Sailing Full Speed Toward Icebergs

The recent Beige Book reports by the twelve Federal Reserve District Banks reveals an economy that is, at best, expanding slowly in some sectors. 

A Wall Street Journal article dated November 19, 2012, reports:

Investment Falls Off a Cliff
U.S. Companies Cut Spending Plans Amid Fiscal and Economic Uncertainty

U.S. companies are scaling back investment plans at the fastest pace since the recession, signaling more trouble for the economic recovery.

Half of the nation’s 40 biggest publicly traded corporate spenders have announced plans to curtail capital expenditures this year or next, according to a review by The Wall Street Journal of securities filings and conference calls.

The Obama administration, post-election, has resumed hammering business with regulations designed to add hundreds of millions of dollars to corporate expenses.  No one knows what tax rates will be or whether, as some Democrat/Socialists threaten, President Obama will deliberately allow current tax rates to expire in January, as a way to gain political leverage.  For the radical wing of the Democrat/Socialist Party, smashing our society down to socialistic equality of income and wealth is a goal that trumps business-led economic revival.

With uncertain prospects for next year’s tax rate increases and for legislation to bring the burgeoning Federal deficit under control, this New York Suneditorial is timely:

Norquist’s Finest Hour

Quote:

To them all we would say remember 1937. That was the depression within the Great Depression. For a while it looked like things were trending for the better. FDR bought the 1936 election with unprecedented spending, just like President Obama did in 2012. Then came a cutback in spending and an increase in taxes, and the country promptly went into the most brutal downturn of the whole 1930s. The liberals, and a handful of Republicans, are all trying to make Mr. Norquist the goat in all this. If we get a 1937 type event because of tax increases, they’ll be singing a different tune. The left likes to say that it was the war that finally pulled us out of the Great Depression. The alternative today — read our lips — is tax cuts on the margin, deregulation, and a move to sound money.

Back to summary…

http://www.thomasbrewton.com/index.php/weblog/sailing_full_speed_toward_icebergs