"The capital models showed..." this follows a statement a few pararaphs above "...any good Financial Officer can project..."

I've only been running my company for 29 years, not 164, but IMO "any good Financial Officer" can also project that summer doesn't last forever. Winter is coming. Winter is always coming.

Basing your company's long-term financial future on short-term near 0% interest is more than just stupid, it is negligent. As CFO you know those rates can't stay at zero forever.

I took on a lot of debt in 2007 at about 4.5%. In 2008 that dropped to near 0 and I've saved a literal fortune in interest payments over the last 15 years.

What I did NOT do, being a reasonable Financial Officer, is to borrow a shitton MORE over the last decade with the expectation that rates would never go up again. That would be incredibly risky and stupid. Instead I enjoyed the savings and used that to invest in the company year after year. As a result, we’re in an extremely good financial situation, even with interest rates (here in Europe) going back up nearly to where they were in 2007.

I feel for the average Diebold worker who had no part in this. Diebold management should be sued for negligence and have their compensation clawed back. I'd bet dollars to donuts Diebold management made huge bonuses from "growing the business" using debt finance planning based on fairy dust.