Editorial Board
The Truth About Uncertainty Is That It’s (Mostly) Untrue
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When corporate executives are asked why they don’t spend more of their record profits by investing in their businesses and hiring workers, they offer this mantra: uncertainty, brought on by President Barack Obama.
Verizon Communications Inc. Chief Executive Officer Ivan Seidenberg led the charge in 2010. “By reaching into virtually every sector of economic life,” he said, “government is injecting uncertainty into the marketplace and making it harder to raise capital and create new businesses.” More recently, John Chambers, the Cisco Systems Inc. CEO, said sales were down partly because of corporate customers’ worries about government policy. “Business doesn’t like uncertainty,” he Bloomberg TV on May 10.