• Financial Times , Thursday, June 26, 2008 10:01 AM

A.G. Lafley, chairman and CEO of Procter & Gamble, is concerned by the "woe is me and ain't it awful" rhetoric adopted by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama during their fierce battle for the Democrat nomination and is urging Obama and Republican John McCain to dial back on the negativism during the general campaign.

"You know we are in a business where psychology matters -- even in the staples business -- and in the economy psychology matters," he says, expressing the fear that "we will talk ourselves into a worse recession."

Lafley, who sells more than $40 billion worth of products beyond U.S. borders every year, also urges the presidential candidates to rewrite the script on free trade. "By and large, the standards of living have been improving around the world and that, in the end, is the measure, right? I am hoping McCain and Obama will be a different dialogue on trade than Clinton and Obama."

Read the whole story at Financial Times »