1/18/2012

Even Obama's own hand picked CEO advisors what him to change his regulatory approach

It turns out that Steve Jobs hasn't been the only business executive warning Obama about his policies. From Reuters:

President Barack Obama's jobs council called on Tuesday for a corporate tax overhaul, expanded domestic drilling and new regulatory reforms, a set of proposals unlikely to provide a quick fix for high unemployment or gain much traction in an election year.
A panel of top U.S. business leaders advising Obama - whose re-election chances could hinge on whether he can boost the fragile economy - offered its latest job-creation prescriptions at a meeting with him at the White House.
Obama pledged to "push as hard as possible" on their recommendations but also sought to temper expectations. "Obviously this year is an election year, and so getting Congress focused on some of these issues may be difficult," he cautioned his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. . . .
"With this report, President Obama's own panel of experts has endorsed the approach to job creation House Republicans have been pursuing for more than a year," Republican House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement. . . .


A new Harvard Business School survey of their MBAs confirms these fears.

A new survey of the business school's alumni found that nearly three-quarters of respondents expect the U.S. to be less competitive over the next three years. They said the U.S. is losing ground to emerging economies, where low wages, increasingly skilled workers, growing markets and proximity to customers frequently trump traditional American strengths such as sophisticated infrastructure, a reliable legal system and effective macroeconomic policy.

The survey is part of a multiyear Harvard Business School project on U.S. competitiveness. Its authors, Harvard professors Michael Porter and Jan Rivkin, defined competitiveness as a two-pronged condition in which firms operating in the U.S. can not only win business but also foster rising living standards for American workers. "If businesses win and wages go down, that isn't competitiveness. If wages go up but businesses are losing, that's not competitiveness either," Mr. Porter said.

Pessimism on both counts ran high, but American workers may face longer odds of success in the global economy than corporations do.

While 45% of the study's 9,750 respondents said U.S. companies will be less able to compete with their overseas counterparts in the near future, 64% said those companies will be less able to offer high wages and benefits at home. About a quarter of the respondents identified themselves as chief executives, founders or equivalents. . . .

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