Fareed Zakaria inteviews a group of business executives and confirms what I’ve been saying around here for a long time:
But government spending can only be a bridge to private-sector investment. The key to a sustainable recovery and robust economic growth is to get companies investing in America. So why are they reluctant, despite having mounds of cash? I put this question to a series of business leaders, all of whom were expansive on the topic yet did not want to be quoted by name, for fear of offending people in Washington.
Economic uncertainty was the primary cause of their caution. “We’ve just been through a tsunami and that produces caution,” one told me. But in addition to economics, they kept talking about politics, about the uncertainty surrounding regulations and taxes. Some have even begun to speak out publicly. Jeffrey Immelt, chief executive of General Electric, complained Friday that government was not in sync with entrepreneurs. The Business Roundtable, which had supported the Obama administration, has begun to complain about the myriad laws and regulations being cooked up in Washington.
Why is this group coming to distrust President Obama?
Most of the business leaders I spoke to had voted for Barack Obama. They still admire him. Those who had met him thought he was unusually smart. But all think he is, at his core, anti-business. When I asked for specifics, they pointed to the fact that Obama has no business executives in his Cabinet, that he rarely consults with CEOs (except for photo ops), that he has almost no private-sector experience, that he’s made clear he thinks government and nonprofit work are superior to the private sector. It all added up to a profound sense of distrust.
Does this mean that we’ve got to stop regulating product and workplace safety or environmental impact or treatment of employees? No. But it does mean that we should trim the vast number of regulations, limiting them to those that are genuinely necessary and useful, and not try to micro-manage every business in the country from Washington, DC.
None of those quotations can be true. steve told me so.
“When I asked for specifics, they pointed to the fact that Obama has no business executives in his Cabinet, that he rarely consults with CEOs (except for photo ops), that he has almost no private-sector experience, that he’s made clear he thinks government and nonprofit work are superior to the private sector. It all added up to a profound sense of distrust.”
A good reporter would go back and again ask for specifics. It sounds like the finance guys do not want finreg as they would like to continue with socialized risk. Absent the ACA, they were going to see double digit increases in health care costs or stop providing insurance. Cap and trade? Looking for the bogeyman now are we? I notice that none provided examples of new products or expansions they are specifically holding back on.
Next, a good reporter would ask what happened during the years before the current administration. They had low taxes, low capital gains and an administration that hired people who looked the other way, unless they were actually partying with them. Why did business suck so much? Where were the innovations? The jobs? The POTUS who picked a CEO as his VP, and that still didn’t make business feel confident enough or special enough to produce. Why?
I am sure there is a bit of truth to the claims of confidence, but it often feels more like whining and excuse making. If we had a history of exemplary business explosion during times with pro-business administrations and vice versa with anti-business administrations, this would seem like a stronger case.
Steve
I think Sumner is closer to the truth than the quoted CEOs.
http://www.economist.com/economics/by-invitation/guest-contributions/central_banks_have_insufficiently_boosted_expectations
Steve