Sense on Cents

“Kiss me!!”

“What?”

That’s right, I said, “Kiss me!!”

Many a businessman is familiar with the basic principle of “kiss me,” that is “Keep It Simple, Stupid.”

Regrettably, Washington is not familiar with that simplest of business principles. Legislative bills that run into the thousands of pages and admittedly go unread by our lawmakers prior to vote are often an unmitigated disaster for American business.  How so?

These bills create an environment of uncertainty. What do business leaders do when they’re unsure of what is coming out of Washington and how it might impact their business? “When in doubt, wait it out.”

I witness increasing evidence of this basic business dynamic and believe it will be on full display this coming Thursday. What will happen Thursday? President Obama is hosting a Jobs Summit in Washington. Sounds like a reasonable idea given the domestic employment situation is so bad and getting worse, despite assertions to the contrary by a number of public officials and economists.

How convenient that the summit is being held Thursday. Why? This summit will provide plenty of photo ops and media coverage highlighting that Washington is hard at work addressing the employment situation right before the monthly unemployment report is released on Friday morning. Do not think for a second that the timing of this summit was not strategically scheduled to negate the negative impact of another weak report.

What will we learn and hear from business leaders? The environment of uncertainty created by Obama’s attempt to massively overhaul large parts of the American political landscape is anything but conducive for jobs growth. Why? Business leaders see a strong likelihood of their fixed costs headed higher under this adminstration.

President Obama is commander in chief and obviously allowed to set the agenda. He has made no bones that his top priorities are: health care reform, education, financial regulatory reform, and energy under his proposed cap and trade. While Barack and team are hard at work pushing this agenda, emphasis and focus on job creation has languished. Jobs should always be a president’s #1 priority.

If Americans are not at work, then American principles and policies won’t work. I think Barack and team are learning that lesson right now.

One final point, if I may. On the topic of cap and trade, has the entire premise for this legislation and initiative now been brought into question with the news that a trove of conflicting data on this issue has been buried? Is the American public and the world at large being massively hoodwinked on this topic? While so-called experts and global leaders, including President Obama, will soon convene in Copenhagen on this topic, who amongst them will call for a full and thorough airing of this data?

Remember Barack, it’s all about jobs.

“Kiss me!!”

LD

This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 9:34 AM and is filed under Employment, General, Unemployment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.