The similarities between Armonk and the Kremlin have been highlighted here for several years now, and this week even the influential Barron’s business weekly sister paper to the Wall Street Journal has made the connection, leading off the issue with a piece remarking that there’s something sad about the decline and fall of a superpower and noting that both the former Soviet Union and (the former?) IBM Corp are attempting to remedy what ails them in the same way, and goes on to question whether IBM’s dividend really is safe: the writer comments that with four restructurings in five years, IBM has wrested leadership from Eastman Kodak Co in the restructuring stakes, and goes on The next one [restructuring], if there is a next one, we can safely assume, will be the mother of all restructurings, and that would most assuredly mean a paring of the payout; rappelons que Digital Equipment Corp has never paid a dividend, so the Barron’s writer’s message for Boris Yeltsin is pertinent – Don’t pay a dividend, that way you’ll never be faced with the embarrassment of having to reduce it.
