Posted by
AJH on Friday, February 27, 2009 8:35:38 PM
“Edward Johnson slams FDR,‘New Deal II’”
Fidelity’s Edward “Ned” Johnson jumped into the controversial debate over President Obama’s “New Deal II” and what Johnson called government “make-work projects.”
“We can only hope that the government’s cure doesn’t further sicken the patient,” Johnson wrote in his annual update on Fidelity’s performance over the past year.
“During the ’30s, Congress - with guidance from the president and the same kind of good intentions - shifted the country’s cash flow away from productive businesses to government make-work projects, which most likely prolonged the Great Depression,” wrote Johnson, arguably Boston’s most powerful business executive.
Those policies helped make “money ridiculously easy to obtain and business people eager to comply with the policies,” Johnson wrote.
AJH