USA! Industrial Companies Are Confident In Obama And The Economy

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In a shot across the bow of the Republicans’ attempt to deem President Obama ineffective, US industrial companies have increased confidence in the US economy.

According to the Financial Times,

The head of investor relations for Caterpillar, Mike DeWalt said, The upturn in demand in America was helping the company, Caterpillar, to experience its “best growth since Harry Truman was president”.

Dewalt also had some compelling advice for the conservative Democrats and Republicans in office right now. Dewalt said that he is concerned that tightening economic policies, in other words “cut spending” would hurt this economic recovery. Is this what the conservatives want?

Another industrial leader that has increased confidence in Obama’s economy is Eaton, the manufacturer of industrial equipment and components for aircrafts and trucks, which said it expected its markets to grow faster in America than in the rest of the world for the first time in 5-6 years.

Sandy Cutler, Eaton’s chief executive of Eaton said,

“Many people would say their view of the American economy is a little better than it was three months ago,” he said. “Consumers are spending money, non-residential construction is starting to rise, the car market is picking up and exports and manufacturing capacity utilization are up, creating demand for trucks and factory automation equipment.”

All of this under a President who is supposed to be bad for business, right? On top of this report we have Halliburton, who just reported record earnings. In their financial report CEO, Dave Lesar, said,

“In North America, the trend toward increased horizontal oil-directed activity continued in the fourth quarter with the United States oil-directed rig count up 8% sequentially compared to a natural gas rig count decline of 2%.

The improvement in the Gulf of Mexico in 2011 was encouraging. We saw increased rig count as the year progressed, particularly in deepwater, as our customers’ success with permitting improved and they resumed operations. Our strategy of keeping our infrastructure intact has paid off, with our fourth quarter revenue now above pre-moratorium levels. We expect continued activity increases in 2012.”

So much for the conservative talking point that the Obama Administration is bad for domestic oil producers.

All in all, the world’s industrial leaders have growing confidence in America, in spite of Republicans stiff arming the President at every step of the way.

But as the CEO of Caterpillar said, all of this good economic news and progress could grind to a halt if Republicans get their way and restrict spending, move toward austerity, and essentially become like Ireland and England, back into a recession.