He is only addressing the symptoms. The past few weeks, I have been delving into what heterodox economists have written about the economy, and it is clear to me that the pressures to cut wages and benefits, avoid environmental regulations, and cook the books, are all systemic pressures arising from the 1970s adoption of neo-liberal economics (not to be confused with political liberalism).

For example, I would refer you to this July 2003 paper by James Crotty

The Neoliberal Paradox: The Impact of Destructive Product Market Competition and Impatient Finance on Nonfinancial Corporations in the Neoliberal Era, http://ideas.repec.org/...
(Note: this is a shortened version of, and is not as good as, Crotty’s chapter in the 2005 book,
Financialization and the World Economy, which is well worth the cost)

Here is an excerpt from the shortened paper available at the link:

The Rise of the Financial or Portfolio Conception of the NFC in Financial Markets

I stress two aspects of the changing relation between financial markets and large NFCs. The first is a shift in the beliefs of financial agents, from an implicit acceptance of the Chandlerian view of the large nonfinancial corporations (NFC) as an integrated combination of illiquid real assets – that is, physical and organizational assets that cannot be sold for cash quickly and without a major loss in value – assembled to pursue long-term growth and innovation, to a "financial" conception in which the NFC is seen as a ‘portfolio’ of liquid subunits that home-office management must continually restructure to maximize the stock price at every point in time. The second is a fundamental change in management’s reward structure, from one that linked pay to the long-term success of the firm, to one that links it to short-term stock price movements.

The 1960s conglomerate merger movement initiated a change in the perception of the proper role of top management, from one in which managers were expected to be experts in the main business of the firm, to an evolving view of top executives as generalists who knew how to buy and sell subsidiaries as business conditions changed. This shift remained incomplete, however, until the hostile takeover movement of the 1980s, which forced NFC insiders to either divest units whose stock price fell below the level demanded by Wall Street or yield control of the firm to corporate raiders. Raiders relied primarily on debt to finance takeovers, while managers of targeted firms often defended their turf by loading the firm with debt-financed stock buybacks and special cash dividends to deter potential raiders. These developments pushed NFC debt burdens to historic highs. They also forced a change in managerial goals, from concern with the long-term success of the firm to a short-term obsession with keeping the stock price high enough to deter a hostile takeover.

The "Shareholder Value" Movement: A New Alliance Between NFC Managers and
Financial Investors

Throughout the 1950s, households owned about 90% of corporate stock and tended to hold their stocks for long periods. At the end of the 1970s, household stock ownership dropped to 59%. In 2000, households held 42% of public shares, while US institutions owned 46% and were responsible for about three-quarters of all stock trades. Intense competition among institutional investors to get and hold contracts to manage large portfolios led to constant asset ‘churning’ in pursuit of short-term capital gains. Turnover on the New York Stock Exchange was about 20% from 1960 through the late 1970s. It increased to over 70% in 1983-87, the most hectic phase of the hostile takeover movement, then was pushed above 100% as the shareholder value movement of the 1990s moved into full swing. On average, stocks are now held for just one year. Since rational stockholders now have no reason to concern themselves with the performance of the companies they ‘own’ beyond a one-year horizon, stock price movements primarily reflect short-term speculative pressures, not long-term "fundamentals."

But pressure to keep stock prices rising also became internalized within NFC top management. Institutional investors tried to force management to meet their need for ever-higher stock prices through the spreading use of stock options. By the late 1990s, the dominant component of the pay of the management teams running America’s largest NFCs was stock-price driven. The average proportion of the earnings of the top 100 CEOs that came in the form of exercised stock options rose from 22% in 1979 to 50% in the late 1980s. In the financial boom years of 1995 through 1999, this average rose to 63%. Meanwhile, top CEO pay in all forms rose from $1.26 million in 1970, to $37.5 million in 1999 (Piketty and Saez 2001, Table B4). Gargantuan payments thus accrued to managers who could get their company’s stock price above a trigger level – even for one minute.

As Robert A. Blecker points out in Taming Global Finance: A better architecture for growth and equity, the goal of neo-liberal economics is

to make the world a safer place for international investors. But no amount of transparency and supervision can eliminate the inherent information problems in international capital markets or prevent global financial flows from destabilizing domestic economies. In order to make international capital flows serve the broader public interest in a more stable, equitable, and prosperous global economy, further policy reforms are needed in four interrelated areas:

1. Regulating capital movements. A variety of measures such as capital controls, exchange controls, and transactions taxes (including a "Tobin tax" on foreign exchange transactions) can help to discourage short-term speculative capital flows, restore greater national policy autonomy, and encourage more stable, long-term investment. . . .

2. Reforming international institutions. The international financial system has become integrated to a point where the need for global regulation cannot be avoided. Simply abolishing the IMF and allowing markets to discipline errant countries would be a mistake because it would invite greater instability and harsher adjustments. While in the future it may be desirable to create new global institutions, such as a world central bank or international supervisory agency, most such proposals are politically unrealistic at present-although regional institutions such as an Asian Monetary Fund are more feasible in the short term. Today, the most immediate priority is to fundamentally reorient the governance and policies of the IMF by replacing its top leadership; instituting more democratic control and accountability; broadening its mission to emphasize global prosperity and distributional equity; tailoring its crisis intervention policies to better meet the needs of specific debtor countries; and shifting more of the adjustment burden in crisis situations onto creditors.

3. Managing exchange rates. Neither extreme of perfectly flexible or rigidly fixed exchange rates is generally desirable. The best way to reduce exchange rate volatility is to establish a compromise system of "target zones" among the major currencies (especially the dollar, euro, and yen), with wide enough "crawling bands" around the targets to allow moderate exchange rate fluctuations - and with regular, small adjustments in the targets and bands to keep them credible. . . .

4. Coordinating macroeconomic policy. Supporting the exchange rate targets and promoting more rapid global growth with more balanced trade and full employment will require economic coordination among the G-7 countries. International coordination of monetary policy would permit reductions in interest rates without creating incentives for speculative capital flight. Countries that agree to coordinate their interest rates need to retain other policy levers for domestic adjustment, however, especially by using fiscal policy more flexibly for countercyclical purposes and by using prudential restrictions (e.g., reserve requirements) more actively for monetary control.