Corporate America has failed. (Which managers or economists were standing up to say America is going in the wrong direction?) The proof is the decline of the economy of the entire world. It is a decline that was started by America’s leading corporations. This decline did not start in 2008. It started decades ago when U.S. manufacturers decided that they did not need to respond to Japan’s companies who had determined to define their products as the quality alternative.
The astonishing rise of quality products in Japan was the result of William Edwards Deming, an American, whose quality control ideas were largely ignored by the United States manufacturing community until the 1990s. The consequence of Japan’s pursuit of quality products resulted in the success of Toyota, Honda, Canon, Panasonic, and a plethora of other quality conscious companies throughout the Far East and southern Asia.
Our nation went from being a creditor country to a debtor. To counteract the decline of America’s manufacturing supremacy our government, in conjunction with the finance industry, determined that easy credit was the tool of choice to promote capitalism. It is a philosophy that has worked well for at least 30 years. Both government and business told Americans to just keep buying everything and everything will be OK. The idea was that every kind of investment will continue to grow in value forever as long as we all keep spending.
A simple proof of this philosophy occurred after the 9-11 attack in New York City. Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, lowered interest rates (2.5% to 1.75%). President George W. Bush told everyone to keep buying everything.
Where were the managers of our corporations as all of this was happening? They were making millions of dollars for themselves. Bernie Madoff and others like him bought into the idea that the value of everything would never go down. The idea was It’s a never ending pyramid scheme! CNBC documents the philosophy on it’s program House of Cards. This program tells the frightening reality. An unapologetic, unremorseful Alan Greenspan drove me wild.
US
Saturday, February 14th 7p | 10p ET
Sunday, February 15th 9p ET
Monday, February 16th 8p | 12a ET
Sunday, March 1st Midnight ET
Sunday, March 15th 9p ET
ASIA
Monday, February 16th 8p | 11P SIN/HK
Tuesday, February 17th 4a SIN/HK
Australia
Monday, February 16th 10p AEDT
Tuesday, February 17th 2a | 7a AEDT
Now we are in the ditch. I do not know all the answers. Clearly our smartest people do not know the answers either. For starters I suggest we fire all the top managers in all the companies that are asking for federal bail outs. “Yes we can” and we should.
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