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Preview — How I Read Gertrude Stein by Lew Welch
Robert Creeley says of this early study of Stein's writing: 'Rarely indeed does one have a chance to witness such attention so finely attuned. Lew Welch's early take on his great mentor's primary works is testament to his own exceptional authority, as reader and writer alike. His insights are fundamental to our recognition of Stein as the bedrock genius she always was for...more
Published January 1st 2001 by Grey Fox Press
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Lewis Barrett Welch, Jr. is an American poet associated with the Beat generation of poets, artists, and iconoclasts.
According to Aram Saroyan who wrote Genesis Angels: The Saga of Lew Welch and the Beat Generation, Welch decided to become a writer after reading Gertrude Stein's long story 'Melanctha.' Welch published and performed widely during the 1960s, and taught a poetry workshop as part of th...more
For Fortune magazine in 1999, Jack Welch, then General Electric’s chief executive, wasn’t just the country’s best executive, or the manager of the year, but nothing less than the best manager of the 20th century, “far and away the most influential manager of his generation.”
Mr. Welch himself was more circumspect. “My success will be determined by how well my successor grows it in the next 20 years,” he said at a management conference that year.
Eighteen years later, with this week’s announcement that Mr. Welch’s handpicked successor, Jeffrey R. Immelt, would step down as G.E.’s chief executive, the verdict would appear to be in.
“Given how horrendous the stock performance has been for so many years, the most amazing thing is why the board didn’t act sooner” to replace Mr. Immelt, said Charles M. Elson, a professor and director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware.
Scott Davis, a Barclays managing director, said on CNBC that Mr. Immelt’s tenure was “an unmitigated disaster for shareholders.”
Mr. Welch brought much needed energy and charisma to the chief executive’s job and streamlined G.E.’s bloated bureaucracy. Had he stayed on through the financial crisis, perhaps he would have recaptured the growth that eluded Mr. Immelt.
But hardly anyone considers Mr. Welch, now 81, a management role model anymore, and the conglomerate model he championed at G.E. — that with strict discipline, you could successfully manage any business as long as your market share was first or second — has been thoroughly discredited, at least in the United States.
No wonder, given the performance of the company’s stock over the past 10 years. G.E. shares dropped 25 percent during that period, in contrast with a 59 percent rise for the S.&P. 500. The rival industrial conglomerate Honeywell’s stock has more than doubled, and Danaher’s has tripled. United Technologies gained 67 percent.
Nonetheless, Mr. Immelt remained one of the country’s highest-paid executives: $21.3 million in 2016, $33 million in 2015, and $37 million in 2014. Even without a formal severance package, Mr. Immelt, 61, will get an additional $211 million when he retires, Fortune estimates.
“I’m a long-term G.E. shareholder,” Mr. Elson said. “The bottom line is, I did poorly and he did very well.”
Speaking of his tenure as G.E.’s leader, Mr. Immelt pointed to the increased strength of the company’s industrial businesses, their competitiveness and large market shares.
“I’ll say that will stand the test of time,” he said in an interview on Monday with my colleague Steve Lohr. “Let other people make their own judgments.”
Mr. Immelt’s defenders have pointed out that he had to contend with the collapse of the tech bubble, the Sept. 11 attacks and the financial crisis, all circumstances beyond his control. But so did the chief executives of every other major company.
“About the best that can be said is that he enabled G.E. to survive through a difficult time,” said Bruce Greenwald, professor of finance and asset management at Columbia. “But he never really understood how to create value through growth.”
And he inherited “a highly inflated stock price,” Mr. Greenwald said, thanks to Mr. Welch’s aura and lofty expectations that probably no one could have met.
As Aswath Damodaran, a finance professor at the New York University Stern School of Business, put it, “It’s always tough to follow a legend.”
Suffice to say that Mr. Immelt won’t be writing a book like Mr. Welch’s national best seller, “Jack: Straight From the Gut,” to celebrate his tenure at the helm of G.E. But ultimately, it may be the much-lauded Mr. Welch whose reputation emerges more tarnished.
“Jeff Immelt brought his best every day for 16 years,” Mr. Welch said in a statement. His office said he was not available to comment about his own legacy.
Mr. Immelt tacitly repudiated the Welch model himself, moving to dismantle parts of the sprawling G.E. empire by getting rid of NBCUniversal and the once-too-big-to-fail GE Capital. The problem, many critics said, is that he didn’t do so nearly fast enough.
“I don’t think Jack Welch was ever as good as he was made out to be,” said Mr. Damodaran, who has spent years trying to value G.E. During Mr. Welch’s tenure, “he benefited from the growth of financial services in the American economy and the growth of GE Capital,” Mr. Damodaran added. “That’s what made it untouchable for so long.”
That strategy backfired in 2008, years after Mr. Welch had left, with the arrival of the financial crisis. “It turned out G.E. had no competitive advantage in financial services,” Mr. Damodaran said. “If anything, their risk controls were even worse” than those at other large financial institutions. Warren E. Buffett had to come to the rescue with a $3 billion infusion.
Mr. Damodaran said he warned G.E. executives in 2005 that complexity could become a problem. “If you wanted to create a valuation hell, it would be G.E.,” he said. “It was too complex by design, growing through numerous acquisitions. I told them back then, ‘You’re getting away with this now, but if there’s ever a crisis, it will come back to haunt you.’”
Mr. Greenwald, the Columbia professor, agreed that much of G.E.’s success, and then its problems, stemmed from an overreliance on its huge financial services business. “It was contributing 60 percent of profits, and Jack Welch could always tweak the earnings by turning to GE Capital,” he said. “But it had no stable source of deposits” to fall back on in the financial crisis.
That is the main reason G.E.’s rivals have fared so much better, Mr. Greenwald said. “They were never the broad conglomerate G.E. was, with huge financing businesses,” he said. “They’re much more focused on industrial production.”
Both Mr. Greenwald and Mr. Damodaran said the Welch conglomerate model had been thoroughly repudiated, so much so that there is a widely recognized “conglomerate discount” applied by investors to the stock prices of companies consisting of businesses with no obvious synergies. Activist investors have pounced on this to urge the breakup of disparate operations, and G.E. itself has been the target of the activist investor Nelson Peltz.
“Specialization is something that provides real value,” Mr. Greenwald said. “If you’re a conglomerate, by definition you’re not specialized.”
Even companies like Honeywell and United Technologies “aren’t trying to do everything,” he added. “They have areas of specialization.”
Mr. Damodaran said few of the world’s conglomerates, if any, are superstars.
“They may be doing better than G.E., but they all suffer from similar problems,” he said. “They’re not nimble and adaptable. It’s much harder to be a conglomerate today than it was 20 or 30 years ago. The Welch model is certainly dated. Maybe it’s still used in a few old-line manufacturing businesses, but not in the rest of the economy, where a start-up can destroy your business.”
Even though Mr. Immelt deserves praise for abandoning the Welch model, Mr. Damodaran said, he did it much too late. “They’d be much better off if they’d started sooner,” he said.
In a statement, a General Electric spokeswoman said, “Today, G.E. is a more focused industrial company with strong growth opportunities in the long term.”
G.E. shares rallied this week on news of Mr. Immelt’s departure, largely on hopes that his successor — John Flannery, a company veteran — will embrace that logic. He promised a “comprehensive review” of all G.E. businesses to be carried out “with speed, urgency and no constraints.”
That left investors salivating for more divestitures or spinoffs. “Does anyone really think there are any synergies between medical equipment and jet engines?” Mr. Greenwald asked. “A complicated, specialized business like medical equipment would be much better on its own.”
More divestitures may well result in pretty much the same G.E. that Mr. Welch inherited, which is “a boring, mature company,” Mr. Damodaran said. “This isn’t a company that’s going to work miracles. Even if well run, about the best G.E. can hope for is to grow at the rate of the economy. But that may be the best-case scenario. If it tries to rediscover its youth, that would make me nervous.”
JULIE of Endicott, NY Verified Reviewer
Original review: May 11, 2019
I open a pack of Welch's fruit snacks and found something inside the pack. A strawberry fruit has tape stuck to it with cardboard inside the tape. Don't want to eat these again and have thrown out the remainder of the box.
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Welch’s Fruit Snacks of Bakersfield, CA Verified Reviewer
Original review: April 27, 2019
Our family has been a long time buyer of the variety box of Welch’s Fruit Snacks. But this past year (2018-2019) has been the worst we’ve seen of this brand. We found bad yellow pieces in every bag of two batches on separate occasions (after the first bad batch we took a break for 6 months hoping it would sort itself out, but it clearly didn’t). They were disgusting, shriveled, and not a fruit snack at all! We reported it to the company and they said they would investigate.
In the meantime, they were seemingly concerned and helpful and rushed us a replacement box. But when that box came in the mail, it was completely ripped open and missing 1/3 of the bags inside. We tried to see if the unopened bags were salvageable. When we opened one, the most disgustingly sour smell came from the inside of it. We looked at the fruit snacks to see what was wrong and they were darker than usual. We threw out that box and reported it to them again.
We’re not taking a break again hoping they will improve their quality. We think this company is officially done and needs to be shut down. Especially after looking into them and finding out a lot of other people have seen worms and mold! Enough people that it shouldn’t be ignored. So we are no longer buying anything Welch’s related and suggest you don’t either. Other name brands and even knock-offs have better quality products than Welch’s has shown us this past year.
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Like to keep things anonymous of Scandinavia, WI Verified Reviewer
Original review: March 3, 2019
Opened up a pack. All one kind. It says mixed fruit. Why are there only raspberry ones??? The flavors are also very weird. Why would somebody create a mango fruit snack? Just why? And they are also very hard.
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Original review: Dec. 8, 2018
I refuse to pull my vise grips out of my toolbox anymore. Welch's Grape tends to skew to older customers and your lids are unopenable. I just tossed a completely full grape and white in the garbage. No name brands will suffice from now on.
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Brisian of Paterson, NJ Verified Reviewer
Original review: Nov. 10, 2018
I recently purchased Welch’s Juice as I always do, and open the seal and pour some to my husband, and noticed it was contaminated with some type of mold and told him to stop. 'Don’t drink it.' Expiration date it’s good until December and the container was unopened. I had take pictures and write to Welch’s company and gave my information. I’m worry about other people going right now to the store and buying a contaminated juice and drinking it.
2 people found this review helpful
How do I know I can trust these reviews about Welch Foods?
For more information about reviews on ConsumerAffairs.com please visit our FAQ.
JENNIFER of Swartz Creek, MI Verified Reviewer
Original review: Oct. 27, 2018
Craving Grape juice, I drove to local gas station to purchase a 14 oz Welch's Natural 100% Grape juice. Got back into car, immediately opened, took big gulp, looked down to put cap back on & noticed mold all around top of bottle & under the cap. I actually debated whether to pour into cup when I got home so I could try to drink because that's how bad I was craving it! But instead I put in bag, emailed customer service and awaiting reply.
2 people found this review helpful
Original review: Oct. 10, 2018
My daughter was eating Welch’s cherries and berries fruit snacks when she came across a fruit snack with a worm in it. It was a small worm and obviously dead and inside the snack. I demand a recall on them since this is the 3rd or 4th case of a worm found in their fruit snacks.
7 people found this review helpful
Fred of Bradford, PA Verified Reviewer
Original review: June 19, 2018
I bought Natural Concord Grape Spread. It says it's non GMO with the big letters. I'm ready to open and eat it but I read *Not made with genetically modified ingredients. Trace amounts of genetically modified material may be present.* False nonsense advertising to sell your GMO garbage.
7 people found this review helpful
Original review: March 19, 2018
Purchased a container of Welch Mango Twist juice on Friday 3/16/18 from Wal-Mart. Opened the juice on Monday 3/19/18 for the first time. Jug was sealed had to remove pull tab. Poured myself a glass and proceeded to drink it. My husband then came and poured a glass and what came out in his glass made me want to vomit... we found a worm/bug swimming in the juice! Yes not only was there a bug in it but it was still alive and swimming. Called the company to complain and they want to send me out coupons... really?! That's your solution? I will never purchased another Welch product. This is beyond unacceptable and all you want to do is offer me coupons.
19 people found this review helpful
Original review: Sept. 18, 2017
September 16, 2017, my husband and I purchased the kiwi strawberry juices that come in the 6 pack. We drank one each and soon after we developed a sore throat. My husband has drank another today and got an even worse sore throat as well as drowsy and dizziness. These need to be recalled because something is error with them!
11 people found this review helpful
Original review: June 6, 2017
Ok so tonight June 6 2017 went to make me a jelly sandwich and everything was going fine till I started putting jelly on my second sandwich (I had already eaten the 1st one) and noticed something whitish and weird in my jam!!! It was a worm (maggot). Had to throw everything away cause I get super grossed out :'( Won't eat this no more :v And a few years ago stopped drinking Welch's grape juice because I had just got back from running and wanted to quench my thirst so I chugged down half the bottle when I noticed an inch thick of mold on top of the juice??? It was so FN disgusting!!!
13 people found this review helpful
Marianne of Seffner, Other Verified Reviewer
Original review: May 27, 2017
I have been using Mott's for years supposedly having no sugar and the reason being because I cannot have sugar. I am hypoglycemic. As a matter of fact I had given up drinking soda. It seemed to be so sweet. It was on sale. Buy one box get the other free in Winn-Dixie so I thought to myself, 'Okay this is a bargain. Well this seemed like a bargain.' It was the pouch. As I was drinking it I thought to myself, 'This is really sweet. Is it the juice that's so sweet.' Then I looked it up. It is substitute sugar.
I can't have any sugar. As a matter of fact I stop drinking Coke because I got sick from the sugar substitute. I almost passed out in the bank because of the contents of sugar substitute. Sugar is sugar whether versus substitute low sugar it's sugar. It's a danger to people who can have sugar. Stop hiding behind the titles to sell a product. Now I have to throw all of it out. Maybe I should call the lawyer. I'm thinking hard about this because you have it advertised as no sugar so course there's no sugar but it's substitute when it be low or anything else. False advertisement especially people who cannot have neither.
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17 people found this review helpful
Haley of Clarkston, MI Verified Reviewer
Original review: Sept. 27, 2016
I opened my bag and began to eat my fruit snacks when I noticed something white in one of them, so I cut it open and there was a white powder in it. I was grossed out and it looked like a crushed up pill, my first thought was that it was a drug. Even though it was gross I will continue to buy their products because nothing like this has ever happened to me and I love to eat and they are one of my favorite snacks. But Welch you need to get it together and figure out why there are so many gross things in your products.
83 people found this review helpful
Original review: July 6, 2016
I opened my pack of mixed fruit snacks and the grape one looks like it is covered in mold! I had already eaten two of the fruit snacks and am now extremely concerns about getting sick. Does anyone know if this is indeed mold? It is hard and a white color. I loved eating fruit snacks as a quick snack, but after this I am so nauseated just thinking about it!
66 people found this review helpful
Kathy of San Antonio, TX Verified Reviewer
How To Read Welch' S Expiration CodesOriginal review: Feb. 28, 2016
This was in my daughter's fruit snack. When I called to report it was told this was impossible but coupons would be sent. What if she had allergies. FDA will be notified.
30 people found this review helpful
Stacy of Glendale, AZ Verified Reviewer
Original review: Oct. 14, 2015
I don't know what I found in my Fruit Snacks, but it is creepy. Yuck.
3 people found this review helpful
Seline of Bristol, PA
Original review: Sept. 4, 2015
One day, I found a piece of wire in a Welch's fruit snack pack I was eating. Luckily, it was not my son eating from that package. I stopped giving him these snacks. I emailed Customer Service to file a complaint. They asked for the package and said they would investigate. No one has ever got back to me to follow up. Reading all these complaints, I am wondering if FDA has ever visited them to see what is going on in their facilities.
9 people found this review helpful
T. D. of Norfolk, VA Verified Reviewer
Original review: July 25, 2015
I love Welch's fruit snacks. While eating three packs I noticed a white spot on a red raspberry. I made a decision not to eat so opened with my hands and noticed a white powder substance inside and placed box in back of cabinet so daughter don't eat. I don't know what it is but hoping it's just sugar. A lost of an appetite for my favorite snack.
28 people found this review helpful
sophia of Parker, CO
Original review: July 9, 2015
Okay, so I went to go make a pb and j and I sniffed the jelly. It smelled like rotten eggs. Then I sniffed again and it smelled like alcohol!
12 people found this review helpful
Chelsie of Wintersville, OH
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Not sure if this is the correct expiration date.. but it's April 30th 2015 & my package says 2011!!! I just bought them today!!!
19 people found this review helpful
Patricia of Brooksville, FL
Original review: April 17, 2015
I just found a piece of fingernail inside one of the Welch's fruit snacks! Gross!
16 people found this review helpful
isabel of San Antonio, TX
Original review: March 12, 2015
I will never buy a Welch product again. I have bought several boxes of their fruit snacks and never tasted soap, but these last boxes I bought they all tasted like soap. I don't know what they coat these snacks with but it's nasty. The taste lasted two days in my mouth. I brushed my teeth several of times used Listerine and still the taste was there in my mouth in my nose it was horrible. I had to wash my hands over and over again to get the smell off my hands.
15 people found this review helpful
Christine of Orleans, ON Verified Buyer
How To Read Welch' S Expiration Code 2017Original review: Feb. 13, 2015
I purchase Welch's yogurt and fruit as a snack for my 2 years old son. I seat my son in his high chair and put its table top on, Grab a pack and place them on his table when i notice a maggot on the fruit. Removed from my son's table and pick up the phone and call Welch's (1-800-3406870). Talk to Consumer Affairs' call center. They said, 'I'll send you a coupon in the mail. 9 days after I get the coupons -- 1.50$ in coupons and a free box -- that all you get for having a maggot in your food. Never again will I give this to my son. My Family loved Welch's Juice and snack but not anymore.
23 people found this review helpful
Amanda of Garland, TX
Original review: Jan. 31, 2015
My 2 yr old son was eating Welch's fruit snacks and found a sharp chunk of wood in his gummy snack. It is very sharp wood. Has some coloring and smells of the fruit. Buyer beware. Look inside each pack before giving your child.
19 people found this review helpful
James of Taylorsville, GA Verified Reviewer
Original review: Dec. 21, 2014
Grape juice - We used small bottles from six packs to prepare the Lord's Supper for church service, the bottle's date was 10_15_15, it was bad. I opened a second bottle from same package and it was bad too. I am going to assume that the rest are bad too and take them back to store.
11 people found this review helpful
Samantha of Salem, OR
Original review: Nov. 2, 2014
I wish I had found this site sooner so I could of shared my rather unfortunate and disgusting experience I had with Welch's product 2 summers ago. I had purchased a 5oz bag of Welch's mixed fruit snacks earlier in the evening for a snack on movie night. I eat them by the handful so I have no idea how many of these creatures I was ingesting until my sister sat next to me and asked if she could have a couple. I handed her the bag and she pulled a fruit snack out and immediately gasped, dropping it on the coffee table. I asked her what was wrong and she said there was a worm crawling in it!
Upon closer examination, it was indeed a small, no bigger than 1cm worm halfway sticking out of the fruit snack. I immediately dumped the remaining fruit snacks out of the bag onto the table and sure enough we counted about 3 or so little worms crawling on them. I was already half way done with the bag and could not believe I was eating worms! I tried not to vomit and called my friend over. She said they were fruit fly larvae. I wish I had gotten a picture at the time but I was too disgusted to even look at these things any longer. I guess I let this slide as I have not completely stopped eating Welch's products today. Still, I am more careful now and inspect my candy before I eat it.
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How To Read Welch' S Expiration Code List
17 people found this review helpful
ivory of Dacula, GA Verified Reviewer
Original review: Feb. 10, 2014
My daughter and I was coming from a doctor's appointment and she ate the fruit snack. She asked me to pull over so she could vomit. She noticed a bug inside of the fruit snack she was about to eat. I examined it thinking it could not be an insect inside of a fruit snack! It was, so I called the number listed on the back of the package. The representative told me to send it in an envelope that she would be sending. We have taken pictures of it for our evidence. But we also have the remainder of snacks in our pantry. My daughter has been vomiting saying that she never wants them again.
21 people found this review helpful
jessica of Lehigh Acres, FL
Original review: Jan. 23, 2014
I was sitting home eating Welch's Fruit Snack and a big bug wing was stuck to one of my gummies. I'll never buy from this company again. Been eating their products since I could chew. It makes me sick to my stomach to think about what me and my family have been eating all these years.
14 people found this review helpful
Michelle of Wake Forest, NS
Original review: Sept. 16, 2013
I just took out a bottle of white grape cherry juice that was purchased/opened less than 2 weeks ago. The entire top is covered with thick white patches/film. It doesn't expire for 9 more months & has been in fridge since opened. Unfortunately, my 3-year old is the only one who drank from it, and half the bottle is gone.
20 people found this review helpful
Janine of Boynton Beach, FL
Original review: Aug. 21, 2013
I just bought a 2.25 oz bag of Welch's fruit snacks and the grape one looked like it had mold on it.
22 people found this review helpful
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