Power Failure: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon (Book Review)

Summary: Written by William D. Cohan, this book chronicles the birth and demise of General Electric. The author focuses specifically on the CEO administrations of Jack Welch and his successor, Jeff Immelt. GE was the premier American business model in the 20th century. With operations worldwide and a diverse line of operations and businesses, GE was a business powerhouse and the CEO title there was competitively sought.

This book read like a novel. Greed, hubris, deception, scandal, paybacks and crime were found at the highest ranks of the company. Did Jack Welch “cook the books” to satisfy his promise of reaching quarterly earning projections? It appears he did utilize assets from GE Capital when there were operation shortfalls. Welch laid off tens if not hundreds of thousands of employees. He closed business lines that had operated successfully for decades. Business operations, employees and products were chess pieces for GE CEOs.

Welch more than Immelt had the respect of GE employees and certainly senior management of the corporation. Welch personally managed the careers of many of the men who moved up in the organization. Welch also listened to objections to his thinking, something that Immelt refused to do.

Both Welch and Immelt made poor business decisions. There were businesses and companies that each man should not have merged with or purchased. Immelt generally did not solicit comments or potential objections from his senior officers before a major business decision. This was a major cause in his downfall and GE’s fortunes.

Welch was a complex figure. His loyalty to men who worked for him did not extend to women he married. He appeared to find solace with his third wife, Susie.

Cohan spent time within the book describing the personalities and lifestyles of not only Welch and Immelt but other men of ambition and power in the GE organization. How GE did or did not develop a succession plan for their next CEO is a topic worthy of study by MBA classes.

Rating: ★★★★★

One of the best business books that I have read.

Senescence Round 8

100% Eric Burleigh; 0% ChatGPT

With all due respect to Tom Brady, Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali and others, the GOATS (Greatest of all Times) in their sports have probably not been born yet.

Wish we can transplant the spirit, unity and enthusiasm of a professional sports team fanbase to unite this fractured country.

Memories of a deceased loved, like a candle, may flicker or dim but the love continues to beat strong.

Picture by Pat Whelen from Pixels

The concentration and focus of the average American lasts midway between the time spent reading a Tweet or viewing an average TikTok reel.

How soon before we eliminate teachers, classrooms and books for a child’s education and upload knowledge and information by injection of data to their brain?

1776 Continental Congress: Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Henry, Franklin and Adams.
2023 Congress: McCarthy, Gaetz, Boebert, Greene and now George Santos.

Perspicacity of sports and political insights by friends > collective wisdoms of “talking heads and commentators” on TV.

Pickleball acts as viagra for some men of mature age. Both get the blood flowing, creates raised expectations and allows for pleasant times with the ladies.

Miscellania

“The saddest thing is to be

a minute to someone,

when you’ve made them your eternity.” 

Sanober Khan

I speculate that nonfiction books are headed down the path of academic journals. They will be useful for academics positioning themselves for tenure, but they will be too slow and ponderous for communicating ideas. People who really care about ideas will turn to reading and writing substacks instead of books and journals.

Books are not Information Dense

Substack is much better

Arnold Kling

A Neurologist’s Tips to Protect Your Memory: 1. Pay more attention. 2. Find regular everyday memory challenges. 3. Read more novels. 4.Beware of technology. 5.Work with a mental health professional if you need to.

Dr. Richard Restak, a neurologist and clinical professor at George Washington Hospital University School of Medicine and Health

“The average American — even if they’re a highly sophisticated college graduate or a law school student — really doesn’t know an awful lot about the many different ways in which even innocent people can regret for the rest of their lives the biggest mistake of their lives, the decision to waive their Fifth Amendment right and agree to talk to the police.”

James Duane, a professor at Regent Law School in Virginia

Mullings of a Mature Man

Senior citizens are like older cars without a gas gauge. Both have travelled many miles and not sure how much time or travel is left.

As years grow, handshakes, hugs and kisses among friends and family are longer.

Photo by Pixabay

Those who are truly happy, if offered a chance to enter a time machine and go back to relive their lives, would decline and say, “I would not change a thing.”

Emptying contents from my mom’s home of 54 years, I sensed fond memories of my youth following them solemnly from the house to the truck taking them away.

One’s definition of “success’ matures with age. Success becomes not so much in what we have but what we contributed with what we had.

If you still believe in 75% of the things you learned or were told in the first 25% of your life, you haven’t been paying attention.

Review: Trust by Hernan Diaz

Taken from my review on Goodreads

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I was anxious to read this book because of the excellent reviews and buzz surrounding it. I was not aware of the structure of the book where it was basically four novellas that presented different viewpoints and perspectives from different writers. I enjoyed the first novella and was somewhat disappointed and shocked that the story was about to change. Nonetheless I continued to read but found that my interest had lessened.

I am glad that I finished the book as I was able to find out the “secret” of how Benjamin became rich. And it struck me that this secret was somewhat plausible.

The book did provide one of the most interesting and provocative aphorisms that I have read.

“God is the most uninteresting answer to the most interesting questions.”

I did not find that the lifestyles of the characters were particularly interesting – – in fact they were a bit boring. Nonetheless, the book did provide some surprises and the ending justified my efforts in finishing it. I’m not sure how attractive this book would be for readers who have no interest in finance or in the period around the great depression.

A modest start to my new year of reading…



View all my reviews

2023 Predictions

I am late for making 2023 predictions but this is mainly a fun exercise as no one is very good at figuring out the future. Based on my mediocre abilities to pick winners in my NFL pool, the reader should not expect great foresight here either.

Politics:

  • Neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump will run for president in 2024.
  • The leading candidates as 2024 Presidential nominees will be Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida (who will be helped by vaccination scandal, see below) and Gretchen Whitmer, Governor of Michigan.
  • President Joe Biden will pardon Donald Trump in the fall of 2023 as a result of multiple convictions against Trump. Biden will say that the pardons were initiated “to promote national healing and unity.” The pardon and subsequent agreements not to imprison Trump and members of his family will be a result of negotiations and agreements between the Department of Justice, the New York Attorney General, the Atlanta Attorney General and Trump’s attorney team. Disgraced, Trump will fade from public view.
  • Melania Trump will divorce Donald Trump.
  • In retaliation for the conviction and imprisonment of January 6 conspirators, a devastating domestic terroristic attack will occur and kill thousands of US citizens.
  • Vladimir Putin will suffer a “health issue” mid year and negotiations between Russia and Ukraine will begin in mid 2023.

Photo by Virgil Cayasa

Sports

  • The Phillies will finish as a wildcard team in 2023 but they will not make it to the World Series.
  • The Eagles will make it to the NFC championship game against the 49ers and will lose due to key injuries in the offensive line and defensive secondary.
  • Tom Brady announces retirement after Tampa Bay loss in NFL playoffs.
  • The 76ers will lose in the second round of the NBA playoffs. 4 games to 1. This will be James Harden’s last season with the team. Joel Embid will request a trade at the end of the season. Doc Rivers gets fired.

Business

  • The Dow will finish at 36000 on 12/31/23; NYSE at 4300.
  • Twitter files bankruptcy.

Science

  • Scandal and controversy regarding the rollout, safety and efficacy of the various Covid vaccinations.
  • Frenzy will occur when an UFO sighting is witnessed by thousands and documented through video and radar.
  • No progress in finding treatment or prevention of Alzheimer’s.

Review: Running to the Mountain: A Journey of Faith and Change by Jon Katz

I bought and read this book over 20 years ago. I was about the same age as the author at the time and I had a sense of my advancing age, mortality and the need to make changes. I did not have a spiritual guru like Katz did with Thomas Merton. ( I do share his interest in the writings of HL Mencken.) While there were times when I would have liked to be alone, I had absolutely no desire to find and buy a distressed cabin in the woods and live there.

While Katz was a far more successful professional man, I fortunately did not share most of the childhood traumas that he experienced with his parents and siblings. His demons followed him from childhood to adulthood.

This book had far more influence on me when I read it at 50 years old than it did re-reading it at 70 years old. Maybe I am a bit wiser, maybe I am a bit more resigned at my current age. Plus I have very little enthusiam for change.

Interestingly, I read an update on Jon Katz and noticed that he divorced his wife Paula in 2008 and remarried in 2010. Reading between the lines in his book, I sensed that he may have had some dissatisfaction with his marriage. I guess that that was part of the change that he was looking to make.

This is an inspiring book for those on a spiritual search or reconciling their mid life crisis. Very good story…

Excerpts from the book I found interesting…

I am not nearly as afraid of dying as I am of the hinges inside my mind and soul rusting closed. I am desperate to keep them open, because I think that if they close, that’s one’s first death, the loss of hope, curiosity, and possibility, the spiritual death. After that, it seems to me, the second one is just a formality. I wanted to oil the hinges, force the doors to stay open.

I’ve struggled mightily to figure out how to be spiritual without having to be religious, how to find peace without bending my knee before an altar.

I’d lost close friends this way before, even abandoned a couple myself. When men are pressed, their friendships go to the bottom of the list.

There is huge risk involved whenever you seek to discover yourself. You might find that you’re not as happily married as you thought you were. That you’re growing older than you’ve permitted yourself to acknowledge. That you have few true friends, or the wrong ones. That you’re not happy with the place you’re living or fulfilled by the work you’re doing. That you’re not happy or fulfilled, period.

As with so many other boomers, death was suddenly in the air around me, the consciousness of mortality emerging as parents, older friends and mentors, and the first of my peers began to falter and fall. I was writing my own history. I wanted immortality, though not in the conventional religious sense. I wanted to live on in the fond memories of the people I left behind, to be recalled as a supportive father, a loving husband, a devoted friend, a man who struggled to be a good person.