Bill Clinton: “Let me just follow up on both of those comments. Look--and let's talk about this--people make mistakes. The President…”

“Let me just follow up on both of those comments. Look--and let's talk about this--people make mistakes. The President even makes a mistake now and then. [Laughter] People make mistakes. And sometimes--and the world changes sometimes. Sometimes a decision that was good this year looks pretty bad next year because things that you couldn't foresee change. Now, if that happens and you're running a really big company, and let's say two out of six divisions of it no longer make sense for you to be running and you want to have a no-layoff policy, and maybe you shouldn't have gotten into all these things that you got into when it looked like a profitable thing, at least from a financial transaction point of view, to do, how do you get the time from the markets and from your board to make the transition? Maybe if you had 3 years, you could figure out something for all these people, and then you wouldn't have to lay them off. I mean, I think that's the thing that plagues me, you know. I think over the long run the markets make pretty good judgments. I don't think you can stay very strong in the market over the long run if you're not producing a quality product or service that somebody wants to buy. But I think what has happened is, as these markets have become more global and our ability to move money around just like this--and the people who are moving it make money based on quarterly returns and also based on how many transactions are churned--it really forces people who are in a tight, in the near term at least, to make decisions that seem draconian. I mean, at least that's what it seems to me. And is there a fix for that? I mean, is there something that can be done about that, even if it's no more than--to go back to the question the gentleman asked--even if it's no more than changing the attitude of the people that are making those judgments? Because my perception is that some of these managers are under extreme market pressure in a dimension for short-term results that was not the case even a few years ago. That's my perception. And I would like--anybody else want to comment on that? This is a tough issue. Participant. I think that's true, Mr. President. And also there are other factors at work, too, that in this day of increased corporate governance today--boards, I think, are looking for more of that, not only the financial markets, but there are higher levels of expectations with boards of directors. I'm not sure it's all bad. Is it good or bad?”