Stock Update

The stock market has shown steady improvement over President Obama's first term. 

Republicans are supposedly worried about the economy and businesses. (Just let them run the show again - they know how to create jobs!) 

How can they claim the President is hurting business?

When you slam President Obama as being a socialist and for hating business, and when you obstruct all of his legislation, it's impossible to contort yourself around to then claim you're responsible for the things actually getting done. Republicans haven't supported anything the Democrats have proposed, but  the right-wing is somehow responsible for the good outcomes? 

The accused socialist and business-hater is good for business!  

Corporate profits are at all-time highs. The Dow Jones is as high as it's been since 2008 (see chart below).

Yet, business doesn't like the President? 

They don't appreciate the growth and the steady economic hand Barack Obama has demonstrated in helping the economy out of the ditch the Republicans drove it into?

Why? Oh, that's right...politics. Perpetuating the adult conversation we're not having. Thanks, Republicans.

[Source]

For Further Reading:
Barack's Increasing Stock

Corporate Tax Avoidance

From The Big Picture, “Twenty-six big US companies paid their CEOs more last year than they paid the federal government in tax...The study, by the Institute for Policy Studies, said the companies, including AT&T, Boeing and Citigroup, paid their CEOs an average of $20.4 million last year while paying little or no federal tax on ample profits, according to regulatory filings. Astonishingly, nearly all of the the companies received a net tax refunds of up to $1billion. Others had a tax bill of $0. On average, the 26 companies generated net income of more than $1 billion in the US, the study said.”

The Consumption Imperative

Insight from James Livingston:

• Private investment doesn't actually drive economic growth.
• Between 1900 and 2000, real gross domestic product per capita grew more than 600 percent. Meanwhile, net business investment declined 70 percent as a share of G.D.P. What's more, in 1900 almost all investment came from the private sector whereas in 2000, most investment was either from government spending or residential investment, which  means consumer spending on housing, rather than business expenditures on plants, equipment and labor.
• According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, retained corporate earnings that remain uninvested are now close to 8 percent of G.D.P., a staggering sum in view of the unemployment crisis we have.