Supply Chain

Replacing the Business Cycle with the Election Cycle

Aug. 5, 2011

One consequence of the 2008 blow-up of the economy has been the increasing role of government in the business cycle. We’ve gone through periods like this before: including during the World Wars, when government’s reach was exponentially larger.

This time, while there is no physical enemy out to destroy us, the perception is that prolonged economic weakness can be our downfall as global competition increases.

While this, too, shall ultimately pass, there still seems to be a growing recognition that- at least in the short-term- what happens in Washington will have more impact on the business environment than any other moment in our recent memory.

As the pendulum predictably swings from the highly unregulated period of the early 2000s to the much more intrusive days of now, we should expect the election cycle to be far more important than in past years.

God help us all!

About the Author

Andrew R. Thomas Blog | Associate Professor of Marketing and International Business

Andrew R. Thomas, Ph.D., is associate professor of marketing and international business at the University of Akron; and, a member of the core faculty at the International School of Management in Paris, France.

He is a bestselling business author/editor, whose 23 books include, most recently, American Shale Energy and the Global Economy: Business and Geopolitical Implications of the Fracking Revolution, The Customer Trap: How to Avoid the Biggest Mistake in Business, Global Supply Chain Security, The Final Journey of the Saturn V, and Soft Landing: Airline Industry Strategy, Service and Safety.

His book The Distribution Trap was awarded the Berry-American Marketing Association Prize for the Best Marketing Book of 2010. Another work, Direct Marketing in Action, was a finalist for the same award in 2008.

Andrew is founding editor-in-chief of the Journal of Transportation Security and a regularly featured analyst for media outlets around the world.

He has traveled to and conducted business in 120 countries on all seven continents.