The essence of Meg Whitman captured by Mike Thompson, Detroit FP toonmeister

[Bozita]

http://www.freep.com/article/20100923/BLOG24/100923002/...




California candidate for governor disses Detroit

“Fresno looks like Detroit. It's awful.''
-California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, on the economic decline of Fresno, California, during a meeting with the editorial board of the San Jose Mercury News


What’s so galling about California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman’s swipe at Detroit isn’t that yet another politician is using Motown as shorthand for urban decline. No, what makes Whitman’s comment especially irritating is that two big reason for the decline of the city that she insulted are Wall Street bamboozling and outsourcing – two things that the billionaire Republican Whitman has excelled at in the past.

Before Whitman launched her bid to buy the California governors seat, she ran eBay. Before that, Whitman held lofty positions at Wall St. titan Goldman Sachs and at companies that are big into the practice of shipping American jobs overseas. Let’s take a look at Whitman’s track record:

-During her time on the board of Goldman Sachs, the firm invested $140 billion in mortgage-backed securities – the investments at the heart of the housing market collapse and the financial meltdown. If you live in Detroit chances are that you or someone you know has lost a job or home as a result of the economic turmoil caused by folks like Whitman.

-While serving as the GM for a division of Hasbro Inc. from 1997-1998, she oversaw the global management and marketing for their Playskool and Mr. Potato Head brands. According to Hasbro’s Website, the majority of Hasbro products “come from factories in Guangdong Province in southern China.” During Whitman’s tenure, the company also sent jobs to Mexico.

-Whitman also served as a senior vice-president of The Walt Disney Company, a corporation that makes toys in southern China, where workers toil up to 18 hours per day according to The Sunday Times of London.

-Whitman’s resume also includes a stint as a division president for Stride Rite Company from 1992-1995. During her tenure, the company closed two factories in Massachusetts and laid off 450 workers.

I could detail similar stories about her tenure as CEO of eBay, or her stint as CEO of Florist Transworld Delivery (FTD), but you get my point.

It takes quite a bit of gall for Whitman to bemoan conditions in Detroit when she played a role in helping to create similar conditions in other parts of America.

[JuniperLea]

1. Typical Republican response to the mess they made...

Oh, look at this horrible mess. Surely this is Obama's fault, and has nothing to do with what is clearly the Republican motivated cause of the problem. Especially in this case when you would want to deflect the negativity from the Republican Governor who is leaving office.

[David Zephyr]

2. Excellent.

K&R.

[JDPriestly]

3. K&R

Meg Whitman is just typical of the irresponsible Republican candidates who blame Democrats and Obama for the symptoms of the disease that they caused our country to have -- greed.

[avaistheone1]

4. Voters need to be armed with these facts about Meg Whitman

Thanks!

[mackerel]

5. How is she doing in the poles?

[pinboy3niner]

6. Guess she forgot she was scheduled to debate Brown today...in FRESNO!

I hope she didn't expect them to roll out the red carpet for her. And she sucked big-time in the debate, too! :rofl: