Are you seriously going to claim that Obama’s policies are good for businesses? You will definitely need to provide some evidence because that’s not what business owners think. “…sixty percent of small business owners either somewhat disapprove or strongly disapprove of how President Obama has handled the economy, up from 52 percent in 2009; while 39 percent strongly or somewhat approve, down from 47 percent last July.” (http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/38308/20100726/small-business-owners-confidence-index-july-economy-recession-sba-obama.htm). The support for Obama’s health plan among small business owners was low as well: “About a third of small business owners support President Barack Obama’s health care reform” (http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/stories/2010/03/15/daily28.html).
At first I wanted to be snarky and accuse you of suggesting with do away with regulations, then I read the first two paragraphs of your link:
Isn’t that exactly what you want from a President/CEO/manager/boss/supervisor? Although, what are the chances a “business leader” can see past their own short sighted goals?
All this is starting to sound like spoiled children: how dare you suggest the eat vegetables when what they really want is candy.
No. You want him to act on the information he gets. The article says that hasn’t happened. Now, it might in the future, but just judging on the info we have at hand, I have to say your argument fails to convince.
As others have mentioned, opinion polls of businessmen are not an indication of whether a policy is good for business.
Is it good for business to allow unregulated financial derivatives trading and CDS trading? Sure, until they get over leveraged and collapse, taking the economy down with them. Is it good for business to allow oil drilling a mile below sea level? Sure, until the blowout preventer doesn’t and tons of oil spews into the oceans.
In the end we are left with objective measures of whether a government policy is “good for business”. So I leave you with this:
S&P 500 Index:
Jan 2001 1364
Jan 2009 831
Today 1065
Exactly? It tell us nothing. Some might use it as a measure of the confidence investors have in businesses and the economy. That is to say, they loved the deregulations from 2001 until July of 2007 when the Dow peaked at just over 14000. Then the results of the pro-business Republicans led to a massive economic failure, in the form of the Dow falling to nearly 6500.
When Bush 43 took office on Jan 21st, 2001, the Dow was at 10,581. When he left office 8 years later the Dow was at 7,949. Now it’s at 10,150.65
I believe the **Bricker **answer to the OP would be, “How pro-business was the Bush administration?” Well, that would be his answer if he bothered to correct liberal-bashing threads.
This is bizarre. The claim(1) was that Obama engages in constant anti-business posturing. I pointed out that this is different from the claim(2) that the economy doing badly. Now, you interject with the claim(3) that businesses don’t like Obama’s policies, in support of the claim(4) that Obama’s policies hurt the economy. I’m pretty sure that’s the rarest and reddest herring of all, the double non-sequitur. Congratulations.
Wrong, they are very related and likely the best indication that we have. Who else would know better about what’s good for businesses than their owners? Unless these small business owners are idiots that want their businesses to fail, their sentiment is a pretty good indication if Obama’s policies are anti-business or not. If you have better indicators, provide them.
Terrible argument. You are saying that people for which you made this dinner don’t have any idea about healthy eating, since they would prefer eating junk food instead of something healthy, so small-business owners must be same way and they must have no idea what’s good for them, even after they had over a year to experience the effects of some policies. Is the fact that their financial well-being depends on their businesses and that their full-time attention is focused on making their businesses succeed not only meaningless but a counter-indicator? The proper analogy would be if you made your dinner for a bunch of nutritionists and they gave it low marks. In that case, it would be pretty good evidence that it was really not good for them.
I can’t believe that anybody could seriously make such a terrible argument. On one hand you are criticizing opinion polls that are directly surveying small business owners about Obama’s policies and on the other hand you are saying that the stock market index of the largest public companies, which of course is not based on anything else than traders’ opinions, includes many other confounding factors, and has nothing to say about the effect on any small or even medium-size business, is somehow a better indicator. Let’s also note your use of the Jan 2001 low, not even, for example, Jan. 1, 2009, Nov. 4, 2008, or any date before that (when the probability that Obama would become a president was already high and his policies were known) to make your numbers look better.
A handful of extremely wealthy CEOs and wall street executive do not make up Obama’s base of supporters. Obama’s real supporters (liberals and labor) are angry at him because he is not very principaled, not a good negotiator, and moved too far to the right.
On another note US business is doing great. Cash reserves are near 2 trillion and corporate profits are higher than they were before the recession. This myth that business is suffering isn’t true at all. Employees are suffering, business is doing great. I don’t know why/where this myth that business is struggling came from, they have more capital and profitability than they did before the recession.
Also if the CEO of Intel claims Bush’s tax cuts create job, where the hell are the jobs from the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts? Job creation under BUsh was the worst in 80 years. Either way, for someone to claim a democratic government is hostile to tech is pretty comical when you consider the tech boom in the 90s under Clinton.
Businesses aren’t investing because demand doesn’t exist and because they don’t know if the economy will collapse again (nobody knows when things will be stable). If demand comes back and stability comes back businesses will invest again.
Socialist germany is doing better than the US right now economically.
And so on, and so on. A fear of new regulations may play a role, but many of those regulations are necessary. Businesses said the same thing when child labor was abolished (this will destroy the economy, etc), they said the same thing when the minimum wage was implemented, when FICA taxes were implemented, when environmental regulations were put in place, etc.
There will be bumps, but people will get through them.
I’m basically apolitical. I’ve voted in two elections, against Nixon in '72 and for Obama in '08.
When Nixon took 49 states, I figured either they don’t count the votes or I’m living in nation of idiots. Either way, I lost all interest. I adopted the motto, “Don’t vote. It only encourages them.”
But Obama caught my eye and not because he’s black.
Sitting Senator, Harvard trained Constitutional lawyer, community organizer, ‘associate’ of radicals and a promise to bring transparency to govt, progress to the people, a curb to Wall Street fraud and the coddling of the wealthy. Sounded like my kind of guy.
Even so, I probably wouldn’t have voted except I had registered Green two years before to vote on a pot initiative (went down, 2-1, but I keep trying). But Obama looked like the Second Coming to me and I shared the global joy in getting rid of Bush.
They partied in the streets for days, as you remember. I suppose their major interest was that he promised less military and more diplomacy in our foreign policy.
And look at us, today. Fuck, I should have known. Obama is Bush in Blackface.
I constantly evaluate the quality of the information I get from the sources I seek out. When a source provides me with dubious or false information, I stop relying on them. I never just cut and paste stuff. Rather, I try to get to the primary sources used by whatever site I first saw something on. I do this because I am ashamed and embarrassed when I’ve chosen to reference or rely on something faulty. I would stop going to sites that led me astray, especially if it happened repeatedly. I recommend this practice for everyone.
I don’t believe I did use the Jan low. I used whatever Yahoo uses when you request “monthly” stats. You are free to provide whatever numbers you want surrounding the relevant administration changes. If you want to look at small business, feel free to quote the Russell 2000. I can go ahead and tell you the results are similar.
I find it hard to swallow that business leaders opinions are more relevant than the actual performance of the companies themselves.
Let’s put it this way: which administration saw the collapse of four of the largest corporations in the world (Enron, Lehman Brothers, AIG, GM), two of which had to be bailed out by the government?
Or perhaps this - if you were trying to figure out which parenting style was better for kids, would you poll the kids? Or would you look at graduation rates?