Assertion Contradicted
Ross: Los Angeles School Superintendent Abolished High School Math
“Milken Institute sent me an interview they had done with the head of the school system in Los Angeles, and the reason they did an interview with them is he had abolished, prohibited the teaching of mathematics in high school.”
Opinion
Ross: 2017 Syria strike during Xi visit deterred warfare under Trump
“I think it's a big part of the reason that single event, big part of the reason we didn't have much warfare during Trump's whole administration.”
Assertion Contradicted
Ross: Trump Taj Mahal's $800M Mortgage Bond Never Paid a Single Coupon
“Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns underwrote an eight hundred million dollar mortgage bond for a company that was a startup. Trump had a couple million dollars in it, and that was about it. Well, it never paid one coupon. As you know, the coupons were every six m…”
Disclosure
Ross: Commerce Department was first to restrict dual-use exports to Chinese companies
“So we were the first ones to put a lot of controls on the exportation to certain sanctioned Chinese companies of militarily sensitive products. We call them dual-use products, because a lot of them had some commercial use, but also could be military use.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ross: CCP party secretaries are the most powerful figures in Chinese companies
“Well, if the state owned enterprises, especially, but even a lot of private ones, The party secretary appointed by the communist party is the most powerful person in the company. So it's, he's not under all the regulatory supervision cause it's just party secr…”
What-if
Ross: Trump administration would have achieved more by moving faster initially
“If we had acted a little more rashly, a little faster, not made sure that we truly understood how it worked and just To go a little more adventurous, we would have accomplished a lot more, because that would be another year of reforms, another year of tax roll…”
Assertion Contradicted
Ross: University Survey Found Plurality of Youth Believed US Invented Slavery
“There's a university, I think it's University of Wisconsin, surveys people, 18 to 25 each year, with a bunch of macro questions. And the two most interesting ones on the last survey I saw, the first one was, where was slavery invented? You know what the most p…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Wilbur Ross: Milken's junk bonds directly drove an increase in corporate bankruptcies
“When he was inventing deliberately junk bonds at Drexel, Burnham, and Lambert, you knew putting out that much highly leveraged debt would result in many more bankruptcies than before.”
Opinion
Ross: U.S. Government Is the Most Over-Leveraged, Under-Managed Entity
“You can argue that the U.S. Government is the most over-leveraged An under-managed situation that we have, especially then it was.”
Insight
Ross: True free trade is a fantasy due to national self-interest
“Understanding that there is no such thing as true free trade in the world as we know it. It's a nice theory that every country will just manufacture and even export the things that they're the best at, will import everything else, and life goes on merrily. The…”
Assertion Contradicted
Ross: US Ranks at Best 30th Globally in Elementary Reading and Math
“And if you look at the statistics, even in grammar school, the lower grades, we rank at best 30th in the world in reading, writing, and grammar school math.”
Opinion
Ross: US government functions better than any other government he has seen
“The other thing is, while our government has a lot of misfunctions, and you read a lot about it in the book, It still functions better than any other government that I've seen.”
Insight
Ross: Leaders blaming external factors over controllable problems signal failure
“They never talk about anything that's within their control that they could do something about fixing. And to me, that's a telltale sign that the guy who's headed for real trouble Because there are a lot of things you can't fix, but if you don't focus on the on…”
Opinion
Ross: High-Yield Bonds Were a Useful and Stimulatory Economic Innovation
“But on, on balance, I think high yield bonds were a good idea and a useful idea and had a very stimulatory effect. On the economy.”
Assertion Supported
Ross: Icahn and Ross Were Publicly Adversarial to Trump Before Supporting Him
“When the bonds collapsed, Carl Icahn, who's a good friend of ours, became the largest bondholder. So the two of us were quite adversarial in a very public way to Trump then. But interestingly, both of us turned out to support him.”
Disclosure
Ross: Owned 18 factories and visited China 80 times before Trump campaign
“Over the years we had 18 different factories making different things at different companies in China. So I was in China 80 times before the Trump campaign, and I also got money from the various funds in China”
Assertion Partly supported
Ross: Trump administration cut eight regulations for every new one enacted
“Trump put in a rule for every new regulation any cabinet member wanted to enact. You had to cancel two of at least equal magnitude. Well, we actually overall canceled eight for every new one that we put in”
Assertion Partly supported
Ross: Rio Tinto spent $400M over 10 years seeking Arizona copper mine permits
“Spent 10 years trying to get the permitting necessary for a huge open-pit copper mine in Arizona. It would have been the world's largest copper mine. They had spent four hundred million dollars and still didn't have the permits that they needed.”
Insight
Ross: CEOs must let subordinates make mistakes to scale a business
“Usually, as the CEO, you can perform any of the tasks better than your next subordinate, but if you don't get over that, then let them make some mistakes and then correct them. You can't grow the business because they're only 24 hours in a day anyway”
Insight
Ross: Old-economy firms carry heavier balance sheets and leverage than tech
“Unlike tech companies, the old old economy companies tend to be very balance sheet heavy, and therefore they often tend to be a little leverage heavy.”
Assertion Supported
Ross: Drexel's Market Share Fell from 70% to 40% Before Bankruptcy
“Drexel went from 70% market share to 40%, went from being the most profitable firm on Wall Street to being bust.”
Insight
Ross: Uncertainty is paralyzing for business, whether news is good or bad
“Business can adjust to good news. It can adjust to bad news. But uncertainty is a paralyzing thing for business.”
Wilbur Ross