South By North Strategies, Ltd.

Caroline Baum, a columnist for Bloomberg, doesn’t buy into the argument that “uncertainty” is the explanation for America’s economic problems.

Which brings me to the subject of uncertainty, the presumed source of all things ailing the U.S. economy. Uncertainty is omnipresent. No one speaks of uncertainty during good times. There was lots of uncertainty in March 2000, when the Nasdaq Composite Index breached 5,000 as investors bought shares of Internet companies with no revenue, no profits and, in at least one case, no known business. No uncertainty back then; just a case of irrational exuberance.
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In good times, the word uncertainty rarely appears in policy discussions. In bad times, it’s the default setting. Why not call it by what it really is, which is pessimism? When businesses say they aren’t going to invest because of uncertainty, what they mean is, they don’t think their investments will produce a substantial profit.