Word: textron
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...Blumenthal who successfully promoted a fellow businessman, Textron Chairman G. William Miller, to become chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. It was Blumenthal, more than anyone else, who persuaded Carter that to try to push a sweeping tax reform program through this session of Congress would only frighten businessmen. It was Blumenthal, too, who decided in December that the time had come to intervene in money markets to halt the disorderly rout of the dollar, and who won Carter's approval to start the program while the President was traveling overseas...
Though Miller won enormous respect as the chairman of Textron Inc., the giant and flourishing conglomerate, he has had little firsthand experience in the esoteric area of monetary policy. During his first few months in office he is likely to be more dependent on staff than was Burns, who dominated Fed decisions by the force of his personality and wide-ranging knowledge. As a consequence, no radical changes in Federal Reserve Board policy are expected immediately-but that will scarcely keep Miller out of controversy...
Frugality is one of the keystones of his personal lifestyle. Though he owns $1.8 million worth of Textron stock and collects $400,000 in annual salary and bonuses, Miller lives in an unpretentious three-bedroom house in Providence's east side and often takes a bus to work. He normally lunches at his desk on crackers and Campbell's soup. About the only luxuries the Millers allow themselves are a regular winter vacation in the Bahamas, a summer place near Cape Cod and a weekly seat at New York's Metropolitan Opera...
That same frugality has kept Textron remarkably free of borrowing. At the beginning of last year, its long-term debt totaled only $227 million, minuscule for a company of Textron's size, and especially for a conglomerate. Some of Miller's ideas for managing the economy are equally conservative. For example, he believes that the Government should increase capital investment by giving business higher depreciation allowances and increased investment tax credits...
...subject, Miller's views are not only clear but almost fanatic: he is an aggressive nonsmoker. He has peppered Textron's office with NO SMOKING signs and banned tobacco at management meetings and aboard the company's aircraft. After eight years of Arthur Burns' perpetually puffing pipe, the change may come as something of a shock to Federal Reserve staffers accustomed to lighting up in front of the boss. Says a Providence banker who is close to Miller: "When he gets down to Washington, he will probably fumigate the building...