
whatever. But that fourth thing you were just talking about, I'll give that one
to you. Yeah, I mean, I think that fourth comment that you made about the- which
we talked about in the column this week is that there is this intellectual lead
if you will, the people who are basically in the media and government.
And these are a lot- it's a sort of a group of people we've observed this, who
went to college and they were very earnest in college and worked very, very hard
and ran their- ran the college newspapers and ran the clubs. And then they
graduate and they went off into journals and fight the good fight, or
government, fight the good fight. Thank you. I'm fighting the good fight. You're
fighting- you are, Jen. She's in television so- Right, I know, she's fighting-
Try print. The slightly less good fight, you know. But then what happened is
life was bumping along, and everything was great and you have your bylines or
whatever and you got a nice position or you're working in non-profit.
Then you sort of start hearing through the grapevine sort of 10 or 15 years out
that that dingdong down the hall, the one who played beer pong, the partying
little guy who you just thought was a complete moron, he's like a billionaire
and he's flying his kids to Aspen in a G4. And it just seems so unfair. It's
like business rewards people who just put on a suit and chum around because I
know that guy doesn't have a moral bone on his body. I know that guy is stupid
and he never fought the good fight and, look, business rewards him. And I think
that that- And they influence- -that view really is in their bones. And so then
they influence. So now we pushed back in the column and say- Let's get the push
back.
Well, that's just a little tiny wedge of Wall Street, okay? That's not all
business. Most business is real companies that make real things in services.
It's sports teams. It's summer camps and- It's a corner grocery store. I mean,
business is not those hedge fund guys. It's the little entrepreneurs. It's women
with starting a second business. It's all kinds of small businesses. Business is
good. Without business, we have nothing. It's the engine of society. It's what
gives back- All of this so is happening against the backdrop of a presidential
election. Right. Yeah, right.
So how can- I mean, you're Romney supporters, do you think that he can
capitalize on this at all? Is there any way for him to take an advantage of
this? No, no, what he can do though is make a clear connection as to what his
policies would do to everyday people in the streets who need a job. This country
needs jobs. We can't have 23 million people unemployed, underemployed. We got to
get people jobs. And the policies we have now aren't going to give jobs. And
he's going to make the connection though. He's got to make it not between him
and another CEO. He's got to make connection between himself and the person on
the floor whose neighbor is out of work and isn't being called back because it
isn't going fast enough. So he's going to make that come alive. His policies,
whether they'd be drilling for more gas and oil domestically, whether they'd be
anything else he's got, a broader tax reform, whether it be less regulation-
he's got to bring up 10 regulations of the Obama Administration. Lay them out,
and if we got rid of these 10 regulations, what have they done to kill jobs? So
that people feel it. Alright, well he's got a couple more of weeks to do it.
Jack and Suzy Welch, thank you so much, very interesting column and it's good to
have you back. Thank you. Thank you, nice to see you, Jen. I'm Jen Rogers, this
is Reuters