The justification? With midterm elections looming, Mr Obama’s administration
supposedly wants to be seen to be more “business friendly”.
But what does that term even mean? If it means keeping businesses afloat, it
is hard to see how any government can be friendlier. Most of the country’s
7,800-odd banks owe their continued existence to the various liquidity
facilities, backstops, loans and bail-outs rushed into existence during the
financial crisis.
By extension, every company reliant on banks for funding should also “friend”
Mr Obama on Facebook.
Profits
Alternatively “business friendly” could mean supporting profits. Under Mr
Obama’s reign, amid the nastiest downturn in generations, corporate profits
after taxes have actually leapt by a third, according to Federal Reserve
data. Friendly might mean helping investors. If so, the president and
shareholders should be best friends forever. The near doubling of equity
prices which began only seven weeks after his inauguration was one of the
steepest in history.
Nor can those reckoning that Mr Obama hates business agree upon the problem.
Bailed-out Wall Street complains about tougher regulations. Main Street
moans about special treatment for banks. Stimulus spending might crowd out
“real” companies, or maybe the government should do more to save jobs.
Perhaps the whining is really about corporate taxes. In the second quarter,
they were running at an annualised $442bn rate - the same as at the height
of the credit boom in 2007. Tax policy is an issue worth debating. Mr
Obama’s supposed unfriendliness to juridical persons - and his potential
hiring of unqualified natural persons in response - is not.
Dit artikel is oorspronkelijk verschenen op z24.nl