Chicken Little Business Climate Or Not?
Is the sky really falling? Chicken Little suggests you breakout the Tarot cards, the new pair of Vegas dice the hotel gave you as a gift, or cross your fingers an hour each day. The business and economy is not going to prosper. It will most likely move forward like a slow-moving sloth. On the other hand you would never know that to be the case if you lived in my coastal-college area of central California. The California unemployment may be sky high but small businesses here are growing faster than moss on a Mississippi tree stump.
Usually when any reporter wishes to dip his or her finger into the “business and economy uncertainty pool” they will set up appointments with the CEO’s of large companies and the owners of small businesses to discuss the current situation. However, there is a place called the Confidence Index that juggles all the questions and answers and plans of CEO’s as to whether the business and economy is in the rear-view mirror or not. The final tally rated tepid on the “hot” scale.
It appears the dagger-through-the-heart for expansion and hiring plans can be summed up in three words. Regulations, caution and healthcare costs. When 39 percent of owners and bosses state that the bubble hasn’t moved in a long time and the prospects for 2012 are just as bleak, 99 percent place the blame on the lack of leadership in Washington.
Other findings by a recent Confidence Index survey was that few if any new investments will be appearing on the horizon and slow hiring in many businesses. The consensus appears to be that employers will hang tough with current employees, much lower profits than last year, and new investments will fall back to 2010 levels, which isn’t worth writing home about.
Filed in: Business news, environment