An Audience With The Emperor
The two-day China Development Forum ended on Monday, but a handful of US corporate luminaries decided to stick around in Beijing for an extra 48 hours. And not because they were enjoying the scenery.
At some point -- late last week, presumably -- the Party sent around a formal invitation to visiting executives including Blackstone's Stephen Schwarzman and FedEx's Raj Subramaniam. The hand-written summons, tucked snugly into ornate envelopes sealed with bright red wax, were delivered on silver p
The hubris of the US government and its corporate leadership can be astounding.
I wonder if it occurs to any of the attendees that the outcome of the US election could put them in similar positions in the US.
We have already seen it with industrial leadership councils. Next version will likely be much more like Al Capone’s meetings than the past meetings.
You got the hook firmly in my mouth with “ornate envelopes sealed with bright red wax,” so I barely blinked at the pandas. Maybe I should be forgiven for my suggestibility after watching a Congresswoman who looks like the Cowardly Lion wave pictures of the President’s son’s penis in the Rayburn House Office Building over the summer. The pandas are sort of Sesame Street in comparison.
Well, if I was CEO, I’d tell you the costs of not attending seem a lot higher than those of attending. That’s pusillanimous – or even straightforwardly cowardly – but CEOs aren’t being paid to be courageous or martyr their companies on the altar of decency.
That’s the role of the western military. Companies are meant to play theirs by paying taxes. There, though, they’re showing no pusillanimity in creating tax advantageous structures and influencing politicians… One might even call them bold.
How much different is this from the US corporate leaders reading the tea leaves and starting to say nice things about Donald trump and even endorse him?
Capitalism is not patriotic. Or as Michael Corleone said, “it’s strictly business.”
Leave the sanctions, take the almond cookie?