CEOs concerned with energy.ALTHOUGH THEY SEEMED TO shrug off Hurricane Katrina  Editing of this page by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled due to vandalism. at first, corporate leaders now appear to believe the disaster revealed problems in the economy, particularly its energy sector. Although still at relatively high levels historically, CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. confidence plunged in October by 13.7 points, the second-largest fall since we began this email polling in October 2002. The drop took the benchmark CEO Confidence Index from 164.6 the previous month to 150.9 in October (see chart, bottom left.) In particular, CEO attitudes toward hiring darkened dark·en v. dark·ened, dark·en·ing, dark·ens v.tr. 1. a. To make dark or darker. b. To give a darker hue to. 2. To fill with sadness; make gloomy. 3. considerably. The CEO Employment Confidence, which is a component of overall confidence, plunged 20.8 points, from 182.5 to 161.7, the largest ever decline. Energy seems to be uppermost on CEOs' minds. When asked to rank the events or trends that have had the most damaging impact on the U.S. economy over the past six years, our 472 respondents put energy costs at No. 1, followed by the September 11 terrorist attacks, and then the dot-com bust Refers to the years 2000 to 2002, when the bottom fell out of the dot-com industry and hundreds of dot-com companies went bankrupt. All the rest lost a huge amount, if not almost all, of their stock valuation. See dot-com bubble. (see chart). "The rising cost of energy is central to the success or failure of our economy," said Andrew Hayman, CEO of CoAMS Holdings, a marketing firm in Chicago. "Obviously, higher fuel costs negatively affect everything from transportation to manufacturing, but there is a positive aspect as well. At some point, [they] will compel consumers to change their behavior, and manufacturers, energy companies and government to begin in earnest to provide viable alternatives." The ease with which Katrina knocked out energy infrastructure made an impression. "Katrina proved the U.S. economy is helpless as a baby without fossil fuel fossil fuel: see energy, sources of; fuel. fossil fuel Any of a class of materials of biologic origin occurring within the Earth's crust that can be used as a source of energy. Fossil fuels include coal, petroleum, and natural gas. ," said Don Louis, CEO of CoLinx, a provider of e-commerce and logistics services in Greenville, S.C. "The U.S. needs to develop alternative fuel more urgently than we need to secure Iraq." When combined with other problems, the challenge is compounded. "We are experiencing the 'perfect storm': overspending overscas (the war), domestically (Katrina) and high energy prices," said Blythe McGarvie, Virginia-based author and president of the Leadership for International Finance Group, a consultancy. "We need fiscal discipline and a true plan to keep government spending Government spending or government expenditure consists of government purchases, which can be financed by seigniorage, taxes, or government borrowing. It is considered to be one of the major components of gross domestic product. under control." RELATED ARTICLE: THE NUMBERS [GRAPHIC OMITTED] Readers ranked these events in terms of their negative impact on the U.S. economy. 1. Surging Energy Prices 2. 9/11 3. The Dot-Com Bust 4. The Iraq War Iraq War: see under Persian Gulf Wars. Iraq War or Second Persian Gulf War Brief conflict in 2003 between Iraq and a combined force of troops largely from the U.S. and Great Britain; and a subsequent U.S. 5. Corporate Scandals A corporate scandal is a scandal involving allegations of unethical behavior by people acting within or on behalf of a corporation. A corporate scandal sometimes involves accounting fraud of some sort. 6. Hurricane Katrina |
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