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IR in Politics

 
Business folks usually don’t talk about politics, but politicians love to beat up on business.  During the debates, Romney took Obama to task on unemployment, and Obama ribbed Romney about his tax rate.  And yet, we haven’t seen any business leaders lambast the two candidates about the gobs of money they’ve spent to win the hearts of voters.
 
So far, Obama has raised approximately $934 million, versus Romney’s $881.8 million, according to the New York Times.   Between the two of them, we’re talking close to $2 billion, and that doesn’t include a whole bunch of money spent in support or against the candidates by committees, nonprofit groups and other super PACs.
 
In PondelWilkinson’s world, investors are constantly holding executives from public companies accountable for expenses and how well they can manage their income statements and balance sheets.   Votes in favor of a company’s financial performance usually result in rising shares.  The opposite is true for lackluster performance.
 
While racking up campaign expenses isn’t directly analogous to a company’s handling of SG&A, it strikes me as hypocritical when presidential candidates spend hundreds of millions of dollars to harness an asset (our country) that is ailing from the very same spendthrift ways that contribute to our nation’s growing deficit.

 

Evan Pondel, epondel@pondel.com