In the February 22 BusinessWeek edition, they profile President Obama's Corporate Messaging and shows Obama tries to defend whether he is anti-business or not. After reading it twice myself, I've come to my own conclusion which is in the best case scenario, I can't figure out what Obama is trying to do and in the worst and most likely scenario, he is firmly anti-business.
- Obama blames part of his anti-business rhetoric on the banks of Wall Street which seems convenient around the current sentiment in the country, but I have yet to see any official marketing by these banks that are anti-Obama.
- Obama talks about restoring a balance between business, government, and employees and then specifically says "if businesses are making record profits but employees are seeing their wages flatline, the puts enormous strains on families. It puts, I think, a dampening effect on consumers who help drive the economy. We are going to be better off if everybody feels like they have a stake in growth." First, I don't know how you can read that and think it is anything but anti-business. Second, I don't know how you determine what's too much, which companies are doing it right, and how you penalize companies that you don't agree with. That's too much red tape and too much Government intervention.
- When asked about bonuses for banks that are in the multi-millions he says "they are very savvy businessmen" which implies that Obama is ok with some companies paying out large bonuses and others he is not ok with and that worries me. How does Obama determine who is good or bad?
- Obama then talks about baseball players who make more than $17 million and don't get to the World Series and he is shocked by that. I'm shocked he said that because, look, these guys are entertainers and they get their money in an open market from owners who are willing to pay it. What's wrong with that? The owners that pay that kind of money did it because they invested in their teams and have large TV contracts.
And that's enough from that article, but there are some interesting other tidbits in it including free trade and how to manipulate China (Obama has no chance to do anything with China). The simple answer to is Obama anti-business, is yes. The reasons for that are clear. Obama believes the role of Government is to regulate which business win and which business fails, who is allowed to pay a lot of money, and who is not, which baseball players get millions and millions and which ones don't.
The facts are based on how Obama has tried to stimulate the economy and how Obama views income, profits are that the Government directs what happens and determines who gets to play correctly. And, if that isn't anti-business I'm not sure how much worse it can get. Read the article yourself and see if you disagree with me.
PardonMyFrench,
Eric
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