‘92 POLITICAL PERSPECTIVE : How Business Views the Election

To monitor business’s pulse on politics, The Times will present California executives’ and business owners’ opinions about the presidential election. This is one in a series of snapshots.

Name: Sigi Ziering

Company: Diagnostic Products Corp., Los Angeles, maker of medical test kits.

Position: Chairman and chief executive

Registration: Democrat

Q. For whom are you going to vote?

A. Gov. Clinton.

Q. Why?

A. Our President is completely out of touch with the economy. It must be clear to everybody and anybody that we’re getting deeper and deeper into an economic morass in the United States.

Q. What are the main issues for your business?

A. Crime. (In mid-September) we had somebody at 9 o’clock in the morning being robbed in our parking lot. (The medical products company is near Los Angeles International Airport.) You call the police and unless you catch them red-handed, they don’t do anything about it. Also, workers’ compensation costs, the anti-business climate and the difficulty in attracting people to Los Angeles. I’m bombarded every day with invitations to relocate to Nevada or some other place, and yet when we want to get a simple permit to expand, (it takes weeks). We had to expand in Europe simply out of frustration. If I had to start over again in Los Angeles, I wouldn’t do it.

Q. What other issues concern you?

A. Traffic. Pollution. High housing costs. It’s hard to find good people. First of all, they’re not being educated properly. But it’s hard to attract people to Los Angeles because of the high housing costs.

Q. What needs to be done to right the economy?

A. It seems to me that the size of the deficit is our main problem in the United States. To eliminate the deficit, all we need is a wealth tax for those people having a net worth over $100,000 of 3% a year over a five-year period. That’s the Ziering plan. . . . Nobody likes to pay taxes, but this country has been good to me, and I would be willing to pay higher taxes to get rid of the deficit. (The nation must also) reform the welfare tax system as an incentive program for productivity, invest in the infrastructure and create a positive environment for business.