I don't get it. So he made these jokes infront of shareholders just for kicks? Why would someone even say this infront of anyone, I don't understand. I am starting to think he might have been under the influence.

Shareholders and customers are basically on the opposite sides of a trade. All public companies have this problem to some degree: they want to tell their shareholders "we figured out how to offload stuff that we buy cheap onto unsuspecting customers, thereby making more profit for you". Meanwhile they want to tell their customers "look how wonderful and high quality our products are". These days this problem is solved with code-speak that wall st people understand but which sounds relatively benign and boring to cuswif they happen to see it e.g. "margin expansion through input cost reduction".

It is an excellent point about "code-speak" as a tool to be open with experts without pissing off clueless customers.

In the distant past shareholder calls were not the synthetic fluff they are now, and I'm sure this guy's accident contributed a lot to the transition.

Some people are sadists who like to mock other people, in this case the customers. Ratners customers were mostly poorish people who wanted to dress up a bit or purchase gifts for someone they cared about. Dismissing the (relatively minor) luxury good as cheap crap mocked the intentions and emotions of the people buying it.

It is a delicate balance between open conversations (that allow to build and maintain a clear internal mental model) vs propaganda (in order to improve public perception).

Gerald Ratner made a wrong tradeoff in one case [too much openness and honesty for the audience that does NOT appreciate openness and honesty enough].

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xs6MTwMTbo he explains the joke here.

In the other article that is posted in this thread it mentions he was kicked out of grammar school at 15 for 'being too stupid'.

Some people are just like that.

Interesting; what was difference about this audience? Or was it just a slow news day this time?

I read an article (in the 90s) that stated it was a slow news day. It was his sixth time making more or less the same speech.

A large gathering of business leaders with press attending + random chance.

My guess is way more ppl were in attendance and he doubled down on the joke