WPP's Sorrell: "Obama Could Be the New Margaret Thatcher!"
WPP chief Martin Sorrell has once again brought his inner economics professor out of the closet for a 1,000-word treatise in the London Times on the recession and the potential for recovery. In summary, he is bullish on a quick recovery but thinks Brazil, Russia, India and China will be kicking the West’s ass for a long time to come. He is also wistful for the days of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, and thinks President Obama could learn from them. The highlights:
Sorrell expects Obama to bow to Detroit and bail out the auto industry, but for racial rather than economic reasons:
We will see the US car industry bailed out. But this will happen before the inauguration because there are fears that General Motors will go under before Christmas. Politically, Mr Obama couldn’t have a black woman car worker being put out of work in Detroit while a white debt trader in New York is kept in work.
He no longer wants to invest in the West:
For my company WPP, there is no point in continuing to invest in Western Europe unless structural changes are made. For example, if we win a piece of business, we have to bear the severance costs of the company that lost the contract.
The West is screwed, and the East will benefit, he says:
By 2010 the West will be living with the long-term consequences of what has happened, and will be overborrowed. India, China and the other Brics will continue to pull away while we are increasingly indebted, having mortgaged our future.
He wants Mrs. Thatcher back
In the UK, all the changes that Margaret Thatcher made have gone. When I visit Scotland and Wales, and see the extent to which local jobs depend on the public sector, it shows we have lost all the progress made under her.
And Reagan:
People wrote off the US in the 1980s and said that Japan would take over the world. But then along came Ronald Reagan. He changed the dynamics. What the world really needs right now is leadership in the Reaganite, Thatcherite, Blairite mould to lead us out of this crisis. Mr Obama could be that person.
Jim Edwards, a former managing editor of Adweek, has covered drug marketing at Brandweek for four years, and is a former Knight-Bagehot fellow at Columbia University's business and journalism schools. Follow him on Twitter or send him an email.
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