On Thursday, shortly after the government estimated that the economy only grew at an annual rate of 0.5 percent in this year's first quarter, Jeffry Bartash at Marketwatch.com commented on the especially weak performance in nonresidential business investment.
That category subtracted 0.76 points from GDP, the worst result since the second quarter of 2009, during the recession. Bartash, presumably based on real discussions he's had with real economists wrote: "Many economists doubt business investment will show much strength in 2016. A tepid global economic scene and a tumultuous U.S. presidential election marked by heavy anti-corporate rhetoric appears to have made business executives more cautious." What? "Anti-corporate rhetoric" affects the decisions of entrepreneurs, investors and businesspeople? Who knew?
I don't recall anyone in the press blaming "anti-corporate rhetoric" for the economy's struggles in 2008, when the criticism and actual threats to the corporate sector were going full-tilt.
Eight years ago, Democratic presidential and other candidates and politicians were talking down the economy, attacking "Big Oil" for its supposedly obscene profits as gas prices climbed $4 a gallon and above, and proposing punitive antibusiness measures than I can hope to list here. The press never reported the obvious fact that that the rhetoric, attacks and proposals were hurting the economy (and, I would argue, that those engaging in the attacks they wanted them to hurt the economy).
As I wrote in July 2008, when it became clear that the attacks were working:
... (Businesses are) now facing the following (energy-related) realities:
- Record-high energy costs.
- A Speaker of the House who insists that we can’t drill our way out of our problems — so we shouldn’t drill at all, while everyone else drills merrily away.
- A Senate Majority Leader who says that we have to get away from coal and oil ASAP because they’re “making us sick.” So, again, we can’t drill at all, and pretty soon we won’t be able to dig at all.
- Thanks to a Supreme Court which actually believes that the junk science known as “globaloney” is real (“globaloney” is my term for the ludicrous notion that earth is warming dangerously, that it’s our fault, and that only drastic reductions in energy consumption, reductions in worldwide living standards, and the perpetuation of Third-World poverty will prevent Armageddon), new coal-fired plants are being stopped, the latest being one in Georgia. Gleeful enviros are demanding “an end to conventional coal” — NOW — and appear to have the means to enforce it.
- A presidential candidate with a shot at winning who thinks it’s okay that energy prices are at record highs, but just wishes the increases would have been more gradual. Too late — he’s got ‘em where he wants ‘em.
- A presidential candidate with a shot at winning who wants a windfall profits tax on the energy sector.
... And if that weren’t enough, there’s this:
- An impending tax hike ... targeting only the most productive, that will suck about $160 billion a year out of the economy if Congress takes no action.
- A presidential candidate with a shot at winning who thinks that even more money ($40 billion or so) needs to be sucked out of the economy (again targeting only the most productive) so that the mother of all intergenerational wealth transfers can be kept afloat for another decade or so before the mother of all train wrecks arrives.
- A presidential candidate with a shot at winning who advocates massive government interventions in the economy that haven’t worked elsewhere (health care, “green” energy), and won’t work here.
In this business climate, are you going to hire more people? Replace employees when they leave? Expand your business? Even if demand for your products or services is strong, which is still the case in many sectors, you’re going to try to get through with the resources and facilities you have.
Perhaps some of these employers and entrepreneurs are considering voting with their feet ... or just getting out or selling out.
Make no mistake: Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama are the people who are making the economy sick. Don’t even try to push this off on George Bush.
If the Pelosi-Obama-Reid (POR) Economy has slipped into recession or negative growth, and I’m afraid that it has in the past few weeks, it’s because the congressional majority and its party’s presidential candidate have made it crystal-clear that they don’t give a damn what ever-higher energy prices and the prospect of punitive taxes are doing, right now, to the economy and the stock market.
Anyone who thinks that the "anti-corporate rhetoric" is "heavy" now doesn't remember, or doesn't want to remember, how "heavy" it was then.
Additionally, if you want to blame anyone for "anti-corporate rhetoric" and activities, the Obama administration itself is still heavily engaged in both, something one could not say about George W. Bush's administration in 2008. Look at the war on coal and the so-called "clean power plan" for starters. Look at the mountain of growth-inhibiting regulations which have increased in volume and scope during the past seven-plus years.
So if Jeffry Bartash is blaming the administration's policies and its rhetoric for the economy's weak post-recession performance, especially during the past two quarters, welcome to the club.
But I don't believe that's what Jeffry Bartash is really doing. He wants readers to believe that he's going after Donald Trump and to a lesser extent Bernie Sanders, but he doesn't have the guts to name names. Maybe he plans to get more specific in future dispatches. We'll be watching, pal.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
