A "dead cat bounce" is a Wall Street term that refers to a
small but brief recovery in the price of declining stock. Look at the graphs of this week’s "bounce"
and you might find yourself more productive buying a cat than trying to create
a job in California.
On Thursday, U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell
met with business leaders and friends in Silicon Valley to discuss the economy,
the debt ceiling, and what it would take to get California’s – and the nation’s
economy – back on track.
Southerners have an amazing way to turn a phrase and say it
in plain talk.
The Senate Leader talked about how some Silicon Valley folks
he has met with indicated they don’t mind paying a little bit more in taxes if
we can just "fix things". He didn’t seem
to think that more taxes were necessary, stating, "the reason revenue is down
is the economy is down. Let’s fix that
and then have a discussion."
McConnell stated what most free market thinkers find common
sense: the deficit will continue to mount as long as the economy is poor. That makes sense to me and any business folks
looking at what’s going on in California, much less the rest of the
country. We used to be the innovation
leader and we’ve lost our competitive advantage to China, India, Texas, and
other economic super powers that are hungrier to lead the world economy.
McConnell feels pretty good about the new Senators who
joined the Congress this past session – tea party or not – he called them "a
pretty sharp bunch." He also stated something
I think all pragmatists – Republican or Democrat – should understand: "There are two kinds of Senators. Those who want to make a point and those who
want to make a difference."
It’s easy to get on FOX News if you’re sound-bite driven but
much harder to solve problems if you’re not there to fix things.
Nobody seems quite sure what the President will propose in
his economic plan since he has been so dependent on "public" solutions in the
form of more government rather than "private" solutions in the form of less
government regulation. "Get government
out of the way and allow people to go hire people," McConnell said. It sure sounds simple.
The question, as raised by McConnell continues to be "Will
they (the party in power) continue to do nothing when it comes to creating jobs? We have a choice of doing something or doing
nothing." Interestingly when I saw
Congresswoman Maxine Waters, the former Chairwoman of the Black Caucus last
night on television, she seemed just as frustrated, slamming the President on
jobs saying she didn’t know what the plan was.
When asked what the most damaging thing was in the form of
regulation – McConnell cited "Obamacare" – the worst piece of legislation
Congress has enacted – wreaking havoc on hospitals, medical device
manufacturers, and anyone involved in the health care food chain who has to
respect budgets and wants to innovate.
In true Silicon Valley form, one woman asked how we can get
the outsourced jobs back when companies have been forced due to regulation to
go elsewhere. McConnell’s answer was "to
make the United States once again the best place to do business – we need to
make America work more like Texas."
It wasn’t an endorsement of Rick Perry – but it was
conceptually a way to compare the economies of Texas and Florida with the less
business friendly climates of Illinois, California, New York, and New Jersey.
California used to be better than this – as did my birth
state of New York. It sure makes one
wonder if we should re-evaluate things.
Surprisingly, even a Kentuckian like McConnell didn’t talk
about road kill or dead cats when describing the U.S. economy, but it sure
seems like California resembles them both.