CEO Faith In Trump Economy Has Plunged 20 Points Since January

 

The following is from ChiefExecutive.net:

After a double-digit surge in optimism in the months following the November presidential election, confidence among America’s business community fell sharply the first week of March, according to Chief Executive’s latest CEO Confidence Index, fielded March 4 and 5.

CEOs’ rating of current business conditions in the U.S. fell 20 percent from January, from 6.3 to 5 out of 10, on a scale where 1 is Poor and 10 is Excellent. This is the lowest level since the spring of 2020, when the pandemic shut down businesses around the world.

CEOs’ forecast for what those conditions will look like 12 months from now fell by an even greater margin—28 percent—from 7/10 in January to 5/10 in March. The last time CEOs’ outlook hit that low was November 2012.

Overall, only 39 percent of the more than 220 CEOs we surveyed now believe the business climate will improve this year, down 13 percentage points (or 25 percent) from 52 percent at the start of the year. Instead, 36 percent say they expect things will get worse, up from 20 percent in January (note: we did not field the survey in February 2025).

Asked about how they anticipate current events will affect the U.S. economy in general, 48 percent say they anticipate a recession or slowdown within the next six months.

The Trump administration’s gyrating tariff threats against Mexico and Canada are the most commonly cited reason for declining optimism. Three-quarters of those surveyed said they believe those tariffs, if imposed, will have negative effects on their respective industries. Rising geopolitical uncertainty, sweeping government layoffs and overall unpredictability for what comes next were all additional factors cited by CEOs we surveyed for their rising pessimism.

Greedy Corporate CEO's Climb On The Trump Bandwagon

The following is part of post by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich:

The Business Roundtable is an association of more than 200 CEOs of America’s biggest corporations, their most powerful voice in Washington.

 

Last Wednesday, its chair, Joshua Bolten, told reporters that his group planned to drop “eight figures” while “putting its full weight behind protecting and strengthening tax reform.”

Translated: It’s going to pour money into Trump’s campaign to ensure that Trump’s 2017 tax cuts — most of which benefit big corporations and the rich — don’t expire in 2025, as scheduled. 

On Thursday, Trump met at the Business Roundtable’s Washington headquarters with over 80 CEOs, including Apple’s Tim Cook, JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, and Walmart’s Doug McMillon.

Trump reportedly promised the CEOs he’d cut corporate taxes even further and curtail business regulations if elected president.

Trump’s 2017 tax cuts reduced the rate of corporate income taxes from 35 percent to 21 percent. That has cost the nation $1.3 trillion. Those tax cuts, along with the tax cuts put in place by George W. Bush, are the primary reason the national debt is rising as a percentage of the economy.

What have corporations done with the money they’ve saved? They haven’t invested it or used it to raise wages. Nothing has trickled down to average workers.

A large portion has gone into stock buybacks. The year after the tax cut went into effect, corporations bought back a record $1 trillion of their shares of stock. Buybacks raise stock prices — and, not incidentally, CEO compensation, which is largely in shares of stock. 

Making Trump’s 2017 tax cuts permanent — as the Business Roundtable seeks — will cost $4 trillion over the next 10 years, $400 billion per year — and cause the debt to soar.

Yet the CEOs that Trump met with last week have been thriving under Biden.

Corporate profits are way up. Stocks are at near-record levels. Inflation has plummeted. Industries like energy that appeared to be at risk from Biden’s policies are doing well.

So why are these CEOs attracted to Trump, whose antics are likely to destabilize the economy? . . .

They’re coming around to Trump because they want even more tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks — which means even more money in their own pockets. . . .

The greedy cynicism of America’s corporate elite is now on full display. 

U.S. Capitalism Is Rigged To Favor Those At The Top

Robert Reich tells us what must be done to correct the obscene CEO pay:

The pay disparity between CEOs and typical workers has become obscene. But there’s something we can do about this. (I’ll get to it in a moment.)

First, some history and numbers: 

In 1965, CEOs typically earned 20 times the typical worker's pay.

By 1979, the ratio between a CEO’s pay and that of the median worker was 33 to 1. 

As of 2021, the CEO-to-median-worker pay ratio had grown to 399 to 1. 

 

Since the late 1970s, CEO pay increased more than 1,200 percent. 

At the same time, the pay of the typical American workers rose 18 percent.

Inevitably, some of that obscene amount of CEO pay goes into PACs and campaign contributions. 

As a result, wealthy CEOs in effect write many laws. (And when billionaires bestow gifts on Supreme Court justices, they also determine how the laws are enforced and interpreted.)

This is part of the story of how American capitalism has become rigged in favor of those at the top. It leads us directly to oligarchy — rule by the richest few, putting democracy at risk.

It’s also partly why so many Americans have become angry and cynical — some even succumbing to the false allure of Trump and neofascism. 

What to do? 

I’m pleased to report that Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Reps. Barbara Lee and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have introduced the Curtailing Executive Overcompensation (CEO) Act. It’s designed to address the problem of out-of-control CEO pay by levying an excise tax on corporations whose CEO-to-median-worker pay disparities are 50 to 1 or greater.

The corporate tax rate would be a sliding scale — pegged to the degree to which the ratio of CEO pay (including salary, bonuses, and stock options) to worker pay is greater than 50 to 1.

The tax would apply to big companies with gross income of $100 million per year or more and payrolls totaling $10 million or more.

 

This legislation deserves wide support. Lawmakers need to know how popular it is. Joe Biden should get behind it. 

How can you help? Alert your representatives that you want them to support this. 

Click here to sign and send your message to your members of Congress.

Corporate CEO's Make 344 Times As Much As Their Workers

From the Economic Policy Institute. 

The MYTH Of Being Paid What You"re Worth Cheats Workers

Anyone willing to work hard in a full-time job should be paid a livable wage. But the myth that says workers are paid what they are worth allows employers to pay many millions less than a livable wage, and that is nothing less than theft of labor.

Here is Robert Reich's take on this myth:

From time to time, I use this letter to debunk an economic myth that’s used to justify the staggering inequalities of income and wealth that characterize modern America. 

Today, I’m taking on the idea that people are paid what they’re “worth.” 

According to this mythology, workers at the bottom don’t deserve more than the minimum wage (the federal minimum is still $7.25 an hour — where it’s been stuck since since 2009). If they were worth more, they’d earn more.

By this logic, the typical McDonald’s worker is “worth” about $9 an hour (depending on the state and locale) while the McDonald’s CEO is “worth” the $20 million pay package he received last year.

 

The notion that people are paid what they’re “worth” is by now so deeply ingrained in the public consciousness that many who earn very little assume it’s their own fault they don’t earn more. That they simply lack the skills they need to be paid more. 

The mythology also suggests nothing can be done to change what people are paid. It’s simply the way the free market works. 

Meanwhile, according to this same view, CEOs who rake in tens of millions and Wall Street traders who rake in hundreds of millions are simply being paid what they’re“worth” because that’s what the market has dictated.

 

Rubbish. 

The “paid what you’re worth” myth ignores power and disregards policies that have made inequality skyrocket. 

Consider, for example, the demise of antitrust enforcement, which has given big corporations the power to set prices, make record profits, and reward their CEOs with unprecedented compensation. 

Or the attacks on labor unions, which have reduced union membership from over a third of all private-sector workers in the 1950s to just 6 percent today, with the result that most workers have little or no bargaining power to get raises. 

Or the reliance on the Fed’s monetary policy to fight inflation by raising interest rates and slowing the economy, thereby suppressing workers’ wages rather than corporate profits.

 

Or the ways the super-wealthy have gamed the tax system so that they now end up paying a lower tax rate than most middle-class Americans — and can pass on their wealth to heirs tax free (via the “stepped-up basis at death” rule). 

All of this has resulted in a massive shift in wealth — from workers to owners.

 

Yet those at the top don’t want to talk about power or policy. Instead, they justify their staggering incomes in three ways:

Trickle-down economics. 

They claim that their wealth trickles down to everyone else as they invest it and create jobs. But as we know, wealth at the top has soared for decades and nothing has trickled down.

The free market.

They talk about “free market” forces beyond their control. But remember, markets are created by rules. These rules don’t exist in nature; they are human creations. 

The political power of the wealthy has let them change the rules for their own benefit — busting unions, monopolizing industries, and reaping big tax cuts.

Their own superior talents. 

Sure, they may be talented, but this doesn’t justify the staggering sums they are now taking home relative to what they took home years ago. 

The typical CEO of a big company is now raking in 399 times more than their typical employee. In 1965, the typical big company CEO took home 20 times more than their typical employee. 

Nor does their talent justify the amount of wealth they will pass to heirs, much of it tax free. The biggest intergenerational transfer of wealth in history will occur over the next 25 years as the richest 1.5% of Americans hand down roughly some $36 trillion dollars to their children and grandchildren. 

This doesn’t make those heirs superior. It makes them lucky.

The reality is there’s no justification for today’s extraordinary concentration of wealth at the very top. Or for how little people at the bottom are paid.

The “paid what you’re worth” myth has proven a cruelly effective way to put the blame on workers for not getting ahead while suggesting nothing can or should be done to raise their wages — giving the rich and powerful cover to rig the game for their own benefit.

It is distorting our politics, rigging our markets, and granting unprecedented power to a handful of people while millions of Americans struggle to get by. 

Don’t fall for it.