1. Congress. Every tick of US growth in the past 5 years came despite Congress’ best efforts
  2. The White House. Someone wants to build a pipeline to bring cheap oil and you fight it???
  3. Corporate unwillingness to invest, which is partially because:
  4. There are better places to invest than the US
  5. Dodd-Frank
  6. Basel III
  7. Fear about a Chinese slowdown
  8. Unwillingness to lend due to things like:
  9. Student debt
  10. Competitive currency devaluations
  11. Offshoring everything
  12. Rising government debt
  13. Income disparity
  14. Middling demand from Europe, at best
  15. Slower growth in emerging markets
  16. Aging workforce
  17. Persistent misallocation of education funding
  18. Patent law and patent trolls
  19. 14 million Americans collecting disability insurance
  20. An utterly broken justice system

Some of these problems, like demographics, are unavoidable but many are self-inflicted and none more than the top item on the list, which could be an endless list on its own.

This list is a response to anyone blaming Fed ‘uncertainty’ for economic disappointment. The Fed has taken rates to zero, printed $3.5 trillion and goosed the stock market. If the uncertainty of rates rising one percentage point two years from now is too much for your business to overcome, you don’t have a viable business.