Thursday, May 05, 2011

1488 Demo Boom

I read all the ballyhoo in the press. Political sides going at each other to extremes. Business hating government. Democrats bad for business. Republicans good for business. Brickbats thrown. Mud slung so thick they wipe it up with yellow journalism.
I'm also reminded of an old chestnut by Will Rogers. "Mixing Politics and Religion is like mixing manure and ice cream, it doesn’t do much to the manure but it surely does ruin the ice cream."
I feel that way about politics and business. Something's manure-ing the message. Because it's funny how well, despite all the bull, business does during Democratic administrations.
When I was in the investment business, I went to a big convention in San Diego. One of the presenters, talking to a room of 2500 business people, went over the stock market for the last 60 years. This was in 2004, before 2008 and the economic crater during the last months of the Bush Administration.
The presenter was accurate in his presentation except when he got to the 80s and 90s. He called the 80s, "The Great Reagan Years," and made glowing remarks about it, even though stock and economic growth were relatively puny. Relative, that is, to the booming Clinton Administration, which he referred to as "The Nineties."
So you'll be happy to know, despite the political histrionics, that in 2010, pre-Tea Party revolution, Corporate America's profits rose 29.2 percent—the fastest growth in more than 50 years.
As I've reported before, median pay for CEOs went up 27% too.
Looks to me like the Democrats and the Republicans need to switch hats. For all the talk of tax-and-spend and onerous government burdens, corporate businesses make a ton of money off Democratic administrations.
Campaign donation season is coming. CEOs take note...
America, ya gotta love it.

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