Economy
Are Businesses More Worried About Regulation and Health Care Than About the Economy or Low Energy Prices?
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Have you ever heard that politicians will only give the answers to the questions they want to answer, regardless of the question? It seems that businesses may now be in the same vote. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas released its manufacturing index on Monday. On top of the numbers being mostly very negative, businesses went out of their way to voice their complaints about excessive regulation, healthcare and other government-mandated and labor-related problems.
What was so interesting here is that Texas manufacturers were given three questions about how lower energy prices were impacting their business.
The first question — What impact have lower energy prices had on your business over the past six months? The second question — Overall, what has been the net impact of lower energy prices on your business over the past six months? And the third question, a catch-all bucket — What are the top three concerns affecting your company’s outlook?
It was the third question, the “everything else” bucket, where businesses went into deep coverage on regulation, the economy, labor shortages, interest rates, a strong dollar, real estate prices and ‘other.’ The responses were massively inclusive of regulation, healthcare and other related topics.
24/7 Wall St. went through Fed commentary and pulled direct comments from the retail outlook, the services sector outlook, and the manufacturing sector outlook. These comments were partly seen in the prior month, but this month was even more focused on these side issues.
It might seem that Texas-based businesses would be more concerned about energy prices over regulation. Frankly, it wasn’t even close. Government regulation was the most commonly cited concern of manufacturing, services, and retail segments — more so than the U.S. economy and actual energy prices.
Comments on each are around health care and regulation were highlighted, and the full commentary around these other issues was listed as follows:
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