Post on 06-Apr-2018
8/3/2019 Knight Kiplinger Keynote Address at Chamber of Commerce of Huntsville Madison County
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Knight KiplingerKeynote Address
Chamber of Commerce of Huntsville/Madison County
Annual Membership Meeting Presented by S3
I am delighted to be here in Huntsville, and I was thinking its a good thing that your
forbearers had the good sense to change the name of the town from Twickenham. Now
Twickenham might of been a lovely name evoking a small village in England, but as a
cool name for a high-tech city in the 20th or 21st century, no, probably not. Sounds like
a Jane Austen novel, or maybe a BBC mini series, you know, Twickenham Park. Now itdidnt harm Birmingham any to be named after an English city, but at least that city in
the 19th century was a brawny-smoked, belching industrial center, so it worked better
for Birmingham than Twickenham would of work for Huntsville.
I am woefully late in making my first visit to Huntsville, Alabama. Now Ive been to
Alabama a number of times before, which not every national financial journalist, based
in the Northeast can say. As a matter of fact, Im appalled by how many of my peers in
the national press havent spent anytime in Alabama which is their shortcoming, the
shortcoming of their readers, but Ive been to Birmingham, Ive been to Tuscaloosa. I
gave a speech in Auburn just a year ago. Ive watched a Mercedes Benz being made inVance, so I have a more than passing knowledge of the State of Alabama. But I had
never been to Huntsville; now Ive known about Huntsville by reputation as a high-tech
center in a very livable city for a long time, and I was thinking back to the first time I ever
heard of Huntsville, Alabama, and it was a half-century ago, which means I was about
12 years old, long about 1960, 1961.
So how did I at the age of 12 hear the name Huntsville, Alabama? Well, my father
made a reporting trip down here, much as I am doing today, and he came back with a
plastic model that was given to him by his hosts. It stood about two-feet tall. It was
white with black trim, and there was a small cylindrical satellite perched on top of thismodel rocket. He said he bought it back from Huntsville, Alabama, where it was made,
both the model and the real rocket. He called it a Redstone rocket, and it was probably
what you know as the Jupiter C Rocket. It put Americas first satellite in orbit just after
Sputnik. Now my father placed this model on a stand in the corner of his office where it
sat for the next several decades, and we still own it in our family, and when my kids
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8/3/2019 Knight Kiplinger Keynote Address at Chamber of Commerce of Huntsville Madison County
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Knight KiplingerKeynote Address
Chamber of Commerce of Huntsville/Madison County
Annual Membership Meeting Presented by S3
were young, I would show them the model, and tell them where it was made, and its
role in American history.
My father by the way is 93 today, sharp as a tack, highly energetic, and I was chatting
with him today about that first visit that he made to Huntsville a half century ago. Andhe told me a story that I remember hearing many, many years ago, but hadnt heard for
a long time. It involved a chat with Dr. von Braun. Well the evidence scientist at the
end of their conversation said that he was flying back to Washington the next day, at the
controls of his own plane, and would my father like a lift. Now I think in 1960, it was a
little hard to get to Huntsville by commercial aviation, probably multiple stops in a less
than comfortable plane. So my father said sure, Id like a lift back to Washington
Dr. von Braun. So off they went, Dr. von Braun at the controls, and my father sitting in
the co-pilot seat, and Dr. von Braun had learned the day before that my father had been
a Navy pilot during World War II, had flown off of carriers, had been under intense
Japanese fire in the South Pacific.
So at one point Dr. von Braun turns to my father and says, Would you like to take the
controls? Now my father hadnt flown for about 15 years, but is it like riding a bicycle,
do you never forget it, Im not sure. So my father put the headphones on, took the
controls, and flew the plane for a while. And then there came over the headphone what
my father described as a lot of chatter from air traffic control about other planes in the
area, and my father began to think better of this adventure. And he was thinking that he
did not want to be personally responsible for doing any harm to a genius of American
aerospace. He surrendered the controls. He could only imagine the headline. Rocket
scientist parishes with journalist pilot ,so thats how Huntsville crept into myconsciousness.
And then there were additional intrusions of Huntsville, and its reputation over the years,
and I developed quite a vicarious knowledge of this community, and its excellence
before Id ever been here before. For a number of years, business leaders from
Huntsville, when they would come up to Washington to visit their congressional
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8/3/2019 Knight Kiplinger Keynote Address at Chamber of Commerce of Huntsville Madison County
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Knight KiplingerKeynote Address
Chamber of Commerce of Huntsville/Madison County
Annual Membership Meeting Presented by S3
delegations, would stop by our office for a visit. One of the senior editors of the
Kiplinger letter, Rich Samons , has a sister, Peggy Samon, and brother-in-law Ralph
Petroff, down here in the Washington area, and Ralph was very helpful to me in a
number of conversations in helping me understand Huntsville before my visit. And then
Huntsville began to come under the radar screen of Kiplingers personal financemagazine, which writes a lot about cities from the consumer and career point of view;
places that our readers might want to consider moving to for a career advancement or
retirement or whatever it might be.
We write about the livability of cities, we write about the vitality and economic growth of
prospect of cities, and in 2009, Huntsville soared to the top of one such list. No.1, in
what we viewed as job creating potential for the years ahead, and it was a very elite list,
that top ten in 2009, including such high-tech Meccas as Austin, Texas and
Albuquerque, New Mexico. University towns like Madison, Wisconsin and
Charlottesville, Virginia and oh, by the way, my home city of Washington, D.C., but youedged out Washington, D.C. by two places. Theres hardly any place in America that
ever edges out Washington on any criteria whatsoever, but on this ranking Huntsville
did. A year later, Huntsville once again, soared to the top of a list of great places for
families to raise children. And each time my reporters at Kiplinger came back raving
about Huntsville on their reporting trips, so I figured it was time for me to take a look for
myself.
But first, I did a lot of homework, reading extensively about your economy, the history,
the culture of your community, and talking on the phone to knowledgeable people. Now
Ive been here for only about 24 hours, but its been a very packed 24 hours. In thecourse of 24 hours, I had a brief, but fascinating visit at your wonderful, recently
expanded Museum of Art. I stopped into Harrison Brothers hardware, and they had to
pull me out of the store; I could of stayed there for hours. I had a fine lunch at one of
James Boyces excellent restaurants Cotton Row.
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Knight KiplingerKeynote Address
Chamber of Commerce of Huntsville/Madison County
Annual Membership Meeting Presented by S3
The reason for this anemic recovery is that this was not a garden-variety slump. This
was a financial crises, this was the bursting of a global bubble in asset values across
many asset classes; stocks, commercial real estate, and a bursting of a bubble of over
wildly over-optimistic spending and forecast of future growth by governments all over
the world. State and local governments, national governments, not just here inAmerica, but everywhere, an epidemic of overspending, over promising to its citizens of
goods and services, which were based upon unrealistic assumptions of future growth.
So here, we are now, anemic growth, but growth. And it beats a poke in the eye with a
sharp stick, so Ill take it. You know, just six months ago there was a lot of talk in the
air, the R word or the double D word, double dip recession, a feeling that growth had
stalled out, and was now going to head south toward a real contraction, not just anemic
growth. At the Kiplinger Letter, we said otherwise, we said no, we see a resumption of
somewhat stronger growth in the year ahead. We looked at what I call the four
horsemen of the U.S. economy, the four draft horses that pull the wagon. It is what theybuy that determines growth in America because these four horsemen buy what we
produce. They are the consumer, American business, foreign customers who buy our
exports, and finally government at all levels. If you look at the varying capability of each
of these, you put them in the balance, you get a sense of whether were going to stall
out or whether were going to grow. Let me tick through them very carefully.
Exports have been a star of the U.S. economy the last two years. Overseas demand for
goods and services, manufacturers, agriculture, energy, a lot of things have been a star,
but now the rate of export growth is slowing down, especially to Europe, still pretty
strong in Asia.
Business is sitting on a hoard of cash. American business is able to spend more
money, and the question is whether they have the confidence to do so. Its beginning to
look as if American business is opening the purse strings of it on capital spending, and
eventually we hope on the softer spending of marketing expense, and of course hiring.
The American consumer is in somewhat better shape than two years ago, has paid
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Chamber of Commerce of Huntsville/Madison County
Annual Membership Meeting Presented by S3
down some debt, better balance sheets, the erosion of their home equity, and that
erosion was calamitous, and most of America has slowed. It looks as if housing prices
in most communities are nearing a bottom, so you get a little bit more of a wealth effect,
at least not the negative wealth effect of seeing their wealth erode before their very
eyes.
Consumers are showing a tendency to return to normal spending, not wild credit
spending, but normal levels of spending. Finally, we have draft horse No. 4,
government, and this is a tale of 2 or 3 different levels of government. Two levels of
government in America have an obligation to cover their expenses with revenue, local
government and state government. They have mandates to meet their expenses or do
something about it. One level of government has no such legal obligation, and you
know where that level of government is located. So you have Washington continuing to
spend freely money that it doesnt have.
Out of every dollar of federal spending in America today, $0.40 is borrowed, $0.40 is
borrowed from U.S. creditors and increasingly from foreign creditors. State and local
government because of balanced budget requirements, have laid off tens of thousands
of people, and have slashed services even down to services they should not be
slashing so much, for example, public education. They had no choice. Washington, on
the other hand, has not begun to get serious about its addiction to borrowed money.
When it does, itll have significant ramifications for the Washington Metro area, which is
an artificial boomtown, and always has been, and itll have ramifications for every
community in America where federal dollars are spent freely, more on that in a few
minutes.
You put all of this into ballads, you say well, whats going to sustain, even this anemic
growth that Americas experiencing today? Well, it will be exports, manufacturers,
agriculture, financial services, design, architecture, engineering services, all of those
sorts of things. It will also be a return-to-normal consumer spending. World growth is
slowing this year, but is still logging probably 3.5 percent, a lot better than the
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Chamber of Commerce of Huntsville/Madison County
Annual Membership Meeting Presented by S3
developed nations. China is going to cool off this year to maybe 8.5 or 9.00 percent
GDP growth; thats Chinas version of cooling. This year though, domestic demand in
the United State, by U.S. business and consumers, will pick up a bit. Decent balance
sheets, home prices stabilizing, the pin-up demand for new cars that wasnt satisfied
during the Great Recession is now being satisfied, and were seeing it in improved carsales.
Well, what about jobs? Its going to be several years before we return to the peak
employment levels we saw in America in 2007. By early next year, early 2013, we will
have earned back, created back, only about half of the nearly nine million jobs that were
lost, and frankly some of them will never come back, and this is a double-edge sword.
Some of them will not come back because soaring productivity, output per worker hour,
in both manufacturing and services, enables us to produce the same amount of output
with fewer hours worked, and thats not a bad thing. The United States is the most
productive economy in the world. The envy of the rest of the world, its a job retrainingand reeducation challenge for our society to find new kinds of employment, in new
fields, in fields that didnt even exist ten years ago to absorb, we hope, a better trained
American labor force going forward.
This year were seeing stronger job creation, were probably going to average about
200,000 net new jobs a month this year, that will chip away at this backlog of jobs lost,
but not do it by itself. And where is that employment growth happening? Its happening
in healthcare, in high technology, now some construction and constructions been more
abundant for a couple of years. Engineers, accountants, hospitality industry, its a wide
list. Now what could derail this Kiplinger forecast of gradually improving economicgrowth? A number of things; one would be a meltdown in Europe, which is a basket
case. Things could go very badly in Europe, more badly than theyve been going so far.
We could also have a hot war in the Middle East rather than simply the surreptitious
intelligence war going with Iran right now over the future of their nuclear program.
Blockading of the Strait of Hormuz, this could send the price of petroleum soaring,
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Chamber of Commerce of Huntsville/Madison County
Annual Membership Meeting Presented by S3
raising energy cost to the whole world, and derail this fragile U.S. economy. Could
happen, I think the odds are generally against both of those two scenarios.
Now what are the political implications for this economic forecast? How will Mitt
Romney, who will be the nominee, fare against Barack Obama, the defending championin the White House? Well, let me first of all say that at Kiplinger, in the Kiplinger Letter,
we had been assuming, and advising our readers to assume for many months that
Romney would be the nominee. All through the many boomlets for the flavor of the
week, we continue to look at the relative strengths of the candidates, and predict that
Romney would be the nominee, through the Trump boomlet, boy how long ago that
was, and Perry, and Bachman and Cain and Gingrich and Santorum and Paul.
We wrote months and months ago that the Republicans would eventually choose
electability over ideological purity. Now parties dont often do that, sometimes they go
for electoral purity, and they shoot themselves in the foot. They self-destruct with afringe candidate, viewed as fringe not by party enthusiasts, but by the mainstream
voters. So the Democrats nominated George McGovern. Long before that, the
Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater. You know, they would be viewed as that
fringe today, but they were at the time. And today the party professionals know, as they
have known for a long time that this race will be decided by independent voters.
You know the edge that Democratic registrants have over Republican registrants, all
over America is so great, that all the Democrats have to do to hold the White House
forever is simply turn out registered Democratic voters, and get them to show up, and
vote for their party candidate. If that were the case, there would never be a Republicanin the White House. But as we all know, Democratic registered voters dont show up,
and vote in the same percentages that Republicans do, which means that
independence end up kind of controlling the battle.
Now four years ago, Obama swept the independents. In the last year or so, polling of
independents has shown a decided Republican tilt in their preferences. At the time, the
economic outlook, and the economic mood was much more sour. Its unclear whether8 | P a g e
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Chamber of Commerce of Huntsville/Madison County
Annual Membership Meeting Presented by S3
the polling that will take place of independence over the next couple of months will show
this strong GOP edge among independence or whether they will divide more evenly
between the two parties come election day. I was talking about forecasting without
wishful thinking.
A few months ago, when the recession talk was in the air, the double-dip talk was in the
air, it was common wisdom around Washington that Barack Obama was going to be a
one-term president, joining a pantheon of other smart, well meaning, but bundling 20th
century leaders. Herbert Hoover, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George Herbert Walker
Bush. After all, at that time, the economy as economic, job growth was almost non-
existent, and there was talk of another recession.
Everybody seemed disappointed in the President. Conservatives who were furious that
he was attempting too much, distracting the legislative initiatives at a time when the
economy was job one. Even fellow liberals, his core was disappointed that the hadntbeen ambitious, enough trying to do too much or not enough; but in the rush to write-off
Obama we wrote in Kiplinger Letter, at the great risk of angering a lot of wonderful
readers of ours, not so fast. We wrote repeatedly about the historical reference of
incumbency.
In the 20th century, sitting presidents ran for reelection 19 times, and won 13 of those
races, 68 percent. In the last 50 years, its been a tougher time for incumbents. In the
last 50 years, 4 out of 8 sitting presidents were not returned to office, but several of
those were in the chaotic 60s and 70s, the era of Vietnam, Watergate, Arab Oil
embargos and Iranian hostages. Since 2000, the odds, well actually in the last 30years, even further back, the odds for incumbent reelection have been better. Only one
incumbent, George Herbert Walker Bush was defeated in the last 30 years. We know
what defeats incumbents. Incumbents are defeated primarily by the perception of a
weak and worsening economy shortly before the election. The actual numbers dont
matter that much. Its the perception, its the mood, and its the direction of the
numbers.
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Annual Membership Meeting Presented by S3
Some wags in Washington have pointed out correctly that no President has ever been
reelected with a national unemployment rate over 8 percent; that is absolutely true. I
would posit that it is more important the direction that number is going than the absolute
number, and perception is very important. George Herbert Walker Bush, running for
reelection in 1992, was tarred as a recession President. The recession had been overfor about two years, we later learned that the U.S. economy was growing on election
day in 1992, at 3.5 percent.
But the two best talkers in American politics, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot, ganged up on
poor inarticulate George I, and convinced America that we were still in recession, the
economy was falling apart, and it was all Bushs fault, and he couldnt counter that
message effectively. We also know that Ross Perot defeated George Bush single-
handedly, not Bill Clinton. Ross Perot pulled 19 percent of the popular vote that year,
and defeated George Bush, and elected Bill Clinton.
So it is the perception of the economy, and it is the direction of the economy that really,
really makes the difference. We give inappropriate credit and blame to the President for
the state of the economy. The President is actually a fairly minor player in the condition
of the U.S. economy at any particular time. Even in Washington, which is over credited
and over blamed for the state of the economy. We give too much credit and blame to
the President ,compared to say Congress or the Federal Reserve, which are much
more important players in the economy. But nonetheless, we will give alternately credit
and blame to the President of the United States. And heres his pitch I inherited a
severe financial crises, its taking a long time to get better, longer than I thought and
most people thought, but at least were going in the right direction.
And the GOP pitch will be very persuasive too Yes, Obama inherited a bad situation,
and he made it worse with ineffective leadership, and excessive stimulus in the form of
wild deficit spending. Now since this isnt a European art movie with alternative
endings. We cant rewind the video tape, you remember video tapes, we cant rewind it
and show that the ending that we prefer. This is a what-if game that nobodys going to
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Chamber of Commerce of Huntsville/Madison County
Annual Membership Meeting Presented by S3
win, but the voters will be asked to choose between these two scenarios. Inherited a
bad situation, have made it better, inherited a bad situation, and made it worse.
Do not underestimate the power of incumbency. Mitt Romneys going to be a very
strong candidate, Barack Obama will have the bully pulpit of the Presidency whereevery speech, and every appearance in America will be a political appearance, however
it is built by the White House. We know from history that it is very hard to unseat an
incumbent president. Mitt Romney will be a good candidate, he will probably choose
smartly a Vice Presidential candidate which John McCain did not do four years ago. He
will probably choose somebody like Senator Mark ORubio of Florida to run with him.
Smart, more conservative than Romney, Latino, and oh, did I mention hes from
Florida?
It will be a really nasty big spending campaign. If you dont want to be bummed out
everyday by a barrage of commercials, turn off your T.V. and go to Acapulco for the fall.Itll be a slugfest. Romneys opponents in the primary have given the playbook, and the
script for the defeat of Mitt Romney to the President. They dont have to do their own
commercials, its been done already by Rick Perry and Newt Gringrich. Fair or not, Mitt
Romney has a lot of explaining to do about how he made his fortune. He has a lot of
explaining to do about why a 15 percent tax rate on the carried interest in private equity
is the right tax rate, and despite the merits of the case, on either side, hell have a lot of
explaining to do.
Here is the wild card in the political election. It would be a third-party bid by somebody,
probably Ron Paul that would reelect Barack Obama in a blink of an eye. Historians ofelections say that John Anderson probably defeated Gerald Ford. I mentioned a
moment ago that Ross Perot clearly defeated George Hebert Walker Bush. A
third-party candidacy from the right would clearly reelect President Obama. So Romney
will try very hard to keep Ron Paul on the reservation or at least on the sidelines, a
smothering hug, a big role at the GOP convention, a primetime speech on one of the
better nights. In the end, it is likely that voters are going to feel a little better about their
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Annual Membership Meeting Presented by S3
personal financial situations less than this fall, or at least bad about it. And we will see
first hand the historical workings of the power of incumbency.
There are a lot of things that can change between now and then, but its going to be a
real, real horse race. Congress is up for grabs. Six months ago, the GOP thought thatthey would take the senate in a slam-dunk, and control both houses of Congress.
There are many more Democratic seats in play; many more that the Democrats can
lose, but the GOP must win all of their current contested seats, and pick up at least four
Democratic seats to control the senate. In the Kiplinger Letter recently we said,
Theres a strong possibility that the Senate could be divided 50/50, controlled by Joe
Biden with his tie-breaking vote as vice President of the United States. Talk about
gridlock, you aint seen nothing yet.
Now I want to close today with a few more thoughts about Huntsville. Your economic
future is extraordinarily bright for the following few basic reasons. You have anexceptionally talented workforce, both imported from elsewhere in America, and
homegrown here in Huntsville, with solid, elementary and secondary schools, very fine
colleges. You know that your workforce index is very high in what Richard Florida calls
the creative class. Scientists, engineers, educators, artists, second wonderful ace up
your sleeve. A place to do business, and live that is markedly less expensive than other
attractive places in America.
Its estimated that your cost of doing business, and cost of living, against national
averages, is about a 10 percent advantage in your favor. But the national average is
kind of besides the point, youre competing against other dynamic attractive high-techcenters in America, California, the Pacific Northwest, Boston, Washington, D.C. And
there your cost advantage of both doing business, and living for your managers and
executives, is twice that 10 percent advantage over the rest of America more on the
order of say 20-25 percent, and Im talking here housing, land, labor, utilities, taxes.
That is a huge advantage pared with other good things going on here.
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A wonderful quality of life, parks and recreation, fine dining, childrens museums, space
museum, art museum, symphony, ballet, fine coral society, and the list goes on and on,
theatre companies. You have a rapidly diversifying regional economy, and a declining
dependence on federal spending. Sure, federal spending is still the lifeblood of this
community, but the diversification of your high-tech economy, which began decadesago, didnt happen just yesterday, will enable you to weather flattening defense
spending, and other federal spending better than a lot of other communities. Say
communities whose military presence is based on active duty personnel at bases, quite
different here, as you well know.
Your kind of defense spending in science and R&D in the command centers will be
more durable, and more stable, than other areas kinds of defense spending. And you
have a long history of defense commercial technology transfer; the adaptation and
conversion of space of defense technology in the new companies, the new products
made by companies founded by local entrepreneurs who once worked for the military ordirectly for defense contractors. This has long been a hot bed of entrepreneurial, and
scientific creativity in many more fields than just defense and aerospace. I learned in
my reading that computer assisted design, whats called CAD today was pioneered here
by a division of Intergraph. The first practical telephone modems were pioneered here
by Mark Smith and Lonnie McMillian before they founded ADTRAN.
Jim Hudsons research genetics was a trailblazer nationally in biotech, making possible
the remarkable things happening at Hudson Alpha today. Youre a world leader in
computer-generated graphics and simulation and modeling. AEgis and numerous
companies in that field, and yes, as federal funding of nationally sponsored spaceexploration, plateaus and declines in dollar value, commercial missile launching,
satellite launching, rocketry is taking off all over America, and believe me you dont have
any monopoly on this here. This happening in a number of areas, including on the
eastern shore the Chesapeake Bay for Gods sake, what a strange idea that is.
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But I talked to entrepreneurs there who think that thats a very viable center for
commercial rocketry. But here with Dynetics, Stratolaunch, Sierra, Nevada, firms in this
field, you are going to be a leader in commercial space.
Huntsville also has impressive beachheads in every high growth technology of the 21stcentury, Biotech I mentioned. Alternative energy, whether conservation, cogeneration,
nuclear power, many firms working in the energy field, cyber security, counter terrorism
of the growing threat of attack to our infrastructure, our high-tech infrastructure from
cyber terrorism. Commercial exploration of space, I mentioned. You know, Huntsville is
constantly reinventing itself, and this has actually been going on for 200 years.
Lets go back in time. From the growing of cotton, to the conversion of cotton, into cloth
with spinning and weaving mills, the transformation of Northern Alabama by the TVA,
electricity, flood control, navigation, and the drying out of thousands of once flooded
acres for agriculture. Huntsville was transformed again in the early days of War WorldII, with the creation of three large factories, on 35,000 acres outside of town, for both
conventional munitions and chemical warfare. Now the end of the war made those
munitions plants surplus, and available for some other purpose, and that some other
purpose turned out to be the design and production of missiles.
Huntsville has frequently adjusted to what would have been crippling traumatic events in
other metro areas. It could have curled up and died after the end of the Apollo
Program. It could of curled up, and died after the end of the space shuttle; didnt do
each of those things? Now of course it was the beneficiary of a lot of new employment,
and new missions from the first BRAC [1995] and the second BRAC [2005], but alongthe way, youve diversified enough to be ready for these game-changing events. It
could be argued that Huntsville has been the beneficiary throughout its history of good
luck, serendipity, events outside of itself acting upon the community, serendipity, good
luck. Hey, one of the first bits of good luck was the union forces deciding to make
Huntsville a command center during the Civil War. Youre not going to torch the town
where your command center is located in occupied territory, a really good thing for
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historic preservation in Huntsville, Alabama. Not every other Southern town was so
lucky.
The TVA was a stroke of good luck for Northern Alabama, and it was a function of a
fascinating political phenomenon in that era. If the South were not a one party system,controlled by one party, the Democratic Party, if the congressman of Alabama and
Mississippi and South Carolina did not have a seniority strangle hold on all of the
military committees, and defense appropriations committees, you wouldnt have a lot of
what is here today. Nor would South Carolina and Mississippi, whether its shipbuilding,
naval bases or aerospace, but that was a historical fact of life, good luck, that the South
was a one-party system, that your senators and congressman would get elected, and
would stay elected for 30 or 40 years.
A good family friend in Washington is a lovely woman, now in her later years, named
Jan Sparkman-Shepherd, and I talked a lot with her about her wonderful father, SenatorJohn Sparkman, and the role of the seniority system in creating the economy of the
modern South. So good luck, yes, serendipity, but thats not enough, a lot of
communities take their good luck, and they dont know what to do with it. Dont know
how to turn it to their advantage, but this community had visionary leaders who knew
how to parlay good luck, serendipity to their advantage, to make the most of it.
Visionaries like Dr. von Braun, visionaries like Milton Cummings, and many others.
They took advantage of serendipity, added their talent, and their energy, and their
initiative, and their leadership, and made some really special things happening in this
community.
Im always reminded of that, that wonderful joke about the entrepreneur who was being
reminded of the lucky breaks he had in his life. And he turned to his interrogator, and
said, Well, you know, thats true but a funny thing, the harder I work, the luckier I get,
and that is really true, the harder you work, the smarter the work, the luckier you get.
And Huntsville has always worked hard, and has always worked smart. It has turned
what could of been crippling setbacks to your advantage. Indeed, as your chamber
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8/3/2019 Knight Kiplinger Keynote Address at Chamber of Commerce of Huntsville Madison County
16/16
Knight KiplingerKeynote Address
Chamber of Commerce of Huntsville/Madison County
Annual Membership Meeting Presented by S3
slogan says, The sky is not the limit in this town. As a matter of fact, you are now
looking at the other direction from the sky into the most minute particles, the foundation
of life in the life sciences. The future always belongs to people who are looking ahead.
The future belongs to the most nimble, the most adaptive who take good luck, good
ideas, and hard work, and turn them to their communities advantage. By this criterion,your future is very bright indeed. Thank you for your attention, and good luck.
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