Business Rountable Economic Index Falls

June 1, 2005
Suggesting that the U.S. economic slowdown is not confined to manufacturing, the broader-based CEO Economic Outlook Index compiled by the Business Roundtable is at its lowest level since March 2004. The index now stands at 94.3, the same as in March 2004 ...

Suggesting that the U.S. economic slowdown is not confined to manufacturing, the broader-based CEO Economic Outlook Index compiled by the Business Roundtable is at its lowest level since March 2004. The index now stands at 94.3, the same as in March 2004 and down from 104.4 in the first quarter of this year.

"America's CEOs expect to see continued solid growth for the remainder of the year, though 2005 will undoubtedly witness a deceleration from the fervent pace of 2004," said Henry McKinnell, chairman and CEO of Pfizer Inc. and chairman of the Business Roundtable, as the Washington, D.C.-based association of corporate chief executive officers released its index numbers on May 31.

While a majority of 123 CEOs surveyed expect sales by their companies to continue to increase this year and employment to remain at least at current levels, they are moderating their capital spending plans. Slightly less than half -- 49% -- anticipate increasing spending during the next six months and 47% expect it to remain the same.

The CEOs anticipate inflation-adjusted GDP growth for the U.S. to be 3.4% this year, generally in line with most other economic forecasts and the long-term potential growth rate of the U.S. economy.

About the Author

John McClenahen | Former Senior Editor, IndustryWeek

 John S. McClenahen, is an occasional essayist on the Web site of IndustryWeek, the executive management publication from which he retired in 2006. He began his journalism career as a broadcast journalist at Westinghouse Broadcasting’s KYW in Cleveland, Ohio. In May 1967, he joined Penton Media Inc. in Cleveland and in September 1967 was transferred to Washington, DC, the base from which for nearly 40 years he wrote primarily about national and international economics and politics, and corporate social responsibility.
      
      McClenahen, a native of Ohio now residing in Maryland, is an award-winning writer and photographer. He is the author of three books of poetry, most recently An Unexpected Poet (2013), and several books of photographs, including Black, White, and Shades of Grey (2014). He also is the author of a children’s book, Henry at His Beach (2014).
      
      His photograph “Provincetown: Fog Rising 2004” was selected for the Smithsonian Institution’s 2011 juried exhibition Artists at Work and displayed in the S. Dillon Ripley Center at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., from June until October 2011. Five of his photographs are in the collection of St. Lawrence University and displayed on campus in Canton, New York.
      
      John McClenahen’s essay “Incorporating America: Whitman in Context” was designated one of the five best works published in The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies during the twelve-year editorship of R. Barry Leavis of Rollins College. John McClenahen’s several journalism prizes include the coveted Jesse H. Neal Award. He also is the author of the commemorative poem “Upon 50 Years,” celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Wolfson College Cambridge, and appearing in “The Wolfson Review.”
      
      John McClenahen received a B.A. (English with a minor in government) from St. Lawrence University, an M.A., (English) from Western Reserve University, and a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Georgetown University, where he also pursued doctoral studies. At St. Lawrence University, he was elected to academic honor societies in English and government and to Omicron Delta Kappa, the University’s highest undergraduate honor. John McClenahen was a participant in the 32nd Annual Wharton Seminars for Journalists at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. During the Easter Term of the 1986 academic year, John McClenahen was the first American to hold a prestigious Press Fellowship at Wolfson College, Cambridge, in the United Kingdom.
      
      John McClenahen has served on the Editorial Board of Confluence: The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies and was co-founder and first editor of Liberal Studies at Georgetown. He has been a volunteer researcher on the William Steinway Diary Project at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and has been an assistant professorial lecturer at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
      

 

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