PEOPLES WORLD: “In an April 11, 1962 press conference, [President John F.] Kennedy called the price hikes ‘a wholly unjustifiable and irresponsible defiance of the public interest.’ He criticized ‘a tiny handful of steel executives whose pursuit of power and profit exceeds their sense of public responsibility.’ The execs had ‘utter contempt’ for the U.S., Kennedy said.
In private, Kennedy added: ‘My father always told me that all businessmen were sons of bitches, but I never believed it until now.’ The line quickly became public.”
In Ireland, Dire Echoes of a Bailout Gone Awry
NEW YORK TIMES: … It now appears that the bank lied to Irish officials about how much trouble it was in when the government, at the end of September 2008, guaranteed all the bank’s liabilities.
On one tape, John Bowe, Anglo Irish’s director of the treasury, conceded that he had no rational basis for telling the government that 7 billion euros was all it would take to rescue the bank.
“If they saw the enormity of it up front, they might decide, they might decide they have a choice,” he said to his colleagues in a tape disclosed by The Irish Independent. “They might say the cost to the taxpayer is too high.”
NEWSLANC WATCHDOG: We believe there are some business persons of considerable integrity. Even they can only tell in the rare situation where they are put to the test.
John Kennedy was right and his father was one of them.