On Hardball yesterday, Chris Matthews pushed back forcefully against Jack Welch's
unsubstantiated and reckless "twitter" assertion concerning the just released 7.8% unemployment figure from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
"Unbelievable jobs numbers these Chicago guys will do anything can't debate so change numbers,"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Jack Welch's accomplishments and successes while serving as the CEO of General Electric are the stuff of legend.
His techniques, while incredibly controversial, basically became the model for CEO's and top executives everywhere.
He was tagged, somewhat derisively, with the moniker of "neutron Jack", because of his propensity for laying off thousands upon thousands of people and selling off businesses that were not either first or second in their industries. The buildings continued to stand, the people, not so much.
He would also, every year, summarily fire all of the managers who were rated in the bottom 10% of the company.
So basically, he's another CEO who likes to fire people. I'm sure Mr. Welch would never agree to that assertion, but suffice it to say it doesn't seem that he had much problem doing it, whether he liked doing it or not.
I guess Mr. Welch must be starved for some attention and power these days, because he's been reduced to "tweeting" the little turd puffs that pop into his head instead of hiring and firing people like he used to in his master of the universe glory years.
He basically all but accused Obama of out and out manipulation of the numbers.
When confronted by Matthews whether or not he wanted to "take back" that assertion, he defiantly declined to do so, but refused to offer any evidence to bolster his accusation.
A few years ago, I saw Mr. Welch doing one of those "puff piece" style interviews that allow the interviewees ego to pretty much freelance all over the set.
Mr. Welch of course couldn't resist, and he blurted out a very revealing "humblebrag" that I recall made me chuckle at the time.
He said, after having his ass tickled with a feather for quite a while, "I really don't think that I'm often the smartest guy in the room".
Hey Jack, you'll get no argument from me.