An address to Italian executives on a summer night in Rome last week yielded some exceptional candor from former Milwaukeean Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric Co.

The resulting headlines centered on his new-found frustration with Chinese industrial policy (he used to be a fan of the Chinese business agenda), but he also had some salty words for President Barack Obama and his U.S. economic policy.

Immelt's PR department later said his words were taken out of context. That damage-control effort aside, The Financial Times of London reported that he said business did not like the president, and the president didn't like business.

Most Wisconsin business people would say pretty much the same thing, and they would say pretty much the same thing about the Doyle administration in Madison.

Immelt lamented that the U.S. is in a terrible national mood, caused in part by overregulation in response to the financial crisis and the disconnect between the corporate world and the Obama team on trade policy.

GE has its own problems in getting back into a growth mode, and surely that fueled some of his frustrations. Nonetheless, he spoke from the perspective of many CEOs. The national business mood is decidedly downbeat.

It might be even worse in Wisconsin, because of the perception that business is getting it from both barrels - federal and state.

Most CEOs are reluctant to speak out about their disgust with government policy, but several have let it be known in business circles that they have no intention of expanding their operations in this state.

One CEO made his thoughts public on Wisconsin Eye, a multimedia public affairs network:

"If the business climate does not improve, I will not expand this facility," said Jerry Ryder, president of InSinkErator and a 30-year veteran of its parent, Emerson Electric Co.

His comment is pertinent, because his management team has just finished a five-year capacity plan, and his Racine plant, the largest manufacturer of disposal units in the world, is nearing full capacity. There will be an expansion somewhere to serve the North American market.

Ryder said his disposal units face a 20% tariff going into China, while competing Chinese products face no tariff entering the U.S. Hence, it is likely InSinkErator will have to build a plant in China to keep its share of the market there. The absence of a level playing field spells an end for exports to China from Racine.

Several CEOs are downright sulfurous in their private assessments about doing business in Wisconsin. Their objections include personal and corporate tax increases, recent court rulings and legislative proposals to raise liabilities for corporations. The list also includes proposed expansions of regulation through bills like the one on climate change, new pro-union laws, the fiscal disarray in Madison and the proclivity of the state to be an outlier when it comes to conformity with federal taxes and regulations.

Call them crybabies if you like. But these are the guys making the decisions about where jobs are retained, reduced or added.

And, not so incidentally, they are human beings. They want to be liked and appreciated. They look for signals, and if they don't like what they see and hear, they go elsewhere.

Some would say the state remains a good place to do business, and there certainly are many positives, like the competitive business tax rates, the pool of skilled labor and investments in education at all levels.

But CEOs are paid to look ahead, to try to figure out where things are going. The changes in the business climate, positive or negative, have a disproportionate effect on their thinking.

As of late, many don't like the signals coming out of China, Washington, D.C., or Madison. They will assess the totality of those signals, and they will act on that assessment as they shape their strategies. Political leaders who don't understand or don't care about the signals they are sending can't pretend to be serious about job retention or creation.

Tommy Thompson was a governor in the 1990s who understood pro-business policies, but also the value of positive signals and strokes.

It looks like he's not running for office again. But he could add a lot of value to the job creation efforts by setting up a cheerleading school for presidents and governors.

John Torinus is chairman of Serigraph Inc. of West Bend and a founder of BizStarts Milwaukee, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship in southeastern Wisconsin. Contact him at torcolumn@serigraph.com.