K&C Quotables

Some notable quotes from last night’s Kudlow & Company:

Dems Dissing Free Trade [Trade protectionism] is one of the biggest risks to our economy out there…Look around the world. What is wrong with our government? If you look at what other governments are doing, they’re fighting over each other to see who can sign trade agreements. And we’re taking the ones that we have, we want to redo them, we don’t want to do the one with Colombia. Do we not want to participate in the global economy? Do we want to go into an isolationist economy that’s never ever worked for anybody? I don’t understand it. It’s just populism politics. It’s preying on the uneducated. I think it’s a very big risk to the economy.
– RBC Dain Rauscher portfolio manager Jim Lacamp

The Lone Star State’s Goldilocks Economy It didn’t happen by accident. We made some decisions back in 2003. We cut back on government spending. We smoothed up our regulatory process. We passed the most sweeping tort reform in the nation. And we continue to invest in our public schools. So, government can’t create jobs, but what government can do is create a climate for the private sector to have job growth…and in Texas we’ve done just that. We’ve created a climate where people know that they can come, they can risk their capital, and have a good chance of seeing a good return on investment. And that’s exactly what the last five years have seen in Texas.
-Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry on his state’s economic strength amidst a national slowdown

Giving Shareholders a Say on CEO Pay I believe our company works on the premise of pay for performance. And as long as I’m performing, I hope that I will stay at the top end of the range. And I think that’s the way you want it to be. Now, I think where most shareholders become upset, is where you aren’t performing, and you’re getting paid a lot of money. And under our system [of giving shareholders a “say on pay”], that just won’t happen.
–Dan Amos, Aflac chairman & CEO