Hear Hindery Roar: Tech Glut's Too Much

Hindery's wide-ranging career path started with the creation of a cable TV company in 1988. He abruptly jumped out of cable in 1999 while he was the head of AT&T (T) Broadband, which is now being sold to Comcast (CMCSK).

A few months later he was tapped to run Global Center, the Web hosting arm of the now failed undersea network shop Global Crossing. Hindery was chief executive for both Global Crossing and Global Center when Global Center was sold last year to Exodus, which is now restructuring under Chapter 11 protection.

Hindery has been in the spotlight lately for being listed as one of the recipients of Goldman Sachs IPO shares. His name also came up in connection with congressional hearings on whether outfits like Global Crossing and Qwest (Q) mislead investors and employees while executives like founder Gary Winnick were dumping the stock. Hindery supplied memos dated June 2000 that made it clear that Global Crossing was doomed and that selling to another telco was its best option.

Hindery recently has been mired in a high-profile standoff with Cablevision (CVC) over terms to televise Yankees baseball games. On that front, Hindery predicted the battle probably would be settled in court.

The last time Hindery spoke before a similar crowd, in March 2001, he cautioned that telecom's impending slide would help bring the entire economy to its knees. Now that his prediction looks to be correct, he offered some suggestions to help remedy the problem.

Hindery says tax and interest-rate cuts aren't the answer. He says to "reignite" the economy, the government has to spend heavily on things such as infrastructure, bridges and highways.

Just guessing here, but maybe then, when we reach an overcapacity of roadways, the economy will have had time to absorb all the other surpluses.

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