by mark000
……“Business leaders continue to expect an economic slowdown in the U.S. before or concurrent with the presidential election,” said John Graham, a finance professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and director of the survey. “I’d expect uncertainty about the election itself to cause firms to slow expansion in the summer and fall of 2020.”
Although the survey did not ask if there’s anything that can be done to stall the recession, Graham said in a phone interview that with the last recession now more than a decade in the past, CFOs see the next one as “kind of inevitable” with little to be done. “Much of the pressure on a U.S. recession is coming from outside the U.S. that is slowing economies around the world and there’s nothing U.S. policy makers can do about that. I don’t think lowering interest rates is going to help all that much because investment isn’t that sensitive at these low interest rates.”
The only thing that might help, Graham said, is resolving the questions surrounding tariffs. But that will probably be countered by the coming uncertainty of the 2020 presidential election……………