At the recent FPA Annual Meeting, Marci Rossell, Ph.D., Former Chief Economist of CNBC and a Leading Financial Expert, addressed FPA members and provided her perspective on a roadmap for businesses for 2017 and beyond.

In uncertain political and economic times, Rossell said, it is a good practice to look at the financial markets to help look towards the future. Since the presidential election, the market has rallied significantly. Some of the factors contributing to this rally include the potential significant individual and corporate tax cuts, deregulation, infrastructure investment, and defense spending. But, there are two potential “clouds” that may impact the economy. Firstly, the pending Border Adjustment Tax, which would have significant ramifications for the global economy, and secondly, the deportation of over 11 million undocumented immigrants.

Global economic growth has stagnated due to the slowdown of the Chinese economy. For the last 15 years, most of the economic growth has come from China, but now there’s a shift from a focus on China, to a focus on India.

The U.S. dollar is strong, contributing to the emergence of the “Super Dollar,” and that trend will continue. This is due to several factors, but namely a tightening of the U.S. monetary policy, uncertainty of the Euro, and the possibility of the Border Adjustment Tax, that alone may result in an additional appreciation of 25%.

The rise of the millennials will be a significant factor for the economy, both in the U.S. and globally. In 2016, millennials were a bigger percentage of the population than baby boomers. In the next 5-10 years, millennials will be pushing the growth for both business and the economy because they will be “experiencing their greatest personal productivity increase of their lives,” according to Rossell.

For More Information

FPA members can view the video of Rossell’s presentation at www.flexpack.org by clicking on “Download Presentations from the FPA 2017 Annual Meeting” in the Spotlight section on the homepage.