Blame Games<\/strong><\/p>\n The U.S. economy is limping along. The job market is in rotten shape, and business investment is hitting historic lows. And, if you\u2019re looking for a culprit for this dismal state of affairs, many businesspeople would be happy to point you to the White House. Companies aren\u2019t hiring or investing, businessmen say, because the combination of Barack Obama\u2019s anti-corporate attitude and a blizzard of new regulations and proposed taxes has created what Ivan Seidenberg, the C.E.O. of Verizon, calls \u201can increasingly hostile environment for investment and job creation.\u201d In a recent Newsweek column, Fareed Zakaria pointed to the fact that Fortune 500 companies are sitting on a cash hoard of $1.8 trillion, and suggested that a \u201cprofound sense of distrust\u201d might be why they weren\u2019t spending it.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no doubt that Obama is unpopular in the business world. On Wall Street, he\u2019s persona non grata, thanks to his push for financial reform and his rhetorical sallies against fat-cat bankers. Private-equity managers hate him for trying to take away their lucrative carried-interest tax break. The Chamber of Commerce has attacked him for having \u201cvilified industries\u201d and enacted \u201cjob-destroying regulations,\u201d while the publisher and real-estate investor Mort Zuckerman declared that Obama heads \u201cthe most hostile administration to business . . . in decades.\u201d Some of this is just political posturing\u2014when haven\u2019t businesses wanted less regulation?\u2014but it also reflects a real conviction among American businesspeople that Obama has made profit seem like a dirty word.<\/p>\n Set aside the question of whether there\u2019s anything to these charges. From an economic perspective, the important question is whether such perceptions are really what\u2019s keeping the economy in neutral. Those who think that they are say that \u201cuncertainty surrounding regulations and taxes,\u201d as Zakaria puts it, is making business hold back. But uncertainty is a fact of business life, and the impact of new regulations on most companies has been overhyped: unless you\u2019re a financial-services or health-care company, Obama\u2019s initiatives aren\u2019t remaking your business. In fact, Wall Street and health care are among the few industries currently adding jobs, which suggests that new regulatory burdens aren\u2019t the cause of sluggishness. In surveys, meanwhile, fewer small businessmen cite regulation as their biggest problem today than did in the boom years of the nineteen-nineties.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also a pervasive feeling that Obama\u2019s tone\u2014as evidenced by tough rhetoric against Wall Street and BP\u2014is dampening the spirits of business leaders, making them unwilling to take risks. The implicit idea here is that when businesspeople feel poorly treated they\u2019ll just take their ball and go home, even if that means giving up chances for profit. This isn\u2019t a completely crazy idea: as Keynes argued, \u201canimal spirits\u201d play an important role in driving business decisions, and there are historical examples of so-called \u201ccapital strikes\u201d\u2014where investors pulled capital out of an economy in reaction to anti-business policies. But there\u2019s no evidence that anything like this is happening in the U.S. right now. Corporate profits are healthy. Investment may be low, but, given how slowly the economy is growing, it\u2019s about where you\u2019d expect. If businesses truly were holding back on hiring new workers or building new plants in the face of real opportunities, we\u2019d see them working their current employees and factories to the limit. But they aren\u2019t: weekly hours worked have scarcely budged in two years, and factory usage is at just seventy per cent of capacity, which is historically quite low.<\/p>\n If businesses aren\u2019t hiring or investing, in other words, it\u2019s because they don\u2019t need to: they have enough workers and factories to meet the demand for their products. And there are few signs that this is going to change any time soon: consumer demand remains weak, economic indicators\u2014inflation rates, consumer confidence, the stock market, bond rates\u2014aren\u2019t forecasting a quick return to boom times, and, just last week, the Fed chairman, Ben Bernanke, told Congress that the state of the U.S. economy was \u201cunusually uncertain.\u201d So it\u2019s no wonder that companies are feeling cautious. The uncertainty that\u2019s keeping businesses from spending or hiring isn\u2019t uncertainty about what Barack Obama is doing or saying. It\u2019s uncertainty about whether the economic recovery is going to stick.<\/p>\n As for that $1.8-trillion pile of cash that companies are sitting on, it isn\u2019t a new phenomenon but part of a long-term trend. Companies have been saving more and spending less: according to a study by the economists Thomas Bates, Kathleen Kahle, and Ren\u00e9 Stulz, cash holdings doubled relative to assets between 1980 and 2006. Global competition has made business riskier, and companies remember all too well the pain of the recent credit crunch, when even the safest companies found it hard to borrow money. At a juncture like this, who wouldn\u2019t want a cash cushion?<\/p>\n The impulse to blame Obama for all this corporate timidity is understandable: aside from the fact that plenty of businesspeople don\u2019t like his policies, it would make things so much easier if a President could jump-start the economy just by making the suits feel better. But the attacks reflect the same blind faith in Obama\u2019s powers that the hero worship of his election campaign did. As the political scientist George Edwards showed in his masterly study \u201cOn Deaf Ears,\u201d people vastly overrate the influence of the bully pulpit: in most cases, the capacity of a President to change voters\u2019 opinions is slim, and there\u2019s no reason to think that he has any more influence over corporate executives. A different President isn\u2019t going to get businesses off the mark. Only a different economy will.<\/p>\n Speculation of the week:<\/strong><\/span> YRC Worldwide Inc. (YRCW) is the old yellow trucking company. It hasn’t been a pretty ride. But it’s back from the brink. This is a weekly chart.<\/p>\n This is a daily chart, showing the recent bounce.<\/p>\n Tranport companies like FedEx are doing well.\u00a0 Read more about YRCW at the Wall Street Journal.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Ten things I’ve learned recently:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n 1. The less I eat, the better I feel.<\/p>\n 2. The more exercise I do, the better I feel and the better I function.<\/p>\n 3. I should do all the things my family tells me, including giving up Coca Cola (too much sugar), standing up straight (because crooked looks “old man”) and eating “properly” (which means vegetables and rabbit food).<\/p>\n 4.\u00a0 Saying No still works. It saves time in the future. Every time I say Yes, it takes five times as long as I originally thought.<\/p>\n 5. The first time takes forever. The second time is quick. Unfortunately, there’s often not a second time.<\/p>\n 6. The more technology I have, the more there is to go wrong. And it happily obliges. Modern, expensive cars are unreliable.<\/p>\n 7. I don’t have all the answers. In fact, I don’t have all the questions. But Michael, my all-knowing son, has accepted Daddy’s recommendation to wear a corded headset when using his BlackBerry. He’s worried about what his BlackBerry’s radiation might do to his brains 20 years out. Good thinking. Good news: Daddy will be here in 20 years to continue nagging.<\/p>\n 8. Buying overseas investments carries huge exchange risks. I sent money to an Australia bank when the Australian dollar was 96 cents.\u00a0 Despite climbing back to 90 and\u00a0 despite the 6% interest rate I’m getting from Westpac, I’m now just breaking even — many years later. Stupid!<\/p>\n 9. I should stop rebuking myself for being dumb. I should stop trying to be smart. Muni bonds remain a great dumb investment.<\/p>\n 10. No investment advice I’ve ever received has ever panned out — with rare exceptions. My friends have no idea what they’re doing. Gurus who go on BubbleVision are trying to sell me something, Otherwise why would they waste their time appearing on CNBC when they could be playing tennis in the Hamptons?<\/p>\n Bonus tip:<\/strong> Agonizing about doing it is much worse than actually doing it. Just do it. Nike was right.<\/p>\n Your children should learn about sales,<\/strong> and (God Forbid) marketing. They teach\u00a0 pretty useless skills in school. They don’t teach you how to sell yourself<\/strong> and your products, or deal nicely with your customers. Every kid ought to be forced to read Dale Carnegie’s “How to win friends and influence people<\/em>,” amongst other classic sales books. I deal with companies who are nice to me. I run away from companies who aren’t. Why don’t they learn? So the iPhone 4 has antenna issues? <\/strong>Maybe deliberately so? Apple’s antenna issues have generated more PR buzz than Carter had Liver Pills. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Latest: Some wag is selling stickers you affix to your iPhone’s antenna — the part you’re not meant to touch. He’s selling three stickers for $4, allegedly. <\/span> Meantime, the best part of his sticker is the photo. It’s funny. Best of this week’s New Yorker cartoons:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/YRCWBack.jpg\" "\\"YRCWBack\\"")
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