John Linton ...I wonder whether 8,000 Verizon ex-employees would agree with that assessment?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124869147720483401.html
...and I doubt that either the Verizon management and shareholders would agree with any such view.
It seems necessary for various of the more stupid and irresponsible presidents and prime ministers, and I'm thinking here particularly of those of the USA, the UK and of course of Australia, to make truly ridiculous statements such as the ones in Krudd's recent sheer nonsense endlessly repeated in his turgid (or should that be turded?) 6,100 word fantasy that appeared in last Saturday's papers that suggest that their personal brilliance has ended the "worst financial crisis in 75 years. There are only two things wrong with that self praise - the problems are by no means over and any good news about the current state of Australia's economy and financial situation is entirely due to the actions taken by the people who preceded Krudd.
Ross Gittins said it in his Monday column much better than I can sum up and of course, as someone not known for his support of John Howard's time as prime minister he can be seen to be a more sensible commentator. While I doubt that many people can be bothered to read the total garbage written by Krudd, Ross Gittins provides a succinct dissection of Krudd's lying self glorification here:
http://business.smh.com.au/business/rudds-new-bogy-fearing-the-pain-of-recovery-20090726-dxj3.html
As I said about the "NBN2" (and I acknowledge I expended far too many words on that topic) it isn't the fact that Krudd is completely clueless and moving his insane preoccupation with getting a second term of egotistical self indulgence it is the fact that there is a very real chance of him doing very serious and very long term damage to Australia's future.
The recession is NOT over and anyone who catches a taxi and asks the driver how business is or does the same where you buy petrol or check with your local newsagent would know that. For most people, excluding the ones who have lost their job over the last six months, the 'GFC' has hardly affected them at all, for many people there has been no negative affect whatsoever - yet. The very certainly will be very negative affects over the coming 12 months and, apart from the fact that several hundred thousand more Australians will lose their jobs and have difficulty finding another one many 'services' that are used around Australia will cease to operate.
Why do I say this? Apart from it being the conclusion of everyone in Australia who writes on the economy and finance generally (apart from Krudd, Whine and Linseed) there is now a clear trend in Exetel's business that is showing that new customers are, on average, spending $10.00 less on their ADSL plans and current customers are downgrading their ADSL plans to one level, sometimes more, down from plans they have used for over two years. I think that these now very clear trend are the most obvious indications that more and more people are having problems balancing their personal budgets.
(this is my first attempt at reducing the average blog from what has crept up to over 1,000 words a day to around 500 words).