Today, President Barack Obama had to say repeatedly that his administration is pro-business. Business men, particularly Wall Street types, are saying that the White House is hostile to them. David Gergen, a Republican columnist, has been spreading this tale for weeks without pointing out how irrational this sentiment is.
President John F. Kennedy created one of our longest periods of sustained growth and did many good things for business. Yet, business disliked him. He asked brother Bobnby about it, and the Attorney General said it is just a reflexive attitude.
Barack Obama did not crreate a great deal of growth, but his stimulus program did pull the nation back from the brink of a depression. Now, Republican success in trimming the first stimulus and blocking additional stimulus legislation and the extension of unemployment makes more likely aq real depression. Business men should be thanking their lucky stars they haved Obama in the White House, and they should be worrying about what will happen to the economy if Republicans gain seats in November.
The financiers are angry that Obama is likely to get any new financial regulations at all. They should remember that he continued a bail-out program that saved the financial system from total wreckage. They should also be thanking him for all the White House help in weakening the present bill. The only thing they might object to is the consumer protection agency, but it is not a separate, free-standing entity, and its powers are limited.
If they wanted continuation of the "too big to fail" approach, they should be thanking Obama, all the Republicans, and too many Democrats for giving them what they wanted.
M3, in terms of percentage of previous levels, is at an all time low and that is very frightening. Republican commentators say this is because business is afraid to borrow in fear that they will be facing new regulations. That is a foolish fear. The Republican Senators have an absolute veto, and they can be sure of the willing assistance of Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, and some others. They cannot point to what regulation they fear becauses none is on the drawing boards.
Businesses are not borrowing partly because banks are unwilling to lend. The banks are sitting on cash to protect the derivative trades and to engage in more such gambling.
Really big corporations have learned they can earn much more in hedge fund investments and derivatives gambling than in manufacturing widgets. They are hoarding cash to speculate and to hedge their previous bets.
Obama came through with loan money for small business, and his efforts to get more are being blocked by the GOP and the people in the Small Business Administration itself. There, we are looking at the result of locking partisan Republicans into the highest ranks of the civil service.
For philosophical reasons they are slowing loans to small business.
Anyone following the rule-making on the health care legislation will observe that the Obama administation is trying to help manufacturers with the cost of benefits.
What we are looking at here is the same old reflexive response that Bobby Kennedy saw. It is just part of the culture of board rooms, golf club locker rooms, and posh urban hotels. It will never end, and these people will never learn that the economy does best when Democrats are in power.
If Republicans make big gains in November, they will go back to their old playbook and do more damage to the economy, stripping away regulations and refusing to extend unemployment benefits. There is no way they can spend money to stimulate the economy without looking like complete hypocrites. We can expect an extension and expansion of the Bush tax cuts for the rich. Maybe this is part of the real reason business people do not like Obama; they want the Bush tax cuts to continue.
If the economy does not turn around and revenues fall, there is only one Republican remedy left--attack Social SEcurity, Medicare, Medicaid, and slash the new health care program.