Trump.45 fancies himself first and foremost as a businessman par excellence and without contemporary peer. In a close second place is Trump.45’s personal legendary estimate that he is the smartest politician on the planet, possessed of n unerring instinct for the needs of common man, while he spiritually channels two American presidential greats: man of the people Andy Jackson, war hero and homespun champion, and the ineffable Abraham Lincoln savior of the nation, binder of sectarian wounds, and the Great Emancipator for the dark skinned peoples.
That after all was the initial basis for Trump.45’s appeal to America to do it right and do it better, in a business like manner à la Trump, n’est-ce pas?. Great Deals, America First. MAGA. Do it with class and panache.
Thus there are only a relative few select observers or critics who have the chops to make a meaningful comment on Trump.45’s obviously magnificent performance in his new role of a lifetime, for which he has been preparing most wonderfully for virtually all of his adult life. President of the World’s Greatest Country (As It Will Be).
As the evidence of Trump.45’s performance mounts for all to marvel, the premier judgments will gather and flower.
Here are two of the freshest viewpoints from those qualified to comment.
That is, we can leave out Democrats, the Fake News media, Obama, pansies, conspiracy theorists, Europeans, pussies, Radical Islamic Terrorists, Lefties, most women, losers, and various assorted malcontents, giving rise to a pure and morally conscious stream of commentary to highlight and embellish the social and political legacy that is Trump’s Gift to America.
To keep it real, there shall be allowed no unattributed sources or behind the back caterwauling, only directly quoted original words from the unimpeachable sources themselves, published in reputable venues with confirmation that Trump.45 would recognize.
Or, as a wag might say:” With Friends Like These, .…”
First Source Up
John Boehner (1949-), former Speaker of the House, gave a speech in Houston on May 24, 2017, reported on NPR (May 26):
Everything President Trump has done in office, apart from international affairs and foreign policy, has been a “complete disaster,” says former House Speaker John Boehner.
“Everything else he’s done [in office] has been a complete disaster,” Boehner said. “He’s still learning how to be president.”
So, Who is This Guy, Boehner?
John A. Boehner, age 67, was Republican Leader in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2011-2015. From 2006-2015 he was respectively House Majority Leader, House Minority Leader, and then Speaker of the House. He never lost a federal election, winning his House Seat 13 consecutive times from 1990 until he retired from Congress undefeated in 2015.
He never received less than 61% of the vote when he ran, and twice received more than 99% of all the votes cast in his district. Seven times he won more than 70% of the votes in the election. He represented a rock -ribbed Mid West Republican District, the 8th Congressional District in Ohio, which includes the manufacturing hubs of Cincinnati and Dayton.
He has been married only once for 44 years, plays golf, and cuts his own grass.
Second Source Up
Jack Welsh, former Chairman & CEO of General Electric, gave an interview to CNBC on May 17, 2017.
President Donald Trump has done a terrible job managing the White House bureaucracy and uniting the messaging coming out of the West Wing, former GE chief executive Jack Welch told CNBC on Wednesday.
“I give him a D minus and I’m being an easy grader,” Welch said on “Squawk Box” in a wide-ranging interview.
Calling Trump’s firing of James Comey as FBI director last week a “rookie mistake,” Welch said, “You don’t make any friends doing it the way [Trump] did it.”
And for reinforcement of the message, here is a second account:
But Welch also had some sharp words for how the president is running the White House, calling Trump’s approach to firing Comey a “rookie mistake,” questioning his handling of messaging and communications and giving him an overall “D-minus” when it comes to managing the federal bureaucracy.
“I think without question we’ve got a guy that’s on the right agenda with crappy management practices,” Welch said on CNBC. He suggested he would give Trump a “D-minus” for management. “And,” he noted, “I’m being an easy grader here.”
Welch started with Trump’s approach to firing FBI Director James B. Comey last week, which was done from afar — Comey was reported to have learned about his firing from a television news broadcast while addressing FBI employees.
“I don’t want to argue whether Comey should have been thrown out or not. But clearly you don’t fire him the way Trump fired him,” said Welch, who is now chairman of an eponymous online MBA program at for-profit Strayer University. “Clearly you don’t make any friends doing it the way he did it. There’s going to be retribution. It’s a minor league — it’s a rookie mistake.”
Welch also criticized Trump’s handling of his communications team. “You’ve got to get your communications team all together with you, and they’ve got to live with you, so everybody gets the same message. Everybody speaks with one tongue. This is crazy. He says one thing, they say something else, and the press has a party.”
And Who is This Guy, Welsh?
Jack F. Welsh (1935-) is the 81 year old former, near legendary Chairman & CEO of General Electric from 1980-2001, Unlike Trump, he has a real education, with a Bachelor and a Master degree and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering (1960) to substantially inform his general opinions. Welsh worked his whole professional life for the public company General Electric and rose to became CEO in 1981, the youngest CEO in General Electric’s company history of more than 125 years (founded 1892). In 1999, Fortune magazine named Welsh “Manager of the Century”.
There are few business accolades that would have given Trump.45 a deeply erotic charge. That is one of them. And in 1999 Trump.45 would have thought himself vaguely in the running, at least in his own mind.
In 2001 when Welsh retired at 65, the company’s revenues were $125.9 billion, and annual profits were $!4.1 billion His severance package was $417 million, the largest ever awarded in American business to that time. Welsh’s personal wealth ot about $750 million is entirely self-made, without a family company or millions in unearned inheritance to boost his chances of success, unlike Trump.45’s family company and inheritance financial rocket ship starter.
Welsh is a longtime Republican booster, a Trump.45 fan and supporter, and a member of Trump’s President’s Strategic and Policy Forum (December 2016). Welsh shares Trump.45’s penchant for multiple marriages three at last count), marital drama, and fireworks of the personal sort. Brothers in arms.
Grading Perspective for the First Semester of Trump’s America
Boehner was a Republican political stalwart for more than 25 years, with popular vote margins Trump.45 can’t even dream about, representing a solid red district with tens of thousands of manufacturing workers. Jack Welsh rose to lead a public company whose performance 15 years ago was 10 times larger than anything Trump has ever seen even to the present day, with more profits than all of Trump’s 500 enterprises ever had in total revenues.
Cut either of these boys, and they bleed Republican political and business red.
As far as Trump.45’s first semester performance, he is (directly quoting) a disaster, makes rookie mistakes, gets a D-minus managing the Federal bureaucracy on an easy curve, has crappy management practices, and his handling of the communications team is crazy.
Oh, boy!
A normal person would blush deep burning crimson facing such insulting public comments from men who actually have earned their places at the table to make comment.
Trump.45’s reaction? Betcha’ he just blows it off as bilious envy talking by losers.
It strikes an independent observer that maybe Trump.45’s external focus on Democrats and the media might be aiming in the wrong direction. The real issue for his hugely anticipated new War Room is the friendly fire exploding from inside the walls of his own High Castle.
And one more thing. No more free rounds of golf for that Boehner guy at any of Trump’s properties. That’ll fix his wagon. Take a note.
Report on John Boehner’s Speech (May 26,2017):
Everything President Trump has done in office, apart from international affairs and foreign policy, has been a “complete disaster,” says former House Speaker John Boehner.
Boehner was speaking at an energy conference Wednesday and praised the president’s willingness to dedicate more resources to combating ISIS.
“Everything else he’s done [in office] has been a complete disaster,” Boehner said. “He’s still learning how to be president.”
The comments were made at a Q&A lunch event and were first reported by Rigzone, an energy trade publication. Boehner, who resigned from the House in October 2015, spoke for about an hour, and a spokesman for the former speaker confirmed the comments to NPR on Friday.
The Ohio Republican added that he “never envisioned” Trump as president, throughout their 15 years as friends and golf buddies.
In regard to policy, Boehner said he’s “60/40” on whether Trump will be able to get tax reform done and he thinks the president “did what he could” on health care. He said, however, that a repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act is “not going to happen.”
“Republicans never ever agree on health care,” he said.
Boehner faced challenges leading the GOP-controlled House in 2015, as the more conservative Republican members became especially unsatisfied with him.
Wednesday’s comments weren’t his first digs since leaving office. Last year, he called Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, “Lucifer in the flesh.”
Boehner said he is happier now since he left Congress and added that he has no desire to run for president.
“I drink red wine. I smoke cigarettes. I golf. I cut my own grass. I iron my own clothes,” he said. “And I’m not willing to give all that up to be president.”
Wikipedia entry for John Boehner (partial):
John Andrew Boehner (born November 17, 1949) is an American politician who served as the 53rd Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2011 to 2015. A member of the Republican Party, Boehner was the U.S. Representative from Ohio’s 8th congressional district, serving from 1991 to 2015. The district included several rural and suburban areas near Cincinnati and Dayton.
Boehner previously served as the House Minority Leader from 2007 until 2011, and House Majority Leader from 2006 until 2007. Boehner’s almost nine years as the Republican Leader in the House (four years as Minority Leader and nearly five years as Speaker) was the longest consecutive tenure for a Republican Leader in the House since Bob Michel of Illinois served 14 years as House Minority Leader between 1981 and 1995. Boehner resigned from the House of Representatives in October 2015 due to opposition from within the Republican caucus.
In September 2016, Squire Patton Boggs, the third-largest lobbying firm in the U.S., announced that Boehner would join their firm. Also, Boehner will become a board member of Reynolds American, the second biggest tobacco firm in the U.S., for an estimated annual salary of $400,000.
Report on Jack Welsh’s interview (May 17, 2017):
President Donald Trump has done a terrible job managing the White House bureaucracy and uniting the messaging coming out of the West Wing, former GE chief executive Jack Welch told CNBC on Wednesday.
“I give him a D minus and I’m being an easy grader,” Welch said on “Squawk Box” in a wide-ranging interview. He also said a Trump impeachment would “blow the market away.”
Welch, executive chairman of Jack Welch Management Institute, said Trump is on the right track with policies that would boost the economy but with “crappy management practices.”
Calling Trump’s firing of James Comey as FBI director last week a “rookie mistake,” Welch said, “You don’t make any friends doing it the way [Trump] did it.”
While giving Trump a D minus for management, Welch said he gives the president an A on policies such as tax reform and deregulation and on his Cabinet and Supreme Court picks.
“I [also] give him an A on the morale of the business community and the morale in the country — the spirit in the country — the consumer confidence [and] the new salaries for kids getting out [of college]. There’s an air of confidence,” he said.
A second report:
Jack Welch, whose tenure at General Electric made him a management icon in the 1990s and 2000s, has been a huge fan of President Trump’s.
A longtime Republican supporter, he got behind Trump last year, praising his plans for tax cuts, regulatory reform and aggressive stance on terrorism. He’s been called a member of Trump’s “kitchen cabinet” and lauded his business-minded approach to the presidency, saying on cable TV it’s “like talking to a peer.” Welch raised eyebrows in 2012 for claiming the Obama administration had skewed the jobs numbers; Trump frequently referred to the government’s unemployment figures as being “phony” before becoming president.
The former chief executive, now 81, is still a big fan of Trump’s policies, saying on CNBC Wednesday morning that he would give the president an “A” for things like his Cabinet selections, his agenda and the business community’s confidence. But Welch also had some sharp words for how the president is running the White House, calling Trump’s approach to firing Comey a “rookie mistake,” questioning his handling of messaging and communications and giving him an overall “D-minus” when it comes to managing the federal bureaucracy.
“I think without question we’ve got a guy that’s on the right agenda with crappy management practices,” Welch said on CNBC. He suggested he would give Trump a “D-minus” for management. “And,” he noted, “I’m being an easy grader here.”
Welch started with Trump’s approach to firing FBI Director James B. Comey last week, which was done from afar — Comey was reported to have learned about his firing from a television news broadcast while addressing FBI employees.
“I don’t want to argue whether Comey should have been thrown out or not. But clearly you don’t fire him the way Trump fired him,” said Welch, who is now chairman of an eponymous online MBA program at for-profit Strayer University. “Clearly you don’t make any friends doing it the way he did it. There’s going to be retribution. It’s a minor league — it’s a rookie mistake.”
Welch then seemed to compare Trump to his predecessor. “You’ve got to give Obama credit. There was no trouble on that team,” Welch said. “He had that team around him. They spoke with one voice.”
Returning to Trump, he said, “He set a great mission: Make America Great Again. Get jobs back. Strong military. Lead the country. He had the mission. Now you align the troops around the mission, everybody buys it. If they don’t get on the bus, throw them the hell off the bus.”
Welch appeared to go on to presume that Trump knew who was leaking information, and that Trump would be able to fire them. “Why he’s letting these people that are leaking everything hang around,” he said, “it’s crazy management.”
One of the “Squawk Box” hosts asked Welch whether Trump should have known that from the business world, or if political leadership was a different thing. “No, I think he was an entrepreneur who ran his own shop,” Welch said. “He never ran a bureaucracy, in my opinion. If you run a bureaucracy, they’re in the weeds. They’re behind the desk. They’re whispering at the water cooler. You’ve got to nail them and get them the hell out of there. And he didn’t do that.”
Welch also criticized Trump’s handling of his communications team. “You’ve got to get your communications team all together with you, and they’ve got to live with you, so everybody gets the same message. Everybody speaks with one tongue. This is crazy. He says one thing, they say something else, and the press has a party.”
Welch appeared to be referring to the shifting explanations Trump and his team have made regarding Comey’s firing, as well as on Trump’s sharing of classified information during an Oval Office meeting last week.
Though critical of Trump’s management of the White House, Welch, a member of Trump’s business advisory council, is clearly still a fan. “I love the people he’s picked: Betsy DeVos, Scott Pruitt, the military side, Rex Tillerson. I love those people. I think they’re great,” Welch said, adding “there’s an air of confidence” in the business community and among consumers. Welch also referred to the Russia story as one of “these little things” and said he thought any impeachment proceeding would “blow the market away.”
Wikipedia entry for Jack Welsh (partial):
John Francis “Jack” Welch, Jr. (born November 19, 1935) is an American retired business executive, author, and chemical engineer. He was chairman and CEO of General Electric between 1981 and 2001. During his tenure at GE, the company’s value rose 4,000%. In 2006, Welch’s net worth was estimated at $720 million. When he retired from GE he received a severance payment of $417 million, the largest such payment in history.
Jack Welch was born in Peabody, Massachusetts, the son of Grace (Andrews), a homemaker, and John Francis Welch, Sr, a Boston & Maine Railroad conductor. Welch is Irish American and Roman Catholic. His paternal and maternal grandparents were Irish.
Throughout his early life in middle school and high school, Welch found work in the summers as a golf caddie, newspaper delivery boy, shoe salesman, and drill press operator. Welch attended Salem High School, where he participated in baseball, football, and captained the hockey team.
Late in his senior year, Welch was accepted to University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he studied chemical engineering. Welch worked in chemical engineering at Sunoco and PPG Industries during his college summers. In his sophomore year, he became a member of the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity. Welch graduated in 1957 with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering, turning down offers from several companies in order to attend graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He graduated from the University of Illinois, in 1960, with a Master’s degree and a PhD in chemical engineering.
General Electric
Welch joined General Electric in 1960. He worked as a junior chemical engineer in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, at a salary of $10,500. In 1961, Welch planned to quit his job as junior engineer because he was dissatisfied with the raise offered to him and was unhappy with the bureaucracy he observed at GE. Welch was persuaded to remain at GE by Reuben Gutoff, an executive at the company, who promised him that he would help create the small-company atmosphere Welch desired. In 1963, an explosion at the factory which was under his management blew off the roof of the facilities, and he was almost fired for that episode.
By 1968, Welch became the vice president and head of GE’s plastics division, which at the time was a $26 million operation for GE. Welch oversaw production as well as the marketing for the GE-developed plastics Lexan and Noryl. Not long after, in 1971, Welch also became the vice president of GE’s metallurgical and chemical divisions. By 1973, Welch was named the head of strategic planning for GE and he held that position until 1979, which involved him now working from the corporate headquarters, exposing him to many of the “big fish” he would one day be among. Not long after his promotion to head of strategic planning, Welch was named senior vice president and head of Consumer Products and Services Division in 1977, a position he held until 1979 when he became the vice chairman of GE.
In 1981, Welch became GE’s youngest chairman and CEO, succeeding Reginald H. Jones. By 1982, Welch had dismantled much of the earlier management put together by Jones with aggressive simplification and consolidation. One of his primary leadership directives was that GE had to be No. 1 or No. 2 in the industries it participated in.
CEO
Through the 1980s, Welch sought to streamline GE. In 1981, he made a speech in New York City called “Growing fast in a slow-growth economy”. Under Welch’s leadership, GE increased market value from $12 billion in 1981 to $280 billion, making 600 acquisitions while shifting into emerging markets. Welch pioneered a policy of informality at the work place, allowing all employees to have a small business experience at a large corporation. Welch worked to eradicate perceived inefficiency by trimming inventories and dismantling the bureaucracy that had almost led him to leave GE in the past. He closed factories, reduced pay rolls and cut lackluster units. Welch’s public philosophy was that a company should be either No. 1 or No. 2 in a particular industry, or else leave it completely.
Welch valued surprise and made unexpected visits to GE’s plants and offices. Welch popularized so-called “rank and yank” policies used now by other corporate entities. Each year, Welch would fire the bottom 10% of his managers, regardless of absolute performance. He earned a reputation for brutal candor. He rewarded those in the top 20% with bonuses and stock options. He also broadened the stock options program at GE, extending availability from top executives to nearly one third of all employees. Welch is also known for abolishing the nine-layer management hierarchy and bringing a sense of informality to the company.
During the early 1980s he was dubbed “Neutron Jack” (in reference to the neutron bomb) for eliminating employees while leaving buildings intact. In Jack: Straight From The Gut, Welch states that GE had 411,000 employees at the end of 1980, and 299,000 at the end of 1985. Of the 112,000 who left the payroll, 37,000 were in businesses that GE sold, and 81,000 were reduced in continuing businesses. In return, GE had increased its market capital tremendously. Welch reduced basic research, and closed or sold off businesses that were under-performing.
In 1986, GE acquired RCA. RCA’s corporate headquarters were located in Rockefeller Center; Welch subsequently took up an office in the now GE Building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The RCA acquisition resulted in GE selling off RCA properties to other companies and keeping NBC as part of the GE portfolio of businesses. During the 1990s, Welch shifted GE’s business from manufacturing to financial services through numerous acquisitions.
Welch adopted Motorola’s Six Sigma quality program in late 1995. In 1980, the year before Welch became CEO, GE recorded revenues of roughly $26.8 billion. By 1999 he was named “Manager of the Century” by Fortune magazine.
There was a lengthy and publicized succession planning saga prior to his retirement among James McNerney, Robert Nardelli, and Jeffrey Immelt, with Immelt eventually selected to succeed Welch as chairman and CEO. Nardelli became the CEO of Home Depot until his resignation in early 2007, and until recently, was the CEO of Chrysler, while McNerney became CEO of 3M until he left that post to serve in the same capacity at Boeing.
Welch’s “walk-away” package from GE was not valued at the time of his retirement, but GMI Ratings estimates its worth at $420 million.
He served as Chairman of The Business Council in 1991 and 1992.
Criticism
According to BusinessWeek, critics of Welch have questioned whether the pressure he placed on employees may have led them to “cut corners”, which may have contributed to controversies over defense-contracting, or the Kidder, Peabody & Co. bond-trading scheme in the early 1990s.
Welch has received criticism for a lack of compassion for the middle class and working class. By his actions during acquisitions and wholesale shutdowns of GE business units Welch proved that keeping only the “good” units of a company can maximize ROI in the short term. Welch has stated that he is not concerned with the discrepancy between the salaries of top-paid CEOs and those of average workers. When asked about the issue of excessive CEO pay, Welch has said that such allegations are “outrageous” and has vehemently opposed proposed SEC regulations affecting executive compensation. Countering the public uproar over excessive executive pay (including backdating stock options, golden parachutes for nonperformance, and extravagant retirement packages), Welch stated that CEO compensation should continue to be dictated by the free market, without interference from government or other outside parties.
Welch’s income and assets came under scrutiny during his divorce from his second wife, Jane, in 2001, after she included details in divorce papers of what she said he received as benefits from GE. Welch’s contracts with GE were subsequently investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The retention package, worth $2.5 million, was agreed upon by Welch and GE in 1996 and promised him continued access after his retirement to benefits he received as CEO including an apartment in New York, baseball tickets and the use of a private jet and chauffeured car. The benefits were agreed upon in lieu of a more traditional stock package because, according to Welch, he did not want more money, preferring instead to retain the lifestyle he had enjoyed as CEO once he retired. According to an interview with Welch in 2009, the agreement was filed with the SEC. As a result of the media attention and accusations of being “greedy,” Welch chose to renounce the benefits.
Later life
Following Welch’s retirement from General Electric, he became an adviser to private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and to the chief executive of IAC, Barry Diller. In addition to his consulting and advisory roles, Welch has been active on the public speaking circuit and co-wrote a popular column for BusinessWeek with his wife, Suzy, for four years until November 2009. The column was syndicated by The New York Times.
In September 2004, the Central Intelligence Agency published a parody of Welch applying his management skills while serving as imagined Deputy Director of Intelligence.
In 2005, he published Winning, a book about management co-written with Suzy Welch, which reached No. 1 on The Wall Street Journal bestseller list, and appeared on New York Times Best Seller list.
On January 25, 2006, Welch gave his name to Sacred Heart University’s College of Business, which will be known as the “John F. Welch College of Business”. Since September 2006, Welch has been teaching a class at the MIT Sloan School of Management to a hand-picked group of 30 MBA students with a demonstrated career interest in leadership.
Jack Welch Management Institute
In 2009, Welch founded the Jack Welch Management Institute (JWMI), a program at Chancellor University that offered an online executive MBA. The institute was acquired by Strayer University in 2011 Welch has been very actively involved with the curriculum, faculty and students since the beginning of the institution. JWMI’s MBA program was recently named the number one most influential education brand on Linkedin and one of the top business schools to watch in 2016. While JWMI is not ranked by U.S. News & World Report, the school has been recognized in the online education community as reputable. Its goal is not to make money, but to build over time focusing on the quality of the program and increasing the number of students enrolled year after year.
At GE, Welch became known for his teaching and growing leaders. He has taught at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and teaches seminars to CEOs all over the globe. “More than 35 CEOs at today’s top companies [are] trained under Jack Welch”. He demonstrates his passion for the institute by being highly involved with the students, faculty, and the development of the curriculum. JWMI students have direct access to Welch and he hosts quarterly video conferences with his students.
It is known that along with his video conferences, Welch creates many video responses to messages on bulletin boards and answers individual emails. His investment in the university is also reflected in his interest in the institute’s Net Promoter score (NPS). He administers surveys on satisfaction regularly and scrutinizes the results to find scores that need improvement. In an interview with Wired Academic, Welch explained the overall status of his MBA program, stating that the persistence rate of students continuing on to a second year had grown from 90% to 95%, and that JWMI turns away very few students in the admissions process. He also said that he would like better leadership training for MBA students.
Personal life
Welch had four children with his first wife, Carolyn. They divorced amicably in April 1987 after 28 years of marriage. His second wife, Jane Beasley, was a former mergers-and-acquisitions lawyer. She married Welch in April 1989, and they divorced in 2003. While Welch had crafted a prenuptial agreement, Beasley insisted on a ten-year time limit to its applicability, and thus she was able to leave the marriage reportedly with around $180 million.
Welch’s third wife, Suzy Wetlaufer (née Spring), co-authored his 2005 book Winning as Suzy Welch. She served briefly as the editor-in-chief of the Harvard Business Review. Welch’s wife at the time, Jane Beasley, found out about an affair between Wetlaufer and Welch. Beasley informed the review and Wetlaufer was forced to resign in early 2002 after admitting to the affair with Welch while preparing an interview with him for the magazine.
Since January 2012, Welch and Suzy Welch wrote a biweekly column for Reuters and Fortune, which they both left on October 9, 2012, after an article critical of Welch and his GE career was published by Fortune.
Personal opinions
Welch identifies politically as a Republican. He has stated that the idea of global warming is “the attack on capitalism that socialism couldn’t bring”, and that it is a form of “mass neurosis”. Yet, he has said that every business must embrace green products and green ways of doing business, “whether you believe in global warming or not…because the world wants these products”.
Regarding shareholder value, Welch said in a Financial Times interview on the global financial crisis of 2008–2009, “On the face of it, shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world. Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy…your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products”.
Welch has been publicly criticized for his opinions on job numbers from September 2012. After the Bureau of Labor Statistics released employment data stating that the U.S. unemployment rate had dropped from 8.1% to 7.8%, Welch tweeted, “Unbelievable jobs numbers…these Chicago guys will do anything…can’t debate so change numbers” Welch has stood by his tweet stating if he could write the tweet again, he would add question marks at the end to make it clear that his intention was to raise a question over the legitimacy of the job numbers. A subsequent report on the figures suggested manipulation of the figures but did not prove political manipulation. In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Welch wrote that the debate has led to people looking at unemployment data more carefully and skeptically. Referencing his original tweet, he stated “Thank God I did”, in a Squawk Box appearance, and also wrote, “The coming election is too important to be decided on a number. Especially when that number seems so wrong”.
Jack Welsh is undoubtedly not a good man or a nice man, but he was a wickedly ruthless and effective business competitor, up to and including bending any number of rules and conventions.. His personal life story as an adult is a tale of misadventure, unfaithfulness, and personal shortcomings, though with a rich payout. In some respects similar to the personal misadventure saga of Trump.45, with multiple marriages, intrigue, adultery, and pre-nuptial derring-do.
One critical difference is that Trump.45’s business credit ledger is considerably weaker and less polished than that of Jack Welsh, so any of Welsh’s flaws are likely to be especially magnified in Trump’s behavioral results.
There is no empirical evidence that Welsh’s strongest qualities would make for a good President, nor has he ever delivered in that regard. America the country is not
at its heart a business, and even when GM was the Cat’s Meow it never was, in truth. The wealthiest businessmen inevitably confuse accumulation of golden assets as a mark of God’s special favor and an inherent ability to do anything by mere assumption of competence, however slender the reed of truth it rests upon.
As with Welsh, so too for Trump.45. as he is just beginning to learn. “It’s harder than I thought”. Indeed it is, but only because Trump.45 was too intellectually dense and self-absorbed to figure that obviousness out ahead of time, like any half-smart rational adult, even those without one Ivy League degree.
Nonetheless, for our purposes, Welsh and his flaws are a good comparator for Trump.45 in his own element qua business manager, the heart of Trump.45’s claimed lifetime expertise. Necessary, not sufficient.
Trump.45’s Semester Grade is still a D-minus for crappy management, ignoring the other stuff for which Welsh is not a reliable guide: community, social welfare, shared sacrifice, international diplomacy, respect for the bottom 10%, etc.
If Trump.45 fails on management criteria, why would anyone pay attention to a thing he has to pontificate about in other realms of human endeavor?