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Carly Fiorina Destroys Katie Couric on Climate Change
It’s from May but — just in case you missed it — it’s here for your viewing enjoyment:
Published in Politics, Science & Technology
Why isn’t this woman the Republican front runner?
Girl Power. Give her time. hehehe.
We’ve got to get the ‘establishment’ to Let It Go…
We have to get the Trumpkins a brain.
I hear Ben Carson has extras lyin’ around…
Fiorina’s first answer was fantastic, about the “fine print” in the scientists’ reports making it clear that the actions of California and now the Obama administration imposing suffering on people for no purpose.
Fiorina’s discussion of problems with wind and solar power were also very good. I would have added that these technologies are vastly more expensive than traditional sources of electricity as well, and said something like: “Doubling our electric bill might not sound like much of a problem to millionaires like you and me, Katie. But it would cause real hardship and suffering to millions of hard-working American families.”
That’s the one I hear, too. It’s the kind of economic “thinking” I expect from my industrial home state of Indiana (well, before they passed right to work legislation), not Silicon Valley. Apparently it’s preferable to let the ship sink with everyone on board than to make the kinds of decisions that involve sleepless nights, tears, and excruciating conversations with people you care about deeply.
I’ve focused on the positive first. Maybe I’m too critical, but I spent most of the time watching this video annoyed by Fiorina’s “clean coal” comment. The science was already pointed out by DH earlier (comment 35), but to make it perfectly clear — “clean coal” is not about taking CO2 out of coal emissions, which is a practical impossibility. “Clean coal” technology is about eliminating actual pollutants.
Here’s my problem — by mentioning “clean coal” in such an obviously incorrect way, my natural conclusion is that either:
Neither of these is very palatable to me
Fiorina worked for HP’s shareholders – that was her fiduciary duty. Those shareholders took a major bath. During her 51/2-year tenure, HP’s stock fell 52 percent. Therefore, her tenure was a failure.
No impression either way. The CEO’s job is to maximize shareholder value. She does not work for the employees, nor should she.
If a company could create billions in value without having ANY employees, it would be a huge win for its owners and the world.
That is:
I am being harsh because such a comment deserves it, and I know you’re better than that.
The people who are crazy about Donald Trump should be crazy about Carly Fiorina instead. She is just as outspoken, but much more articulate, and much more consistent with her past positions than Trump.
It is also one thing for a State, like CA, to pass laws. It is entirely another to force those same laws on the other 49 states.
Why are you avoiding the facts? HP underperformed:
So there you have your answer.
It is wrongheaded to expect company management to make money for the people who entrust them with their money?
Profits dropped. HP debt soared. Company value dropped.
The conclusion is clear as a bell: FIORINA FAILED AS HP’s CEO.
I am amazed that we have such different ideas about what a CEO is supposed to do.
Not so sure. She could be alluding to the fact that a more important initiative than reducing CO2 emissions is to figure out how to cost-effectively reduce /eliminate non-CO2 emissions from coal, a very worthy goal – 1) because we currently use so much and 2) livelihoods depend on this.
If she can get Couric and the rest of the vultures off her back by mentioning clean coal, why not?
If she can divert the conversation to a topic that can produce positive change, even if not part of the Climate Change hysteria, why not?
Does clean coal innovation improve and deflect environmental concerns by removing pollutants? If so, find ways to do that economically: Do Something.
Does prohibiting CO2 change our climate? No. Then don’t do it, it’s all bluster and fear-mongering.
Climate change is a not a myth, it has happened, for eons. That humans cause it is the myth.
Is the positive result of removing actual pollutants from coal burning a myth?
Thanks for clarifying that. I’m sure she will do the same.
But she didn’t get the media attention and polls…
It is August, many more months to go.
iWe, I’m not sure whether the point-to-point comparisons you bring are a good representation. Here’s what I see:
Looking at HP a little before (or after) Carly was promoted in mid-1999, its stock performance was on par with other tech firms through her tenure (early 2005). But after she left, the stock took off.
One could argue that she positioned the company well for future success; or one could argue her successor unleashed the company’s potential. Either way, it’s not clear from the stock price alone that she was a relative underperformer as CEO.
@Arizona Patriot —
Really? You think our candidates need to be in a position to argue the chemistry of burning fossil fuels???!
This is the problem with the Right. We’re truth seekers (versus “social justice” seekers), and for some reason we have this compulsion to tell the whole truth under every circumstance, as if anyone’s interested.
Carly is in a political battle — not a battle over the science! Why, oh, why, do we insist that our (non-scientist) politicians be able to explain science to other non-scientists like Katie Couric or Al Gore, for heaven’s sake!! Studies show that 95.6% of voters’ eyes glaze over the second any “real” science comes up in conversation. /see what I did there?
The question Carly answered is the appropriate one for a politician. “What are the political/policy implications of ______________.” In this case, “climate change.” And she was exactly right that the implications are about trade-offs, which the American people understand much better than chemical byproducts of producing energy and their effect on the atmosphere (which scientists themselves are just beginning to learn about).
(The “You just don’t get it” feeling I’m having is probably how Trump defenders feel. Found some common ground…)
Its difficult to use that particular time period as evidence of overall CEO performance based on stock market value. That was a tough period for all and especially for the tech sector.
This could simply be a case of the popping of the .com bubble and 9/11 and the economy picking up after she left.
Occam’s Razor.
As later posters have mentioned, water use by solar-thermal is not a general disadvantage relative to the other alternatives. Water use by photovoltaic is small.
There are other, more significant, reasons why solar is impractical.
Occam’s Razor suggests the aesthetically most elegant solution is right. The shareholders at the time certainly thought Carly was responsible, and the market agreed (since her firing was seen as good news for HP).
The entire market surged after Carly’s removal as CEO. Was her influence so broad as to effect GE Too? Or the entire S&P 500?
Shareholders tend to be panicky and blame the figurehead – its why we have such large swings in the market now that everyone and their grandma has Apple Stock and a 401k. That doesn’t mean that HPs performance was strictly tied to Carly’s maneuvering when the overall economy, and especially the tech sector, took a nosedive right around the time she became CEO.
SoS, please explain to me why the graph you showed does not square with the 52% reduction in company valuation that is reported?
Let’s look at the COMPANY VALUATION alone, adjusted for splits, etc. I think this is the right link. It shows a PER SHARE value of $33 in 1999, dropping to $18.54 in 2005. In other words, shareholders got hammered.
a. You are looking at particular dates, which can be misleading for a volatile stock. Good practice is to look a little bit before and after, to avoid cherry-picking. If you look a little before or after the dates you select, it is clear that HP’s performance was generally in line with benchmark indices.
b. Return to shareholders is total returns, i.e. price + dividends. Your calculation overlooks dividends. HP returned an additional 9% per year to shareholders in dividends.
Guys, I have no problem with being in favor of Carly. But the amazing thing is that a purely objective metric DOES exist – and according to that metric, Carly failed.
She did worse than almost every major competitor. Bottom of the barrel. Muck-suckingly bad.
Not quite following. If she doesn’t win the nomination, are you suggesting she should or shouldn’t be VP?
If she doesn’t win the nomination, and say a governor does, then conventional wisdom would suggest that someone plugged into DC and familiar with the system would be a good choice. E.g., W and Cheney, Clinton and Gore, etc. The choice of Biden was in the same vein whether or not we respect Biden as a choice or Obama ever intended to use him as a resource.
It also goes to the question of whether VP is a job worth having….
The stock went up when she was fired! Looking after her firing date gives you exactly the wrong information.
Can you find comparisons that include this? Other companies also pay dividends…
Very misleading, ignores dividends. IBM paid (approximately) 2% dividends per year over that time; so did Cisco; Microsoft 1%; Intel 0%; S&P 500 average, 4%. Meanwhile, HP was paying about 9%. You need to adjust your comparison of value.
This is not the comparison I was making. The start date is actually more relevant to the final return. I should have been more clear.
To your (separate) point: You need to be realistic about the lag in a large organization between a CEO’s decisions and the resulting changes. A new CEO’s decisions do not filter down to operations immediately, so it may be more useful to look 6 months after the start date. Similarly, after the CEO leaves, the ripple effects continue — strategic choices, hiring choices, product choices — they all last some time into the future.
I’m not arguing for or against Carly, just pointing out that a simplistic stock-price-at-day-1 vs. stock-price-at-last-day comparison isn’t the airtight measure you claim.