…according to the latest survey from the National Association of Business Economics.
Some key highlights:
81% of respondents indicate that the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) has not caused their firms to change hiring or investment plans
While there is some evidence a slightly higher number of goods-producing businesses have shifted investments back to the US, the overall effect on the economy is negligible.
The lack of a boom in capital expenditures is also in line with the most recent hard data from last week. While Friday’s gross-domestic-product report showed the economy growing at a solid pace, nonresidential fixed investment grew at its slowest pace in almost two years. Additionally, core durable goods orders also fell for the second straight month, according to the report released Thursday.
Also not surprisingly, Trump’s trade war is having an effect…a negative one. Again…not as badly as might be expected, but concentrated in those very same goods-producing companies…having the opposite effect of the tax cuts.
Overall, 77% of NABE respondents reported no changes to hiring and investment plans caused by trade policy. But again, the changes were more acutely felt by goods-producing firms.
“Goods-producing firms are more likely to have made changes, with 46% raising prices and 38% delaying investments, higher percentages than those in the July survey,” the release said.
I suppose the solution, of course, is to double down. Obviously the initial tax cuts weren’t steep enough. We’ll just have to do more…and also put the kibosh on the globalist heathens at the Fed who are deliberately trying to sabotage Trump.
Pay for it with steep cuts to Medicare and Social Security because surely this time the economy will take off like a rocket, and the elderly and retired will be taken care of with generous private pensions and stock investments.
Did I get those last two paragraphs right, guys?
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