John Allison Speech
Business is noble work. Successful businesses help clients, employees, communities and shareholders and are self-disciplined by the market.
Retired CEO and president of BB&T and Cato Institute John Allison criticizes the government for being responsible for the financial crisis in 2008.
“It was altruism that caused the financial crisis, not greed.” The government instructed banks to hand out mortgages to those with poor credit ratings.
The keynote speech took place on Apr. 14 in Broyhill Auditorium in Farrell Hall and was attended by professors, faculty, businessmen, and a few students.
Common belief is that greed led bankers to distribute these subprime mortgages with high interest rates. According to Allison, it is the government who was responsible for these loans and the government’s fault for bailing out businesses meant to fail.
America has dropped from 3rd to 20th place in free market ranking. Allison asserts that America is far from being a free market, it is under crony statism. Crony statism involves private businesses being supported by the government.
To support his claim Allison brought up that after the Sarbanes Oxley act was passed to regulate and make public businesses transparent, fraud increased. Allison states rule of law is essential but regulations are typically destructive to innovation and compliance drives out ethics.
Allison’s fundamental goal for BB&T was to make the world a better place to live. During his time as CEO, the company’s worth grew from $4.5 billion to $152 billion. He stated that sense of purpose, rationality, self-esteem, and motivation are the foundations of a business.
“Self-esteem is earned by how you live your life,” said Allison. For students aiming to work in the business world, Allison stated a good businessman has mental discipline, is reality grounded, independent thinking, honesty, integrity, justice, teamwork.
“Successful business men are independent thinkers and that gives them a sense of responsibility.”
It is entrepreneurs who think for themselves and bring ideas to life that start businesses. Markets work because they allow human innovation and creativity. Successful businesses focus on clients not shareholders. For these reasons, Allison advocates that businesses are better off without government regulation and free markets raise the standard of living.
“We are fundamentally traders, life is about figuring out how to get better together.”
Businesses receive benefits for providing service to others creating a win win scenario.
After the event concluded, Wake Forest marketing professor Michelle Steward stated, “John Allison knows more about the travesties of government regulation than anyone yet remains upbeat, he knows his purpose.”
Steward stated that Allison’s speech was very powerful and if there is anything a student could have taken from it, it would be the importance of purpose, self-esteem, and value.
“It was an interesting topic for me, brings a new concept, new theory about the financial crisis,” said Simon Liu, a rising senior studying finance at Wake Forest University.
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