Obama, Business Look to Patch Things Up
The Hill reports:
Business leaders are feeling more optimistic about the U.S. economy as President Obama tries to reset the White House’s relationship with corporate America.
A survey released Tuesday shows corporate CEOs expect their sales to increase in the next six months along with their employment and expenditures.
The Business Roundtable’s quarterly survey found that 80 percent of those surveyed expect sales to increase, and 59 percent expect their companies to increase capital expenditures. CEOs expect the economy to grow at a 2.5 percent rate in 2011.
“Demand is returning, as evidenced by anticipated sales increases, and that is good news. When demand increases, capital expenditures and employment follow — which is what we expect to see in the next six months,” said Ivan Seidenberg, the Business Roundtable chairman and CEO of Verizon Communications.
The survey’s release comes on the eve of a meeting at the White House between Obama and the CEOs of some of the country’s largest corporations. The meeting is part of an effort by Obama to improve his administration’s ties to business. CEOs from IBM, Dow Chemical, Google, American Express and PepsiCo are among the leaders invited to attend the meeting.
Obama is also expected to try to coax business leaders at the meeting to put their money into the economy. The Federal Reserve has estimated that U.S. businesses are sitting on $2 trillion in cash reserves.
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