Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon in town visiting customers and SBA District HQ 48 of 68, 18 mos. into the job. Biggest plea she heard from small biz USA? “Before the tax cuts,” McMahon said, it was “Please pass the tax cuts.”
Colleague Peter J. ÂBrennan often asks execs and pols for their go-to metric on the economy. “[World Wresting Entertainment] stock,” McMahon said with a smile. “No, GDP, she followed up. “We haven’t hit numbers we should. But we’re nowhere near maxed out what we’re going to do.”
Atlanta Fed calling for 4.8% Q2 GDP, Goldman Sachs 4.0% … annual GDP last topped 3% in 2005 under Pres. George W. Bush … McMahon’s little wrestling co. stock (NYSE: WWE) closed at $66.54 on Thursday, all-time high and market value of $5 billion …
“My husband (Vince) and I sharing a desk,” the SBA boss said of early days. Guessing Dwayne Johnson’s smiling, too …
Jim Doti upped Chapman’s GDP forecast from 2.5% to 2.7% while adjusting to post-presidency life as an adjunct prof—those humbling student evaluations. Doti’s were effusive—you know Jim, right? Ah, but that’s news to him. “What’s a G.O.A.T?” he recalled, at the 40th Economic Forecast revision at the Musco Center in Orange. The economist was relieved after he looked it up … LeBron, Brady and now Jimmy “The Goat” Doti …
Doug Corbin tapped to run CHOC Foundation. Corbin’s spent 25-plus years in development at CHOC and Pepperdine University …
In 1976, an ex-National Football League wide receiver and OC sand-and-gravel businessman caught some empathy for the last pick in the NFL draft. Like the Grateful Dead, you’d have won a lot of bets insisting the Mr. Irrelevant tradition would last. But Mr. I is legit in Year 43 …
The NFL for a long time had the creator, Paul Salata, now 92, announce the selection at the draft. Daughter Melanie Fitch joined the commish in Texas this year for pick No. 256, Trey Quinn, SMU slot receiver and Washington Redskins seventh-rounder. Quinn could make the team—100 catches, 1,000-plus yards senior year—but he surely caught the spirit of Mr. I: “I figured out they were insane once I got here,” Quinn said at Monday’s Balboa Bay Club banquet. The “do-something-nice-for-a-stranger tradition” has raised over $3 million for local charities since Salata and cronies hatched the idea.
“Paul, thank you for what you’ve done,” said Skins’ boss Bruce Allen, who was preceded by Rams HOFer Eric Dickerson. Pretty relevant …
Inspiration Point. Charles Krauthammer. Lost a great man Thursday. “Spoke in complete paragraphs,” lobbyist and ex-congressional aide Brett Barbre liked to say of Krauthammer. Charles, thank you for the sublime contributions to the conversation. Dr. Krauthammer was 68.
