| Well, in that sense nothing is "concrete" ... which itself is a big problem. Every few years there's a major change in taxes, which makes it impossible to plan for the long term, or at least make long term investments for smaller payoffs (yet people complain about companies being focused on the short term). It's widely perceived that the massive and ongoing changes in the business environment have caused a lot of companies to effectively freeze or cut back until they see how it all plays out (note that one has also got to be concerned about second order and so on effects, that which trashes you may also be trashing your customers, your customers' customers, etc.). Even the left is starting to acknowledge it; from the site run by the guy who helped to expose the polling firm that was scamming the Daily Kos, the last paragraph of an essay on "Why Aren't Businesses Hiring?": "Uncertainty: there has been a tremendous amount of change over the last 12 months. Businesses are still trying to figure out what that means for their bottom line. Until there are firm answers, they will freeze hiring." Fred Wilson recently discussed "Currency Risk In A Business" (http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/07/currency-risk-in-a-business.... which was submitted to HN but seems to have disappeared). However, it looks like hedging that will get a lot more expensive: WSJ: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22facing+higher+retiree+heal...) Which as the WSJ editorial notes "If hedging currency risk becomes too expensive, companies may shift more jobs to countries where the purchases occur, matching their revenues to expenses in the same currency.", in alignment with Fred's comments that "It is ideal to have your foreign currency denominated expenses and revenues be as close to each other as possible. Because if you can do that, they are a natural hedge." |