Let me state at the outset that I don’t think opinion has much to do with commerce.
The University of Michigan's measure of consumer attitudes is totally useless. It correlates with no known behavior.
The daily explanations of why the stock market has gone one way or the other based on business attitude is preposterous. I have shown press statements from the stock market floor made to explain movements in the market (‘stocks moved strongly because of expected EPA regulations’) to people, covering up the dates, and everyone accepted the preposterous explanations even for movements in the opposite direction. General directions of opinion do not move the market. The market can move up or down after a Chinese press release or a new Middle Eastern war or a massive disaster.
CEO projections are equally useless. Individual corporations are so numerous and lack intercommunication, that it is unreasonable to think they share opinions about markets and sub market directions.
On the otherhand there are two reasons to think market perceptions are important. One is Deirdre McCloskey’s explanation of the rise of industrial commerce because of the growing acceptance of commerce as a respectable way of life in a few countries.
The second is my own data. I participated in the greatest flowering of small business in the San Francisco Bay Area (see the Briarpatch) that occurred because hippies were so optimistic about the future they wanted to create the businesses of the future. Their optimism was the driving force for new businesses. I succeeded in doing the same thing in Sweden and the Pacific Northwest where optimism was prevalent. I made an effort but failed to do the same thing in England and France where conditions were negative.
The question comes up because we in the United States are a driving global economic force and we are in a severe long-term recession that is spreading widely. We also have the most publicly outspoken anti-business president and we have the most publicly outspoken anti-business Democratic party in American history. (‘Our problems are caused by millionaires, billionaires, hedge fund managers,Wall Street, executive jet owners and Republicans trying to rein in government spending’)
Are the two things connected? Might they only be connected because we had a financial crisis that drastically altered the commercial landscape so that capital is in the hands of very large corporations and unavailable to small startups?
It is possible that business perceptions in these unique circumstances both by large corporations holding the cash and small startups seeing a grim intrusive governmental future, might have negative commercial effects.
The University of Michigan's measure of consumer attitudes is totally useless. It correlates with no known behavior.
CEO projections are equally useless. Individual corporations are so numerous and lack intercommunication, that it is unreasonable to think they share opinions about markets and sub market directions.
On the otherhand there are two reasons to think market perceptions are important. One is Deirdre McCloskey’s explanation of the rise of industrial commerce because of the growing acceptance of commerce as a respectable way of life in a few countries.
The second is my own data. I participated in the greatest flowering of small business in the San Francisco Bay Area (see the Briarpatch) that occurred because hippies were so optimistic about the future they wanted to create the businesses of the future. Their optimism was the driving force for new businesses. I succeeded in doing the same thing in Sweden and the Pacific Northwest where optimism was prevalent. I made an effort but failed to do the same thing in England and France where conditions were negative.
The question comes up because we in the United States are a driving global economic force and we are in a severe long-term recession that is spreading widely. We also have the most publicly outspoken anti-business president and we have the most publicly outspoken anti-business Democratic party in American history. (‘Our problems are caused by millionaires, billionaires, hedge fund managers,Wall Street, executive jet owners and Republicans trying to rein in government spending’)
Are the two things connected? Might they only be connected because we had a financial crisis that drastically altered the commercial landscape so that capital is in the hands of very large corporations and unavailable to small startups?
It is possible that business perceptions in these unique circumstances both by large corporations holding the cash and small startups seeing a grim intrusive governmental future, might have negative commercial effects.