Is Obama Stifling Big Business?

By Michael Crowley | @CrowleyTIME | November 23, 2010 | +

American businesses earned profits of $1.66 trillion at an annual rate in the third quarter, according to a Commerce Department report released Tuesday. That is the highest figure recorded since the government began keeping track over 60 years ago, at least in nominal or non-inflation-adjusted terms.

Corporate profits have been going gangbusters for a while. Since their cyclical low in the fourth quarter of 2008, profits have grown for seven consecutive quarters, at some of the fastest rates in history.

In this context, the animosity the business community directs towards Obama is a bit puzzling. At a moment where unemployment is close to 10 percent but corporate profits are soaring, you might expect a Democratic president to be bellowing populist anthems all the time, which Obama decidedly is not.

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Paul-no not that one

“In this context, the animosity the business community directs towards Obama is a bit puzzling”
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If one realizes that the CoC isn’t the “business community” but rather an arm of the republican party and more interested in tax brackets than business climate it really isn’t that puzzling.
.
You ain’t lying about BHO though.
http://elvisberg.wordpress.com Elvis Elvisberg

In this context, the animosity the business community directs towards Obama is a bit puzzling.
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As with the TP’ers/GOP, it is 100% cultural tribalism, 0% about policy.
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You know, policy, that stuff government does that affects people’s lives, the reason we care about this sort of thing.
square1

These are simply a few hundred to few thousand sociopathic senior executives, traders, and managers who are, quite literally, incapable of being concerned about anyone other than themselves.

They will ask for 100% and if given merely 99% will whine, pout, and throw a tantrum.

Their enablers are those members of the media, like Mr. Crowley, who legitimize their sociopathic behaviors by conferring upon them pleasant-sounding terms like “the business community.”

Calvin Coolidge once said that “The business of America is business.” Although Coolidge would likely disagree, I would argue that this means that the real “business community” in America is composed of the millions of Americans who work for a living, pay taxes, and contribute to their communities.

These millions of Americans have just as much of a right to an opinion about what is best for America’s business interests as the sociopaths that Mr. Crowley would have us believe are acting in the best interest of the U.S. economy. In fact, many of these sociopaths have no problem off-shoring jobs, off-shoring profits, and off-shoring their tax liabilities.

Do we need any more proof that what is good for them is NOT what is good for everyone else?
stuartzechman

Michael Scherer:
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“you might expect a Democratic president to be bellowing populist anthems all the time, which Obama decidedly is not”
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True and true, with the key word being “decidedly.”
stuartzechman

Jesus, CROWLEY, not “Scherer.”
Art Pepper

the animosity the business community directs towards Obama is a bit puzzling

Not really.
http://shortplaysaboutrealpeople.wordpress.com Michael Maiello

The big business lobby, like the Chamber of Commerce continues to crow because they’re rantings are carried by the media without much analysis. This is particularly distressing in the wake of the recession, but it’s sadly not surprising.

Less cynically, Michael… why don’t you call the Chamber and ask them if these profits are proof that Obama is much more business friendly than they’ve made him out to be?
nflfoghorn

Thank you for correcting Jesus’ name, Stuart Zechman.
formerlyjames

nfl, very good funny, JC, Jesus Crowley.
nflfoghorn

FJ – Yeh, Jesus Scherer might imply some sorta Jewish/Mexican bias
grape_crush

What Drum said:

“What’s remarkable about all this is that Obama is, patently, not anti-business. All of the corporate complaints above, when you dig an inch below the surface, amount to lashing out at phantasms.

However, although Obama isn’t anti-business, it is fair to say that he’s not especially business friendly. And after decades of almost literally getting their every heart’s desire from Republican presidents and congresses, this has come as something as a shock to the corporate community. When Obama puts a tax break in the stimulus bill, it’s aimed mainly at the middle class, not the rich. When he hires a labor secretary, it’s someone who actually thinks labor laws should be enforced. When he says he wants to pass a healthcare reform bill, he actually does it. (Its impact on big business is close to zero, but no matter.) There’s no evidence at all that Obama wants to punish big business, but at the same time it’s quite plain that he cares much more about the middle class than he does about the rich.

And that’s pretty hard for them to take. So they’re apoplectic. On a scale of 1 to 10, he’s a ten. Merely refusing to coddle the business community endlessly is all it takes these days.”
stuartzechman

We should also remember that they are in the intellectual grasp of a jealous economists’ orthodoxy that informs their ideas on what “benefits everyone.”
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Debunking that empirically failed economists’ orthodoxy would go a long way toward exploding a moral and intellectual pillar of their sociopathy.
http://erieangel.wordpress.com erieangel

The business community is confused and angry because Obama doesn’t think like they do. They also find this remarkable in that he wasn’t raised wealthy, but Obama made his money the old fashioned way—he earned it.
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I’m wondering if the business community has gotten their own all these years partly because of the very people we vote to serve us “We the People..” Ed Sholtz pointed out on Monday evening that while there are only about 375,000 millionaires+ in this country (1.2% of the population), 44% of Congress is made up of millionaires—many of the trust fund babies, but some who earned their money and want it all protected. When they argue against tax increases on the wealthy, they are arguing against their own taxes being increased.