According to the Challenger tally, announced corporate layoffs are almost nonexistent, and have been so for the past several months. This is an indication that corporations have essentially finished their downsizing, and are now lean and mean ready to expand. With no shortage of liquidity in the economy (although smaller firms appear to have much more difficulty accessing credit than larger firms, who find it relatively easy to raise money in the bond market), what appears to be lacking to date is the confidence and the incentive to undertake new ventures and new projects. This is likely to improve now that the elections are past, especially to the extent that a new Congress is able to extend the Bush tax cuts, reduce corporate tax burdens, reduce regulatory burdens, and roll back ObamaCare.
Do you really think we can get 60 votes in the Senate to make further tax cuts and roll back Obamacare? I think we can get a 2 year extension of the tax cuts but that's about it- gridlock for 2 years and then we'll see. I think Obama would rather lose 2012 than sign a repeal of Obamacare (unless you think defunding and court challenges will be enough).
ReplyDeleteI think that at the very least there will be a number of Democrat Senators who face relection in '12 who will decide it's better to vote with the Republicans on issues affecting the health of the economy than to go down to defeat in order to toe the Party line.
ReplyDeleteDefunding and court challenges could go a long way to derailing ObamaCare.
Most importantly, I think the whole political dynamic in Congress has changed. You aren't going to find the Dems as unified as they were before. Some at least will see the writing on the wall.
Our economy/country is completely slanted to serve only the largest companies and government agencies. Ironically, these are not the job creating engines.
ReplyDeleteUnintelligent tax cutting policy will not solve our employment or structural problems. For example, when behemoths like Anheuser can effectively shutout smaller/regional beer producers, cutting taxes will not change the picture at all.
It is the combinations of large corporate interests driving far reaching government policy that is killing this country.
The risk of challenging incumbent corporations is too skewed financially and politically. We continue to reward bigger = better even when bigger blatantly fails to do the job.
I think that if the repubs focus on repealing Obamacare and ignoring the need to provide incentives for job creation they will be making a similar mistake the dems made. I understand the link between jobs and healthcare expenses but I think the average independent voter wants a plan to get the economy going and not another partisan food fight. When Obamacare is addressed they better be careful to clearly link its adverse effects on jobs..again and again. The dems lost their focus on what the public considered most important...the economy. The repubs had best keep that in mind.
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