Business forecast: flurries--even in June!(president's page) (Financial Executives International) (Conference news)

• Author: Hollein, Marie

It's been a busy time in Washington, D,C, Norwalk, Conn., and London, as well as here at FEI headquarters in Morns-town, H. J. As evidenced by the constant updating of news on FEI's Web site and the length of our weekly e-newsletter FEI Express, you can see there's been a flurry of activity concurrently on many fronts. As always, we are striving to help keep you, our members, informed on subjects of critical interest for your businesses.

Last month alone, FEI's Committee on Corporate Reporting (CCR) and FEI's Committee on Private Company-Standards (CPC-S) each sent letters to the Financial Accounting Standards Board Chairman Robert Herz and International Accounting Standards Board Chairman Sir David Tweedie. They expressed concern with the impact and timing of the 10-plus standards set to come out by June 2011 under the FASB-IA5B Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) relating to converging U.S. generally accepted accounting principles with International Financial Reporting Standards.

From accounting standards and financial regulatory reform to climate-change regulation and enormous changes to tax and health-care policies, it would appear the Obama administration and policymakers are trying to get their hands on just about everything they can that's involved in running your businesses. In doing so, organizations are becoming a little anxious about what the future holds.

Our nation is still reeling from the deepest financial crisis in a generation, and while there is some good news on the economic front about modest recovery and job creation, there is much uncertainty among businesses because of this "flurry" of regulatory and legislative activity.

While the extraordinary and controversial health-care regulation has been passed, it's still unclear what it will really mean until its provisions--and likely its unintended consequences--begin to be felt by businesses within the next year as specific provisions begin to trickle out.

In such an uncertain environment, it's no wonder businesses are perplexed about which way to go and what to project for their futures. Can we hire new employees? Invest in new equipment? Acquire another specialty? Should we invest in or acquire a company? What's it going to cost? Businesses need some degree of certainty in order to act and make intelligent decisions for both the short and long term.

Indeed, this sense of uncertainty and unease makes predictions about where businesses will be next year--or even in three...