William J. Holstein

About this blog:

I believe that the most important thing Americans have to do is secure their economic well-being in an increasingly challenging, complex world. All the arguments about culture (school prayer, the flag, etc.) are fine for other Americans to have—and they are a healthy sign of democracy. But they are beside the point.

What I have written about all these years is the process of creating wealth, not for any one individual, but for the United States as a whole. Ever since I was a young correspondent witnessing the emergence of China, just after the country opened in 1979, I've held the opinion that we have to get more serious about increasing the wealth of the U.S.

That means focusing not only on how our corporations are run (governance), but also on innovation and productivity/competitiveness. Despite the predicament in which we find ourselves today (and I think we face a tough five-year economic restructuring, not a mild recession), I retain faith in the resiliency of the U.S. economy and the enterprise of American people. If Americans have the right facts, and focus on the task at hand, we can once again get serious about creating wealth, not just playing funny money games.

So come with me on this journey as I explore the complicated issues involved in maintaining the economic health of the U.S

The New Business Week
APRIL 25--Bloomberg has now carried out a thorough redesign of Business Week magazine, where I worked for 11 years onstaff and then later as an online contributor. So I have fondness and respect for the franchise that Business Week has traditionallyl enjoyoed. The ...
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CEO Pay--What About Sports, Entertainment?
APRIL 23--I recently went to a New York Yankees baseball game with my wife, Rita. We paid $90 per seat plus some minor processing fees, then paid to take a train to the stadium and paid more money for $7 beers and such. Let's say we spent $250 (for a bad game, by ...
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Interesting Article on General Electric--But Where Is The Role of Jack Welch?
APRIL 19--Diane Brady has written an interesting article about General Electric in the latest issue of Bloomberg Business Week: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_17/b4175026765571.htm?campaign_id=magazine_related Essentially, CEO Jeff Immelt has ...
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Goldman Doing “God’s Work?”
APRIL 17--I suspect that the SEC's case against Goldman Sachs for misleading investors in one particular investment fund is just the tip of the proverbial ice berg. The culture of Goldman Sachs encouraged its employees to think that they were smarter than everybody ...
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What Are They Doing to GM’s Board?
APRIL 14--I've been quiet lately about General Motors, but the latest board appointment gets me. The government's auto czar, Steve Rattner, stacked the board with telecommunications and private equity people, including Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre. The lead ...
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China Watch: Profound Changes in Taiwan-Mainland Relations
APRIL 9--I've been watching relations between Taiwan and China since I was posted to that part of the world when Jimmy Carter "normalized" relations with Deng Xiaoping. Although there has been a gradual engagement between the two arch-enemies, now the stage is set ...
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Crisis Strategies: Toyota and the Roman Catholic Church
APRIL 8--Toyota and the Roman Catholic church are dramatically different institutions, yet they are making the same mistake in handling their communications crises: they are not accepting the criticism of their practices and changing the way they do business. ...
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Still Reading “WHY GM MATTERS”
APRIL 7--FROM A READER IN ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA, WHO OBVIOUSLY HAS A SENSE OF HISTORY: Dear Mr. Holstein, Just finished reading 'Why GM Matters.' An interesting read. I was particularly taken by your statement on page 191 that the U.S. government "..asked ...
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Quaking in Their Boots in Beijing
APRIL 5--The Communist Party leadership must be terrified that the U.S. Treasury is going to issue a report to Congress labeling China as a currency manipulator. The Treasury, in its infinite wisdom, has delayed making this determination for a while, but the sword ...
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Too Much Optimism on Jobs
APRIL 5--The news accounts were very upbeat about the jobs numbers Friday, and so was President Obama. I understand the thirst for optimism, but we should remind ourselves that roughly a quarter of the new jobs being created were for the census. That means these ...
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What Google China and Japan Tuna have in common
MARCH 25--Many tongues are wagging in the United States over China's refusal to allow Google to offer uncensored search engine results in China and Japan's insistence on eating endangered tuna species, as portrayed in the film, "The Cove." The common thread is ...
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Many American Companies Make Compromises in China
MARCH 13-- There's a lot of talk about how Google is making an ethical compromise by agreeing to filter out certain content from Internet searches performed by Chinese web-surfers. But Google is hardly the only company that had to make this kind of deal with ...
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Let’s Get Serious About Jobs
MARCH 12-- The United States needs to generate about 10 million jobs to make up for the awful damage that has been inflicted on the American worker, but there is a startling ignorance in the debate in Washington about what kind of jobs should be generated ...
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How Corning Innovates
This is my latest article for Strategy + Business. (http://www.strategy-business.com.) This is what I think Americans really need to be talking about--how do we innovate? And then how do we keep the jobs in the United States? Five Gates to Innovation Corning ...
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Consumer Spending--Waiting for Godot
Feb. 24--Economists and investors are surprised by the latest consumer confidence numbers, which have plunged. Newspapers today express concern that American consumers used to be world-class champions of buying, but they are damaged and they are not recovering ...
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