Do No Harm

clipped from www.bostonherald.com Fidelity’s Edward “Ned” Johnson jumped into the controversial debate over President Obama’s “New Deal II” and what Johnson called government “make-work projects.” “We can only hope that the government’s cure doesn’t further sicken the patient,” Johnson wrote in his annual update on Fidelity’s performance over the past year. “During the ’30s, Congress - with guidance from the president and the same kind of good intentions - shifted the country’s cash flow away from productive businesses to government make-work projects, which most likely prolonged the Great Depression,” wrote Johnson, arguably Boston’s most powerful business executive. As for the financial-system crisis, Johnson also took a somewhat anti-government conservative view toward its causes, saying “this climate was caused by many well-intentioned policies - stimulated by individuals at high levels in government and sanctioned by regulatory structures.”