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Wow, a whole lot of people in this thread don't know about Jack Welch and his outsized influence on the current state of US business. No, US businesses did not

Wow, a whole lot of people in this thread don't know about Jack Welch and his outsized influence on the current state of US business. No, US businesses did not always focus exclusively on current quarter's earnings, nor did they lay people off every year to juice the share price. In fact, before Jack Welch, many US corporations openly said that their mission was to "build/provide X", and that dividends to shareholders were just another bill to pay on their way to providing X. Although he wasn't the only one, Jack Welch was probably the biggest figurehead of the "shareholder value" movement, and was given deity status by the business press back in the 80s. The revelation that his amazing numbers at GE were based upon deceptive accounting practices, hasn't seemed to dampen his influence one bit.

themadturk 3y ago
And look where G.E. is now...
shiroiuma 3y ago
I wonder what things would be like now if someone went back in time and assassinated Jack Welch as a child....
- shiroiuma 3y ago
  I wonder why I'm being down-voted for this. Obviously I'm not advocating murder unless you really believe in time travel; it's a thought experiment about how the present would be different if this individual had not gotten to the position he did in the corporate world, similar to the questions about the effects of murdering Hitler before he joined the Nazis. My thought is that taking out baby Jack Welch probably wouldn't have that much effect, and someone very similar would have come along not much later. I think a big part of the reason many big American companies were able to function the way they did (basically not worrying so much about profits) was because America got rich by being the one untouched industrial power at the end of WWII, and this gave them the luxury of building these companies into powerhouses that didn't have much competition to worry about and that could be idealistic and also wasteful. But this advantage eroded after several decades so it eventually became more important to maximize profitability and this required (or facilitated) someone like Welch.
  - jewayne 3y ago
    > this gave them the luxury of building these companies into powerhouses that didn't have much competition to worry about and that could be idealistic and also wasteful. But this advantage eroded after several decades so it eventually became more important to maximize profitability and this required (or facilitated) someone like Welch. You've got it backwards. The current state of US business is ideologically driven and wasteful. Two economies that were wrecked during WWII -- Germany and Japan -- are less shareholder driven than the US and therefore actually able to produce quality goods and services.
    - shiroiuma 3y ago
      >Two economies that were wrecked during WWII -- Germany and Japan -- are less shareholder driven than the US and therefore actually able to produce quality goods and services. That's true, but it seems like you're blaming Jack Welch for this. I think it was something that was going to happen anyway, and is simply a product of American culture.

themadturk 3y ago

And look where G.E. is now...

shiroiuma 3y ago

I wonder what things would be like now if someone went back in time and assassinated Jack Welch as a child....

shiroiuma 3y ago
I wonder why I'm being down-voted for this. Obviously I'm not advocating murder unless you really believe in time travel; it's a thought experiment about how the present would be different if this individual had not gotten to the position he did in the corporate world, similar to the questions about the effects of murdering Hitler before he joined the Nazis. My thought is that taking out baby Jack Welch probably wouldn't have that much effect, and someone very similar would have come along not much later. I think a big part of the reason many big American companies were able to function the way they did (basically not worrying so much about profits) was because America got rich by being the one untouched industrial power at the end of WWII, and this gave them the luxury of building these companies into powerhouses that didn't have much competition to worry about and that could be idealistic and also wasteful. But this advantage eroded after several decades so it eventually became more important to maximize profitability and this required (or facilitated) someone like Welch.
- jewayne 3y ago
  > this gave them the luxury of building these companies into powerhouses that didn't have much competition to worry about and that could be idealistic and also wasteful. But this advantage eroded after several decades so it eventually became more important to maximize profitability and this required (or facilitated) someone like Welch. You've got it backwards. The current state of US business is ideologically driven and wasteful. Two economies that were wrecked during WWII -- Germany and Japan -- are less shareholder driven than the US and therefore actually able to produce quality goods and services.
  - shiroiuma 3y ago
    >Two economies that were wrecked during WWII -- Germany and Japan -- are less shareholder driven than the US and therefore actually able to produce quality goods and services. That's true, but it seems like you're blaming Jack Welch for this. I think it was something that was going to happen anyway, and is simply a product of American culture.