"Housing prices, which are the primary place where people have net worth, are still down. On a percentage basis, people are more levered, not less. I'm very worried about what happens to consumer spending in 2011. It is hard to get excited or optimistic about consumer spending, and most of the people here have consumer-facing businesses."
David Zalubowski / AP Photo
"Personally, I would hope that we bridge a path toward bringing business leaders who represent a very large piece of the economy in our country back to government."
Elaine Thompson / AP Photo
"I'm optimistic that we won't go into a double dip. It'll be a slower recovery than we were thinking about maybe six, seven months ago, but we are on the path to a full recovery. It might be two years away still, and we'll have some fallbacks every now and then."
Mike Coppola / Getty Images
"I do think the administration will blame business for things too quickly. I don't think they are anti-business, it's more nuanced than that, but they appear that way because they jump too quickly on the bandwagon."
Nati Harnik / AP Photo
"In all fairness, President Obama inherited a mess with no precedent. The real test will be when we start getting out of the mess we are in, then we will be able to tell how pro-business they are. Right now we are managing a crisis. It is unfair and inaccurate to pass judgment right now. Once we are out of the crisis, then we will be able to see."
Elaine Thompson / AP Photo
"Right now there's growth in the U.S., not contraction, but it isn't strong growth. We will have a stretching out in time of the current situation. That doesn't mean a dip, but it also doesn't mean all of a sudden a recovery. We will continue to bump along with high deficits without having the dollar go down because there's a point of safety to the dollar for that."
Mark Lennihan / AP Photo
"Whether President Obama gets re-elected or not depends a lot on what happens to the economy in the next two years. But he could flop and maybe still get re-elected because the Republicans seem to be digging themselves into this extremist, polarizing position."
AP Photo
"Europe has the same structural issues as the U.S., except they also have governance issues, which are worse because no one is in charge. Both the U.S. and Europe are in for long recovery with ups and downs."
Bloomberg / Getty Images
"The administration clearly feels that business profits as a percentage of GDP are at or close to an all-time high and, secondly, the business isn't paying enough taxes. The issue for President Obama is whether people think he is an idealist or a pragmatist, and I think most people tend to think he's an idealist, that he is less flexible and less open to change."
AP Photo
