- Congress. Every tick of US growth in the past 5 years came despiteCongress’ best efforts
- The White House. Someone wants to build a pipeline to bring cheap oil and you fight it???
- Corporate unwillingness to invest, which is partially because:
- There are better places to invest than the US
- Dodd-Frank
- Basel III
- Fear about a Chinese slowdown
- Unwillingness to lend due to things like:
- Student debt
- Competitive currency devaluations
- Offshoring everything
- Rising government debt
- Income disparity
- Middling demand from Europe, at best
- Slower growth in emerging markets
- Aging workforce
- Persistent misallocation of education funding
- Patent law and patent trolls
- 14 million Americans collectingdisability insurance
- An utterly broken justice system
This list is a response to anyone blaming Fed ‘uncertainty’ for economic disappointment. The Fed has taken rates to zero, printed $3.5 trillion and goosed the stock market. If the uncertainty of rates rising one percentage point two years from now is too much for your business to overcome, you don’t have a viable business.