Bill Bennett: “I remember painfully when our public company fell 1 penny per share short of the projection that Wall Street was looking…”

“I remember painfully when our public company fell 1 penny per share short of the projection that Wall Street was looking for. The stock dropped something like 20 percent that day because we fell 1 penny short. When some people in the company said it is not fair for us to be penalized that way, the reaction of the Wall Street analysts was very interesting. They said: You have the ability to manage your earnings, and if you were not able to find that extra penny and change your number to reflect it, that means you are in a whole lot more trouble than we thought you were. The penny is not important. What is important is what your inability to come up with that penny says about your ability to manage your earnings. The stock, frankly, has never recovered. When I came to the Senate, it was in the low twenties. At one point in my Senate career it hit 40. Today you can buy every share of that stock you want for $1.25. Fortunately, I sold all of mine before it got there, but not at a high enough number to leave me with anything like the net worth I had when I came to the Senate. So I have had a very painful personal experience with that situation. Back to the question of dividends. I know as a CEO you can manage earnings but you cannot manage cash. Earnings are an idea, a concept, a hope, or a prayer. Cash is a fact.”