Why businesses aren't hiring

Profits are soaring, but companies are  yet to amp up hiring or make major investments -- the missing ingredients for a strong economic recovery, the Washington Post reports.

They blame their profound caution on their view that U.S. consumers are destined to disappoint for many years. As a result, they say, the economy is unlikely to see the kind of almost unbroken prosperity of the quarter-century that preceded the financial crisis.

Across the industrial parks and office towers of the Chicago region, in a more than a dozen interviews, senior executives said they see Americans for years ahead paying down debts incurred during the now-ended credit boom and adjusting spending to match their often-reduced incomes.

Uncertainty is ruining the party.

Executives see little evidence that the economy is slipping back into recession. But they describe a business environment in which sales come in fits and starts and their customers can't predict what they will want to buy in the future.

"In the past, our customers had more long-term vision on what they're going to need," said Bill Larsen, president of Larsen Packaging Products in Glendale Heights, Ill. Now, he said, "they don't know what they're going to need and when they're going to need it."

The executive class in the Chicago region is none too pleased with many of the policies of President Obama, the Post reports. They criticize his willingness to let Bush-era tax cuts expire at year's end for households that make over $250,000 and allow the capital gains tax rate to increase. They dislike aspects of his landmark health-care law, and some fear that the financial overhaul legislation enacted this summer will make it harder for them to get loans.