Companies prepare for the worst:
Microsoft Plans for Worst as U.S. Companies Show No End to Fear

During the last week of May, treasurers representing America’s bluest chip companies gathered at the Park Hyatt hotel in Philadelphia for a conference dubbed “Survival Skills.”

Instead of discussing ways to take advantage of the drop in borrowing costs to expand their businesses after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates to near zero, representatives of New York-based Colgate-Palmolive Co., International Business Machines Corp. in Armonk, New York, and dozens of other companies had other plans.

After watching credit dry up almost overnight as the subprime mortgage contagion spread in 2007 and 2008 and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed in September, companies were more preoccupied with stockpiling cash and extending debt maturities by selling a record $301 billion of investment-grade bonds in the first half.

With all the change coming out of Washington, the environment is not exactly favorable to trying to grow your business.