Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Corporate Headwinds (wsj)

This story in yesterdays Journal has been getting some play and if you will allow Moishe to rant for a second, it's a little annoying how public companies all jump on the bandwagon and use an event be it "sub prime" "katrina" "cold weather" "Warm weather" etc etc and use it as an excuse for bad earnings or slowing sales or whatever when the event in question is completely unrelated to the companies business. ok, Moishe is done ranting.

America's captains of industry are starting to talk like, well, sailors.

At a Goldman Sachs conference in December, G. Kennedy Thompson, chairman and chief executive officer of Wachovia Corp., informed investors that the bank and its competitors were facing "headwinds."

An audience member asked the logical question: "So, how big a headwind should we think about in '08?"

"Well, right now, it's a big headwind," Mr. Thompson replied.

As the U.S. economy slows, chief executives and chief financial officers have taken to slinging around a word more commonly heard on the decks of ships. To hear executives tell it, headwinds ...

1 comment:

Sarah said...

agreed. i've thought the same thing for years. excuses excuses excuses.