Why CEOs can’t stand Obama
In unusually vitriolic attacks on a sitting president, including references to communist Russia and Adolf Hitler, CEOs have complained they can’t predict what Obama will do next — and how his new regulations and taxes might hit their companies.
By Michael Brush at MSN Money
EXCERPTS:
‘Is fear of President Barack Obama one reason we’re stuck with sluggish economic growth?
That’s the message the CEOs of several major companies are sending out.’
‘There’s certainly a lot of uncertainty out there as we approach November’s midterm elections. Next year’s tax rules are in limbo. The effects of health care and financial reform have yet to be seen. And then there’s what many perceive as an anti-CEO message in Obama’s rhetoric — aimed mostly at chiefs of big banks and health insurers but also at hunkered-down execs in general.’
‘Consider the following attacks on Obama and the Democrats in recent months:
* Intel CEO Paul Otellini, referring to Obama and the Democrats, said in an August speech to the Technology Policy Institute’s Aspen Forum, “I think this group does not understand what it takes to create jobs.”
* Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, in a June speech at the Economic Club of Washington, accused Obama of creating an “increasingly hostile environment for investment and job creation.”
* Cypress Semiconductor’s Rodgers told me last week that he had “started out happy with Obama because we had broken through the white male barrier” and made “a step forward for equality.” But Rodgers added: “I have become deeply disappointed with him. It is amateur hour in Washington. The guy hasn’t got a clue about the economy, how jobs are created, how wealth is created. It reminds me of the Jimmy Carter years, only worse.”
* Blackstone Group CEO Steven Schwarzman seemed to compare the Obama administration to Hitler by saying in a recent private meeting that Washington’s push to increase taxes on private-equity firms is war, “like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939,” according to Newsweek.’
FULL STORY
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