For all the progress the U.S. economy is making toward healing the damage done by the last recession, there’s something missing: Businesses just aren’t investing the way they used to. In some crucial ways, businesses aren’t acting like they have a lot of confidence in the future. Consider the pace at which they are expanding their capital base — investment in the buildings, equipment and know-how needed to support growth, minus depreciation. It turned negative for the first time on record during the recession, and has yet to recover to the rate of previous expansions.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-10-31/two-charts-show-what-s-missing-from-the-economy
