The Nation's Financial Condition

[Farfromgeneva]

More business than financial condition but interesting piece so sharing

Larry Culp Rewired GE. Then He Unwound It.

Before General Electric’s CEO could break up the conglomerate, he needed to make major repairs, from factory floor to ‘carpetland’

By , and Nov. 13, 2021 12:00 am ET
Inside a cavernous General Electric Co. GE 0.55% factory in Greenville, S.C., that churns out giant power turbines, executives made tiny plastic models of every machine on the facility’s production floor.

Using light green yarn, the group traced the journey of a steel blade through the miniature plant. They discovered the blade—which had been piling up at some stations—traveled nearly 3 miles on its 85-day journey through the plant.

The solution was clear: rip out the old machinery and rearrange the production line to shorten the green string. In the process, GE upgraded the machines to help stop the logjams. When finished in early 2020, the blade traveled just 165 feet and production time was cut by 42%.

Before Larry Culp decided to break up GE, he had to break it down. The company’s decision this week to split itself into three pieces capped a yearslong financial rehabilitation project during which Mr. Culp cut jobs, sold off businesses and slashed debt. Meanwhile, major repair work was happening behind the scenes.

Since taking over as chief executive officer in 2018, Mr. Culp overhauled manufacturing practices and made GE’s far-flung divisions responsible for covering their own costs. In the process, he laid bare an organization that belied its reputation for operational and managerial excellence.

After shoring up GE’s finances, Mr. Culp said this week that a simpler structure would be better for investors and customers. Two other giants, Toshiba Corp. and Johnson & Johnson, also decided to split apart this week.

Mr. Culp arrived at GE with a reputation as a high priest in the world of lean manufacturing, a management philosophy that seeks to cut waste and create a culture of continuous improvement. He embraced the philosophy first at another conglomerate Danaher Corp. , where he arrived after receiving an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

“When you’re in a factory, when you’re in a business and you’re able to drive that type of improvement in that short a period of time,” Mr. Culp said in an interview in early 2020, “it is flat out addictive.”


Gas turbines sit on the assembly line at GE’s energy plant in Greenville, S.C.
Photo: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg News
One of his first exposures to lean management was in the early 1990s when he worked in an air conditioner factory in Japan for a week as part of a training exercise. “There’s nothing like being screamed at in a language you don’t understand. It’s a tough love environment,” he said.

He was named Danaher’s CEO at the age of 37 and spent 14 years at the helm. The company became known for strong management and premium shareholder returns.

The concept of lean manufacturing was unofficially invented in the middle of the last century out of the work of a Toyota engineer named Taiichi Ohno who was tasked with making production more efficient in the post-World War II years in Japan. The system centers on an approach called kaizen, which focuses on seeking continuous improvement through in-depth sessions to assess employees’ progress. It eventually became the Toyota Production System.

Executives go on gemba walks, which is walking the factory floor or its equivalent, and talking and learning with workers about what they are doing. Kaizen events can last a week and involve team problem solving, usually including all levels of workers and might find a top executive sweeping and scrubbing the floor.

The pieces and names can be different in organizations but the basics don’t change. In an interview, Mr. Culp described it this way: “There are three core ideas at work. One is the focus on the customer. The second is the elimination of waste. And the third is the ruthless prioritization of work.”

Danaher eventually used the lean philosophy to run more than its factories. Its usefulness stretched into “carpetland”, as office-based activities were called, where even a task such as processing an invoice or preparing a regulatory document can become more efficient in time expended and resources used.

When Mr. Culp became the first outsider to be GE’s CEO in October 2018, jumping from lead director of the board, the inefficiency of office tasks wasn’t his only concern. The company was in crisis after disclosing a possible $23 billion write-off as problems in its Power business worsened. GE was saddled with debt in its financial-services operations and needed cash. The share price hit levels not seen since the financial crisis.


GE was in crisis when Larry Culp became CEO. Its share price hit levels not seen since the last financial crisis.
Photo: Christopher Goodney/Bloomberg News
Mr. Culp cut the quarterly dividend to a penny, and just four months into the job, he sold the healthcare division’s life sciences business to his old company, Danaher. The deal would bring in $20 billion in cash to pay down debt and leave the division without its fastest-growing business. The move also halted his predecessor’s planned spinoff of the healthcare division, a move that would have broken up the three core industrial divisions.

Mr. Culp, continuing the work of his predecessor, shifted thousands of workers from the corporate headquarters into GE’s business units. The corporate layer, which had ballooned to 26,000 by early 2018, was half that size after Mr. Culp’s first year and about 10,000 at the end of last year. Mr. Culp moved decision making and financial resources closer to customers into GE’s almost 30 separate profit and loss statements, each with an executive team accountable for it.

GE’s industrial free cash flow, a closely watched measure, plunged from $9 billion in 2016 to $2.3 billion in 2019, Mr. Culp’s first full year. In 2020, the pandemic sapped GE’s business and cash flow fell to $600 million. The company expects about $5 billion in cash flow this year and more than $7 billion in 2023.

Mr. Culp broke with tradition by hiring more outsiders to key senior roles, including chief financial officer Carolina Dybeck Happe and head of aviation John Slattery. He has also kept a tighter circle of advisers than the two CEOs who preceded him, said two former GE officials.

Mr. Culp became a frequent visitor to GE facilities where he would spend hours reviewing the operations and squeezing out inefficiencies. Some of his first months on the job were spent in Greenville where the outsider tried to understand why the company’s core power business was losing money. The tangle of green yarn had some of the answers.

In early October, Mr. Culp spent five days at the GE aviation plant in Lynn, Mass., where his kaizen assignment put him with a small team studying a military engine part that was hurting on-time deliveries. The problem turned out to be an issue with welding on the part, leading to changes that went from yielding a usable part 59% of the time to 100% of the time. Nine different teams in Lynn that week made changes that cut costs by $2 million and reduced production time by 62 days, according to a memo Mr. Culp sent to employees.


Employees assemble a jet engine at a GE plant in Lafayette, Ind.
Photo: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg News
A basic concept of lean management is to create standard work processes in order to continuously improve. If the same job is done differently every time or varies by worker, there is no basis for finding improvement. The same job must be done the same way every time. No detail is too small. “Standard work is simply identifying the work steps required and the sequence of those steps, the time required for each, that go into making a process repeatable,” Mr. Culp said in 2020.

While at the plant, something else caught Mr. Culp’s eye, he wrote. The door to a men’s locker room was misspelled “LOCKEROOM.” He wondered out loud how many people had walked by over the years without doing anything. The mistake was fixed in an hour after he mentioned it. One of the workers on his team joked, he wrote, that the spelling just reflected that Mr. Culp was near Boston, where the accent makes the “r” at the end of “locker” become silent.

Scott Davis, chief executive of Melius Research and a longtime analyst of industrial companies, said lean practices served Danaher well but the system isn’t so easy to implement because each location has to learn. Moreover, it can take some people a long time to embrace it and others won’t stick with it. “Lean is a 10-year initiative, not a two-year initiative,” Mr. Davis said. “It is hard to implement lean and have it stick.”

Mr. Culp has said that lean processes are helping GE find ways to improve the diversity of its workforce and he has used the techniques to manage his own time, perhaps the most precious resource of a corporate leader.

Prioritizing and cutting waste out of his calendar has worked in both his CEO stints, as well as the years in between when he juggled teaching at Harvard Business School with skiing out west and catching blue marlin off Costa Rica. But he doesn’t let his evangelism of continuous improvement apply everywhere.

“If you came and looked at my garage or my closet, you wouldn’t see anywhere near the orderliness that you might see in a factory that I’ve been associated with,” Mr. Culp said. “I usually end my training sessions with, ‘but don’t try this at home.

[Farfromgeneva]

Have to wonder if the supply chain and demand issues were iterative and self reinforcing. Demand is slowing down.

Ocean Shipping Rates Fall but Ports Are Still Jammed
Cost to ship a container across the Pacific declined by more than one-quarter last week, signaling demand is finally easing

Cargo ships waiting at the Port of Long Beach in California last month. The logjam of vessels outside of U.S. ports is expected to continue for months.
PHOTO: KYLE GRILLOT/BLOOMBERG NEWS
By Costas Paris
Nov. 15, 2021 5:30 am ET

The cost to move a container across the Pacific fell by more than one-quarter last week, the biggest decline in two years. The decline signals that the huge demand for Asian exports is easing, though shipping executives say it will be months before the logjam of ships outside of U.S. ports clears up.

The decline in ocean-freight rates coincides with the winding down of the traditional peak shipping season, which starts in August when Western importers start to load up on cargo ahead of the year-end holidays. With most products at least on their way, space is gradually opening up on the front end of the trip, leading to lower prices.

That easing hasn’t made its way to U.S. ports, where dozens of ships packed with everything from Christmas trees to electronics and heavy machinery are still waiting for weeks to unload at big gateways like Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif. Shipping executives say they don’t expect the traffic to ease until February at the earliest.

Trucks lined up last week to enter a Port of Oakland shipping terminal in California. Big U.S. importers have struggled to replenish their
“It could be months before the logjams ease, but if we don’t get more closures at ports, the volumes should become more manageable after Chinese New Year,” said Lars Jensen, chief executive of Denmark-based Vespucci Maritime.

The cost to move a container from China to the U.S. West Coast fell 26% last week compared with the week before to $13,295, according to the Freightos Baltic Index. That is still more than three times as high since the start of the year when the same box cost $4,200.

Freightos head of research Judah Levine said it was the first decline since June in the premium cargo owners pay to secure space on ships.

Analysts and freight forwarders said there are fewer ships with short-term charters sailing across the Pacific after wholesale inventories rose 13% year over year in September, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Big importers such as Amazon.com Inc., Walmart Inc. and Home Depot Inc. account for around one-quarter of all imports that sail into the U.S. West Coast. They have been struggling to replenish their inventories since late July, when freight rates shot up more than 70% within a couple of weeks.

Demand for ship space has been so high that some of these retailers chartered their own vessels to bring in cargo like decorations, gadgets and other hot-selling items before Christmas.

“The inventory numbers suggest that big retailers have stocked up and ordered early during the port delays,” said Jonathan Roach, a container analyst at London-based Braemar ACM Shipbroking.

The Lunar New Year this year falls on Feb. 1, when millions of workers go on break for at least a week to visit families and manufacturing output in China falls substantially.

With more capacity from big vessels expected to come on line, freight forwarders say dozens of smaller ships that have been chartered since the early summer will gradually withdraw to smaller, regional trade routes.

These smaller ships cost twice as much to operate, with the average cost per box across the Pacific at around $30,000, according to freight forwarders.

For now, the wait to dock in the gateways of Southern California continues unabated. There are around 80 boxships waiting to unload at Los Angeles and Long Beach for two weeks or more.

“I’ve never seen so many smaller ships like ours waiting to dock outside L.A.,” said Madalin Butoi, captain of the Hyundai Express, a Greek-operated vessel with 5,000 boxes that has been stuck outside the port since Oct. 3 after sailing in from South Korea.

“Everybody has gone bonkers to secure space on any kind of ship,” he said. “It will become better, but it won’t happen this year.”

Write to Costas Paris at [email protected]

[Peter Brown]

Have to wonder if the supply chain and demand issues were iterative and self reinforcing. Demand is slowing down.

Ocean Shipping Rates Fall but Ports Are Still Jammed
Cost to ship a container across the Pacific declined by more than one-quarter last week, signaling demand is finally easing

Cargo ships waiting at the Port of Long Beach in California last month. The logjam of vessels outside of U.S. ports is expected to continue for months.
PHOTO: KYLE GRILLOT/BLOOMBERG NEWS
By Costas Paris
Nov. 15, 2021 5:30 am ET

The cost to move a container across the Pacific fell by more than one-quarter last week, the biggest decline in two years. The decline signals that the huge demand for Asian exports is easing, though shipping executives say it will be months before the logjam of ships outside of U.S. ports clears up.

The decline in ocean-freight rates coincides with the winding down of the traditional peak shipping season, which starts in August when Western importers start to load up on cargo ahead of the year-end holidays. With most products at least on their way, space is gradually opening up on the front end of the trip, leading to lower prices.

That easing hasn’t made its way to U.S. ports, where dozens of ships packed with everything from Christmas trees to electronics and heavy machinery are still waiting for weeks to unload at big gateways like Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif. Shipping executives say they don’t expect the traffic to ease until February at the earliest.

Trucks lined up last week to enter a Port of Oakland shipping terminal in California. Big U.S. importers have struggled to replenish their
“It could be months before the logjams ease, but if we don’t get more closures at ports, the volumes should become more manageable after Chinese New Year,” said Lars Jensen, chief executive of Denmark-based Vespucci Maritime.

The cost to move a container from China to the U.S. West Coast fell 26% last week compared with the week before to $13,295, according to the Freightos Baltic Index. That is still more than three times as high since the start of the year when the same box cost $4,200.

Freightos head of research Judah Levine said it was the first decline since June in the premium cargo owners pay to secure space on ships.

Analysts and freight forwarders said there are fewer ships with short-term charters sailing across the Pacific after wholesale inventories rose 13% year over year in September, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Big importers such as Amazon.com Inc., Walmart Inc. and Home Depot Inc. account for around one-quarter of all imports that sail into the U.S. West Coast. They have been struggling to replenish their inventories since late July, when freight rates shot up more than 70% within a couple of weeks.

Demand for ship space has been so high that some of these retailers chartered their own vessels to bring in cargo like decorations, gadgets and other hot-selling items before Christmas.

“The inventory numbers suggest that big retailers have stocked up and ordered early during the port delays,” said Jonathan Roach, a container analyst at London-based Braemar ACM Shipbroking.

The Lunar New Year this year falls on Feb. 1, when millions of workers go on break for at least a week to visit families and manufacturing output in China falls substantially.

With more capacity from big vessels expected to come on line, freight forwarders say dozens of smaller ships that have been chartered since the early summer will gradually withdraw to smaller, regional trade routes.

These smaller ships cost twice as much to operate, with the average cost per box across the Pacific at around $30,000, according to freight forwarders.

For now, the wait to dock in the gateways of Southern California continues unabated. There are around 80 boxships waiting to unload at Los Angeles and Long Beach for two weeks or more.

“I’ve never seen so many smaller ships like ours waiting to dock outside L.A.,” said Madalin Butoi, captain of the Hyundai Express, a Greek-operated vessel with 5,000 boxes that has been stuck outside the port since Oct. 3 after sailing in from South Korea.

“Everybody has gone bonkers to secure space on any kind of ship,” he said. “It will become better, but it won’t happen this year.”

Write to Costas Paris at [email protected]

What a missed opportunity for Biden to do something that would meaningfully help Americans, and demonstrate actual leadership skills. He is such a putz.

He should have flown out to Long Beach and gathered all of the various parties (shipping companies, truck drivers, ports, retailers) in a room and tried to arrive at emergency solutions. Maybe lease huge tracts of land where the truckers could reposition empty containers, freeing up space at the ports. Engage the National Guard’s authorized CDL drivers to supplement driver shortages.

This was such a layup. Just try.

What a miss.

[MDlaxfan76]

Yeah, gather them all in a room...what a lot of nonsense.
Any idea how many private parties are in this chain????
A football stadium wouldn't hold them all.

Clearly, there's a "miss" in comprehension of the scale and complexity of the challenge.

But suddenly, and I mean suddenly, government is smarter than the private enterprise system???

Where this really is simple is that the whole world, and certainly the US, has enormously changed its spending behavior away from services and towards goods. Temporarily...some of this may be sustained demand change, but most likely will readjust with time. But for now, the demand is enormously higher than multiple choke points are engineered to handle in a short term response.

Now if one wanted to blame "government" (in this country that means voter choices) it would be the decades long choice to have all ports and various transfer points be managed and financed on a local basis, despite the national implications of port and transportation infrastructure capacity and modernization.

When we compare these systems with the scale of investments around modernization of international ports and transportation systems, we look second rate at best...because it takes many, many billions of investment to do all the dredging and equipment modernization local governments and populaces simply don't have the capacity to make such investments, nor do they capture enough of the ROI themselves to justify doing so. That ROI is nationally spread, not just local, which is why other countries have federal investment and often ownership of these systems.

[Peter Brown]

Yeah, gather them all in a room...what a lot of nonsense.
Any idea how many private parties are in this chain????
A football stadium wouldn't hold them all.

Clearly, there's a "miss" in comprehension of the scale and complexity of the challenge.

But suddenly, and I mean suddenly, government is smarter than the private enterprise system???

Where this really is simple is that the whole world, and certainly the US, has enormously changed its spending behavior away from services and towards goods. Temporarily...some of this may be sustained demand change, but most likely will readjust with time. But for now, the demand is enormously higher than multiple choke points are engineered to handle in a short term response.

Now if one wanted to blame "government" (in this country that means voter choices) it would be the decades long choice to have all ports and various transfer points be managed and financed on a local basis, despite the national implications of port and transportation infrastructure capacity and modernization.

When we compare these systems with the scale of investments around modernization of international ports and transportation systems, we look second rate at best...because it takes many, many billions of investment to do all the dredging and equipment modernization local governments and populaces simply don't have the capacity to make such investments, nor do they capture enough of the ROI themselves to justify doing so. That ROI is nationally spread, not just local, which is why other countries have federal investment and often ownership of these systems.

There’s one part of your thread I agree with (I’ll discuss lower here), but the bigger picture is you have no awareness or appreciation of real leadership whatsoever. It’s comical.

Biden doesn’t need to ignore everything else as POTUS to simply gather leaders of the four constituencies in a room to try (effort is often the harbinger of success) to come up with ideas and solutions.

Here’s one simple fix he could have arrived at with little to no thought: get Gavin Newsom to expedite CDL applications.

https://www.dailybulletin.com/2021/10/2 ... s-licenses

Biden isn’t being asked to be CEO of Supply Chain Inc. As POTUS, when there are emergencies, we elect a guy to exhibit leadership, not idle idiocy like he’s evidencing today. Leadership is leaning in to the problem and showing folks that he gets it, is on top of it, and is prioritizing solutions, wherever they come from. Call the tech companies. Call hedge fund guys, ask the best and brightest out there. Don’t simply stare at a problem and twiddle your thumbs like Biden/Buttigieg.

I’m sure We as a group could find 100 other rather simple small fixes which add up to a larger end fix, if we paid this more attention than a Fanlax thread. Biden isn’t much of a leader and seems tone deaf to actual problems affecting the economy.

Here’s where I agree with you. Ports are indeed owned by localities, and they seem way too short sighted to make the investments necessary to handle the changing dynamic of shipping and containers. Long Beach and Los Angeles are always ranked really low on efficiency scales. Philadelphia and Charleston much much better.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/califo ... 021-10-20/

Again, this is a leadership issue. If Buttigieg wasn’t taking two months off for BS parental leave, he could actually invite the port authority CEO’s to the White House and try to see what they need in federal help to make their ports more efficient and ready. Ask the tech companies to contribute ideas. Ask Blackstone. Ask Cathy Wood. Then task folks with meaningful timelines and accountability.

This ain’t hard folks. MD likes to muddy it up because he’s trying to protect his boys in the White House. But they are showing just how awful they are as leaders of America.

Time for change.

[MDlaxfan76]

Hmmmm, now Petey wants to tell us what "leadership" looks like...what have you ever led, Petey, other than what you inherited?

a troll factory?

Seriously, what is interesting to me is how eager guys like Petey are to assume that the Admin, any Admin, actually has control over this sort of problem, that simply putting people in a room would actually change the dynamics of a massive, but short term (with ripple effects) disruption.

And so eager that they can't imagine that there actually are such meetings happening, over the past months and now. Of course there are.

And of course there are meetings with key choke point people to see what actually could help, indeed there are potentially all sorts of small things that might help...a bit each.

Sure, processing CDL licenses faster might help a bit...so, they opened up such testing over weekends. Fine...but that doesn't deal with all the truck chassis that are not available because they have containers on them, there are plenty of drivers, not enough chassis, and nowhere to put all the empty containers...

and it's more complicated still, because as demand for finished goods exploded, orders for necessary components exploded, some of which are available, but key components are not, meaning all sorts of supply piling up, waiting for critical parts yet to be delivered, the excess, waiting components, choking out room to put something else...a pile up...

Again, this is a nearly entirely private system, designed to optimize profits by each player, not to provide redundancies in case of massive shifts in demand.

And, regardless of media impatience (loving the drama and eyeballs) and the eagerness to assign political blame by the out of power party, the issue is not going to be resolved through administrative fiat...not will it be felt positively until well after the actual blockages are resolved and supply/demand rebalances...like a traffic jam because of an accident, even after the accident has been removed and the highway cleared of debris, the ripple effects will be felt hours later in seemingly inexplicable red tail lights.

That's what we're in...job 1 is to address the underlying cause of the disruption, Covid in the US. Until then, demand will be dramatically imbalanced to consumption of goods rather than services. Likewise Covid internationally, which also impacts supply as well.

But even as that disruption rebalances, there will be major disruption ripples felt for at least a year, likely longer, though diminishing. Sure, improvements in systems will help, small scale solutions at various choke points will help, but these are indeed underway and being identified and addressed, each in turn.

Would a completely federalized transportation system do better? (Certainly could blame the federal gov't if not) I don't know, but it's simply not a reality here in the US.

But we DO need to modernize our transportation system and this does mean recognizing that it's a national issue, impacting all of us, rather than just a local/state issue. The ROI is national and it requires national, federal funding.

[Kismet]

Good piece on the ports, trucking issues on 60 Minutes last night. One of the real problems in empty containers which most sit on carriages that are also used to transport full containers out. Most of the empties are sitting in places on the ports and the carriages are still with them sp a trucker with an empty on a carriage who cannot unload the empty off the carriage has no carriage to pick up a new full container - worth 15 minutes to see the whole episode
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supply-cha ... 021-11-14/
Very enlightening - as usual somebody is making a killing doing the wrong things

[MDlaxfan76]

Good piece on the ports, trucking issues on 60 Minutes last night. One of the real problems in empty containers which most sit on carriages that are also used to transport full containers out. Most of the empties are sitting in places on the ports and the carriages are still with them sp a trucker with an empty on a carriage who cannot unload the empty off the carriage has no carriage to pick up a new full container - worth 15 minutes to see the whole episode
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supply-cha ... 021-11-14/
Very enlightening - as usual somebody is making a killing doing the wrong things

Sounds like some huge 'winners' and many 'losers' in the whole process...excess, opportunistic profits being extracted by some, others left gasping for oxygen, frustrated as all get out...and ultimately much of this gets passed along to end consumer.

Some of this can be worked out, but not overnight.

[a fan]

What a missed opportunity for Biden to do something that would meaningfully help Americans, and demonstrate actual leadership skills. He is such a putz.

He should have flown out to Long Beach and gathered all of the various parties (shipping companies, truck drivers, ports, retailers) in a room and tried to arrive at emergency solutions. Maybe lease huge tracts of land where the truckers could reposition empty containers, freeing up space at the ports. Engage the National Guard’s authorized CDL drivers to supplement driver shortages.

This was such a layup. Just try.

What a miss.

He did exactly that way the F back in the summer, Pete. Pulled all the parties together to work the problem.

You gonna give him an "atta boy" now?

And he can't do any of those things you listed anymore because we have a nation of idiots who think that the government is bad, and can't be called upon to fix things. You made it politically untenable.

Nice job, Pete.

[Peter Brown]

What a missed opportunity for Biden to do something that would meaningfully help Americans, and demonstrate actual leadership skills. He is such a putz.

He should have flown out to Long Beach and gathered all of the various parties (shipping companies, truck drivers, ports, retailers) in a room and tried to arrive at emergency solutions. Maybe lease huge tracts of land where the truckers could reposition empty containers, freeing up space at the ports. Engage the National Guard’s authorized CDL drivers to supplement driver shortages.

This was such a layup. Just try.

What a miss.

He did exactly that way the F back in the summer, Pete. Pulled all the parties together to work the problem.

You gonna give him an "atta boy" now?

And he can't do any of those things you listed anymore because we have a nation of idiots who think that the government is bad, and can't be called upon to fix things. You made it politically untenable.

Nice job, Pete.

Yours is an incorrect read.

First, did he really do that? I don’t recall any publicized meetings. Part of leading is figuring out the best way to get the message out. If he did that in secret, that wouldn’t count as a very effective way to solve the problem.

Second, no one is asking Biden to become CEO of Supply Chain, Inc. We are simply asking him to demonstrate leadership qualities whereby he can be the one leader to assemble the stakeholders, something they probably wouldn’t do individually. Pull in smarter folks to those meetings, I’d suggest a number of hedge fund and private equity guys with brains on loan from god.

Arrive at decisions. Task guys to get things done. It took one second to see that California’s DMV was a small part of the problem.

No one would rip Biden from trying to be a leader. We aren’t asking him to nationalize industry here. Just use the power of the office to solve a real problem for America, and stop spending every minute in the Oval Office focused on gender queer studies.

Is that really so difficult?

[a fan]

First, did he really do that? I don’t recall any publicized meetings. Part of leading is figuring out the best way to get the message out. If he did that in secret, that wouldn’t count as a very effective way to solve the problem.

Right. You have to market what you did, or it doesn't count. Please. Sell it to someone else.

Dude. Biden's meetings were all over the news. Pay attention.

https://www.npr.org/2021/10/13/10455014 ... -u-s-ports


You going to give him credit now? Or are you going to scurry away, and pretend you didn't read this?

Second, no one is asking Biden to become CEO of Supply Chain, Inc. We are simply asking him to demonstrate leadership qualities whereby he can be the one leader to assemble the stakeholders, something they probably wouldn’t do individually. Pull in smarter folks to those meetings, I’d suggest a number of hedge fund and private equity guys with brains on loan from god.

You think a pencil pushing hedge fund guy knows the first thing about in the trenches logistics??

[Peter Brown]

First, did he really do that? I don’t recall any publicized meetings. Part of leading is figuring out the best way to get the message out. If he did that in secret, that wouldn’t count as a very effective way to solve the problem.

Right. You have to market what you did, or it doesn't count. Please. Sell it to someone else.

Dude. Biden's meetings were all over the news. Pay attention.

https://www.npr.org/2021/10/13/10455014 ... -u-s-ports


You going to give him credit now? Or are you going to scurry away, and pretend you didn't read this?

Second, no one is asking Biden to become CEO of Supply Chain, Inc. We are simply asking him to demonstrate leadership qualities whereby he can be the one leader to assemble the stakeholders, something they probably wouldn’t do individually. Pull in smarter folks to those meetings, I’d suggest a number of hedge fund and private equity guys with brains on loan from god.

You think a pencil pushing hedge fund guy knows the first thing about in the trenches logistics??

One, I applaud Joe for any effort, as it appears he did.

But he solved nothing. Are we to congratulate the guy for a drive by meeting, then leaving others to take blame? Because the crisis has only gotten worse.

Second, yes I know several hedge fund managers whose knack of common sense is frankly off the scales of humanity, I’d include Warren Buffett in this group, though he doesn’t claim to be a hedge fund manager, that is really what BRK is. In any event, I’m happy to list the names of guys who I have zero doubt would add more value in one meeting to this crisis than anyone else in the country, including the various stakeholders:

Cliff Asness
Stephen Mandel
Chase Coleman
John Griffin
David Tepper

I could go on. But I promise if I brought those five into a room to oversee this issue, they’d come up with ten incredible ideas in less than one hour.

[a fan]

First, did he really do that? I don’t recall any publicized meetings. Part of leading is figuring out the best way to get the message out. If he did that in secret, that wouldn’t count as a very effective way to solve the problem.

Right. You have to market what you did, or it doesn't count. Please. Sell it to someone else.

Dude. Biden's meetings were all over the news. Pay attention.

https://www.npr.org/2021/10/13/10455014 ... -u-s-ports


You going to give him credit now? Or are you going to scurry away, and pretend you didn't read this?

Second, no one is asking Biden to become CEO of Supply Chain, Inc. We are simply asking him to demonstrate leadership qualities whereby he can be the one leader to assemble the stakeholders, something they probably wouldn’t do individually. Pull in smarter folks to those meetings, I’d suggest a number of hedge fund and private equity guys with brains on loan from god.

You think a pencil pushing hedge fund guy knows the first thing about in the trenches logistics??

One, I applaud Joe for any effort, as it appears he did.

But he solved nothing. Are we to congratulate the guy for a drive by meeting, then leaving others to take blame?

Should I congratulate you for not bothering to read the NPR piece, which details what is happening, and what has already happened, Pete?

These meetings started in the Summer, Pete. And you'd know that if you paid attention. June, to be exact

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-roo ... tinuities/

Btw, I'm going to remember the way you look at things, Pete. Our ports are owned and operated by private companies. Companies that clearly can't get the job done.

So what's your first thought, Pete? You go running to the Federal Government for help, and whine about how this is Biden's problem.

What's wrong, Pete? Private businesses can't hack it on their own, and provide simple, basic services?

[Peter Brown]

First, did he really do that? I don’t recall any publicized meetings. Part of leading is figuring out the best way to get the message out. If he did that in secret, that wouldn’t count as a very effective way to solve the problem.

Right. You have to market what you did, or it doesn't count. Please. Sell it to someone else.

Dude. Biden's meetings were all over the news. Pay attention.

https://www.npr.org/2021/10/13/10455014 ... -u-s-ports


You going to give him credit now? Or are you going to scurry away, and pretend you didn't read this?

Second, no one is asking Biden to become CEO of Supply Chain, Inc. We are simply asking him to demonstrate leadership qualities whereby he can be the one leader to assemble the stakeholders, something they probably wouldn’t do individually. Pull in smarter folks to those meetings, I’d suggest a number of hedge fund and private equity guys with brains on loan from god.

You think a pencil pushing hedge fund guy knows the first thing about in the trenches logistics??

One, I applaud Joe for any effort, as it appears he did.

But he solved nothing. Are we to congratulate the guy for a drive by meeting, then leaving others to take blame?

Should I congratulate you for not bothering to read the NPR piece, which details what is happening, and what has already happened, Pete?

These meetings started in the Summer, Pete. And you'd know that if you paid attention. June, to be exact

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-roo ... tinuities/

Btw, I'm going to remember the way you look at things, Pete. Our ports are owned and operated by private companies. Companies that clearly can't get the job done.

So what's your first thought, Pete? You go running to the Federal Government for help, and whine about how this is Biden's problem.

What's wrong, Pete? Private businesses can't hack it on their own, and provide simple, basic services?

Well to start some of these are not ‘private business’. These ports are publicly operated and owned. But again that’s not the issue.

Yes over a period of time, private industry will solve any issue. And that would be the case here. But Joe has an opportunity to show true leadership and he’s whiffing.

What I’m looking for in a POTUS aren’t mandates (this is where government always errs) but rather ‘how can I help?’ Bringing together bright people with the operators is simply something a Port Authority director is not capable of. He doesn’t even know who Cliff Asness is. But any POTUS does.

Just show some leadership. Try to help. Own the outcome.

Not looking to nationalize the industry. Not looking for mandates. Not looking for any new laws.

Just looking to use the office to help bring bright minds together to solve a problem impacting all of us.

[a fan]

What I’m looking for in a POTUS aren’t mandates (this is where government always errs) but rather ‘how can I help?’ Bringing together bright people with the operators is simply something a Port Authority director is not capable of. He doesn’t even know who Cliff Asness is. But any POTUS does.

Just show some leadership. Try to help. Own the outcome.

Not looking to nationalize the industry. Not looking for mandates. Not looking for any new laws.

Just looking to use the office to help bring bright minds together to solve a problem impacting all of us.

Well then guess what? You're backed into a corner. Biden did, and is doing, what you asked.

Tip your hat at the man, and move on.

[Peter Brown]

What I’m looking for in a POTUS aren’t mandates (this is where government always errs) but rather ‘how can I help?’ Bringing together bright people with the operators is simply something a Port Authority director is not capable of. He doesn’t even know who Cliff Asness is. But any POTUS does.

Just show some leadership. Try to help. Own the outcome.

Not looking to nationalize the industry. Not looking for mandates. Not looking for any new laws.

Just looking to use the office to help bring bright minds together to solve a problem impacting all of us.

Well then guess what? You're backed into a corner. Biden did, and is doing, what you asked.

Tip your hat at the man, and move on.

Tip my hat to him for failing and not owning the outcome?

[a fan]

What I’m looking for in a POTUS aren’t mandates (this is where government always errs) but rather ‘how can I help?’ Bringing together bright people with the operators is simply something a Port Authority director is not capable of. He doesn’t even know who Cliff Asness is. But any POTUS does.

Just show some leadership. Try to help. Own the outcome.

Not looking to nationalize the industry. Not looking for mandates. Not looking for any new laws.

Just looking to use the office to help bring bright minds together to solve a problem impacting all of us.

Well then guess what? You're backed into a corner. Biden did, and is doing, what you asked.

Tip your hat at the man, and move on.

Tip my hat to him for failing and not owning the outcome?

What the F did the UFlorida socialists teach you about how private enterprise works, Pete? If Apple Stocks fall, you want the government to step in and help?

You are one seriously conflicted dude. Here, maybe some Bugs Bunny cartoons will help.....(notice Elmer Fudd doesn't say "Call Biden for help)

[Kismet]

What I’m looking for in a POTUS aren’t mandates (this is where government always errs) but rather ‘how can I help?’ Bringing together bright people with the operators is simply something a Port Authority director is not capable of. He doesn’t even know who Cliff Asness is. But any POTUS does.

Just show some leadership. Try to help. Own the outcome.

Not looking to nationalize the industry. Not looking for mandates. Not looking for any new laws.

Just looking to use the office to help bring bright minds together to solve a problem impacting all of us.

Well then guess what? You're backed into a corner. Biden did, and is doing, what you asked.

Tip your hat at the man, and move on.

Tip my hat to him for failing and not owning the outcome?

What the F did the UFlorida socialists teach you about how private enterprise works, Pete? If Apple Stocks fall, you want the government to step in and help?

You are one seriously conflicted dude. Here, maybe some Bugs Bunny cartoons will help.....(notice Elmer Fudd doesn't say "Call Biden for help)

Remember fan, every day is Groundhog Day for Petey.

[Peter Brown]

What I’m looking for in a POTUS aren’t mandates (this is where government always errs) but rather ‘how can I help?’ Bringing together bright people with the operators is simply something a Port Authority director is not capable of. He doesn’t even know who Cliff Asness is. But any POTUS does.

Just show some leadership. Try to help. Own the outcome.

Not looking to nationalize the industry. Not looking for mandates. Not looking for any new laws.

Just looking to use the office to help bring bright minds together to solve a problem impacting all of us.

Well then guess what? You're backed into a corner. Biden did, and is doing, what you asked.

Tip your hat at the man, and move on.

Tip my hat to him for failing and not owning the outcome?

What the F did the UFlorida socialists teach you about how private enterprise works, Pete? If Apple Stocks fall, you want the government to step in and help?

You are one seriously conflicted dude. Here, maybe some Bugs Bunny cartoons will help.....(notice Elmer Fudd doesn't say "Call Biden for help)

This is when a fan checks out of a convo because he’s blindly trying to find that elusive piñata but can’t hit it. Oh well.

[a fan]

What I’m looking for in a POTUS aren’t mandates (this is where government always errs) but rather ‘how can I help?’ Bringing together bright people with the operators is simply something a Port Authority director is not capable of. He doesn’t even know who Cliff Asness is. But any POTUS does.

Just show some leadership. Try to help. Own the outcome.

Not looking to nationalize the industry. Not looking for mandates. Not looking for any new laws.

Just looking to use the office to help bring bright minds together to solve a problem impacting all of us.

Well then guess what? You're backed into a corner. Biden did, and is doing, what you asked.

Tip your hat at the man, and move on.

Tip my hat to him for failing and not owning the outcome?

What the F did the UFlorida socialists teach you about how private enterprise works, Pete? If Apple Stocks fall, you want the government to step in and help?

You are one seriously conflicted dude. Here, maybe some Bugs Bunny cartoons will help.....(notice Elmer Fudd doesn't say "Call Biden for help)

This is when a fan checks out of a convo because he’s blindly trying to find that elusive piñata but can’t hit it. Oh well.

Oh, I'm here. Go ahead and explain why the Federal Government should come anywhere near these problems, Pete? Private enterprise....the free market that you're always crowing about.....should handle it just fine. The fact that these companies can't get their sh*t together has NOTHING to do with the White House.

Want me to start pulling up your quotes on the matter, Pete? About how government sucks, and private enterprise is always better?