[1]This is simply a horrible year for Detroit. Of course everyone knows about Eminem delaying his new album until next year [2] because he’s such a perfectionist. Then Motor City became the embarrassment of the nation with their CEO’s blundering in front of Congress. To add insult to injury, the Detroit Lions had a perfect losing season at 0-16 to officially become the worst NFL team in history [1].
In the latest chapter of the Detroit blues, the Kuwaiti government is backing out of a $17.4 billion joint venture with Dow Chemical [3] which was to be based in Detroit. The Supreme Petroleum Council of Kuwait deemed the contract as “very risky” given the global financial crisis and recent oil prices. Foreign investments are important to the US economy and previous moves by Congress to deny Dubai contracts in the US [4] probably didn’t do much to help the confidence of Kuwait in these uncertain times.
So what are we going to do to build confidence in America’s business environment and compete on the global market? I hope we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past and build up more trade barriers and scare investments away. How about reducing the US corporate tax rate which is the 2nd highest in the industrialized world [5]?