What do the world's CFOs think of the economy?

You can't open a newspaper or turn on the TV these days without reading what some reporter, pundit or politician thinks about the health of the economy. Are we going into a deep recession? Is the consumer going to hibernate and sink the economy? Will more bank failures cause the collapse of the entire banking system?

So it was interesting to read what nearly 600 CFOs across the globe told Duke University about their top economic concerns. In a survey sponsored and reported by CFO Magazine (http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/3734859) the top concerns of CFOs outside the US were the cost of labor and the shortage of skilled labor, not issues typically associated with a recession. In the US, while consumer demand topped the list the cost of skilled labor came in a close second. Hey, I can remember when recessions were about having too much labor around and having to lay off unneeded workers.

We have clients today looking for skilled accounting personnel and finding it can take months to find one that actually has the skills that appear on their resume. And by the way, while one or two of these businesses are retrenching a bit, most of them are building infrastructure for growth and none of them is worrying about their survival as a going concern. Y'know, you just don't get recessions like the good old days. Unless you're in the mortgage business.

We welcome your thoughts...