Andrew Jorgenson: I want you to look at him in all of his glory: Larry the Liquidator. The entrepreneur of post-industrial America, playing God with other peoples money. The robber barons of old at least left something tangible in their wake- a coal mine, a railroad, banks. This man leaves nothing. He creates nothing. He builds nothing. He runs nothing. And in his wake lies nothing but a blizzard of paper to cover the pain. Oh, if he said, I know how to run your business better than you, that would be something worth talking about. But hes not saying that. Hes saying, Im gonna kill you because at this particular moment in time, youre worth more dead than alive. Well, maybe thats true, but it is also true that one day this industry will turn. One day when the yen is weaker, the dollar is stronger, or when we finally begin to rebuild our roads, our bridges, the infrastructure of our country, demand will skyrocket. And when those things happen, we will still be here, stronger because of our ordeal, stronger because we have survived. And the price of our stock will make his offer pale by comparison. God save us if we vote to take his paltry few dollars and run. God save this country if that is truly the wave of the future. We will then have become a nation that makes nothing but hamburgers, creates nothing but lawyers, and sells nothing but tax shelters. And if we are at that point in this country, where we kill something because at the moment its worth more dead than alive, well, take a look around. Look at your neighbor. Look at your neighbor. You wont kill him, will you? No. Its called murder, and its illegal. Well, this, too, is murder, on a mass scale. Only on Wall Street, they call it maximizing shareholder value, and they call it legal. And they substitute dollar bills where a conscience should be. Damn it! A business is worth more than the price of its stock. Its the place where we earn our living, where we meet our friends, dream our dreams. It is, in every sense, the very fabric that binds our society together. So let us now, at this meeting, say to every Garfield in the land, here, we build things, we dont destroy them. Here, we care about more than the price of our stock. Here, we care about people. Thank you.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Feb 2014 21:29:51 +0000
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