The technology industry is being rattled by a quiet and sophisticated malicious software program that has infiltrated factory computers.
More important, he added, there is no assurance that businesses will again start spending heavily on capital equipment like new factories, computer systems and telecommunications equipment.
Because the package could include specific measures to encourage businesses to invest in new factories, computers and other equipment, some companies may now wait to make spending decisions to take advantage of the tax breaks.
The choices they make in that difficult and uncertain environment about fresh investments in factories, computers, telecommunications equipment and other capital goods will go a long way toward determining whether the United States continues limping along at a modest rate of growth or restores itself to robust economic health.
Out of exuberance and the promise -- or mirage -- of fat profits, business in the late 1990's poured huge sums into machinery, office buildings, factories, computers, software, new airliners, World Wide Web sites, trucks, cell phone networks and the many other tools that are used to produce and distribute the goods and services that people buy.
The most powerful brake on the economy right now is not the portion of the economy sensitive to lower interest rates -- industries like housing, and consumer spending generally -- but the steep decline in spending by businesses on new factories, computers, telecommunications equipment and other capital goods.
Their argument is that such a cut would make investment more attractive by increasing the rate of return, thereby putting upward pressure on stock prices and reversing a sharp drop off this year in investment by businesses in new factories, computers and other equipment.
After a follow-up consultation with Mr. Wagner — by phone, e-mail, Skype or in person — the design recipe goes to the factory, where computer numerical code machines mill the components of the skis, which are then assembled by hand.
