Kudos to interviewer Kermit Pattison for letting this penny ante Gordon Gekko speak so clearly in his own words. This is actually a good lesson in marketing.

Kudos to interviewer Kermit Pattison for letting this penny ante Gordon Gekko speak so clearly in his own words. This is actually a good lesson in marketing. Everything he says recasts the situation in terms of a problem that management consulting can fix with simple solutions. It's not the recession, it's poor salesmanship. A problem that can be solved by a consultant. A massive pan-industry collapse in sales, inventory, credit, and utilization could not be fixed by three ring binders and training classes. Lack of vendor financing. A problem that can be solved by a consultant tightening the screws, backed up by a long list of companies that were helped. This is survivor bias. The successes are selected for companies whose vendors are idiotic enough to finance their customers AND lucky enough to survive the folly. It also relies on the presence of other parties who are willing to buy mis-rated bonds and do factoring (loaning against small business receivables). Both of these are being choked off, and may well come to an apocalyptic end as the financial collapse continues. Whereupon all his "saved" clients will blow up. "Getting good people is 100 times more difficult than conventional wisdom says. The fact is, you’re going to deal with a lot of mediocre people, no matter how hard you try." In other words, your employees are sabotaging your company, because all employees do this. The only solution is new management policies. Fear is the best motivator. Soliders have a word for leaders like this. Fragged.