Posted on 08/07/2011 10:26:45 AM PDT by lowbridge
Either way, with unemployment at 9.1 percent, the top corporations are not using it to hire workers or expand benefits.
American corporations are in a sweet spot, according to some. They have a motivated work force , and with muted demand, no need to expand and hire more workers.
The sums at stake have triggered alarms.
"Companies should be using the cash to either invest in new products to allow them to grow, or to make acquisitions if they are not good at research and development," said Peter Cohan, a management consultant and venture capitalist. "Alternatively, they should use the cash to pay back shareholders in dividends."
That big, liquid pile is accumulating at a record pace: ten consecutive quarters of growing cash on the corporate sidelines, according to Standard & Poor's. That's despite America's jobs crisis and a faltering economy.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
GE the Company that Obama’s Jobs Czar works for isn’t sitting on their money, they are sending it to China in the form of jobs.
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I imagine the same thing is true for Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and the other “too big to fail companies”.
Is’nt it interesting that the companies that are assured of government bail-outs are making record profits? They can make the money just like Freddie/Fannie taking all the profits and putting the losses on the taxpayers. It must be very liberating! /s
High crimes, corruption, and corporatism is here. The rest of these companies have to maintain their own bail-out funds since they are not embedded in the current government. No offense to Issa, but where are the investigations of what happened with TARP and QE’s? How about investigating the book cooking at Freddie/Fannie before the statute of limitations is up? It is almost too late. Why did Franklin Raines and Gorelick make such huge bonuses months before the truth came out and the mortgage markets crashed? Enquiring minds would love to know.
On the other hand, Congress blew through the entire cash holdings of business with no results.
Now the remaining cash, anywhere to be found, is called hording. Sounds like a serious addiction spending Other Peoples Money... (OPM)
As long as they are making money and meeting demand, they are doing what the market intends.
There are billions waiting to be invested as soon as their permits are approved. There are oil companies waiting to drill in the gulf. There are gas companies waiting to drill in New York. There are pipeline companies ready to extend pipelines. But all of these need permits, and the permits are hung up by the EPA or the State Department, or some other bureaucracy.
If the US government can’t get the permits issued, these companies are ready to go to Poland or Brazil where the bureaucracy is much more accommodating.
As long as they are making money and meeting demand, they are doing what the market intends.
The article is off base in one big way.One Trillion of this cash is held by 3 banks.Banks don’t make a product. Their profit comes from loaning money at interest. With the Fed keeping interest rates at record lows there is no reason to invest capital long term in mortgage or business loans.Until the interest rate goes up there is every reason to sit on the cash.
And prior to that, the assets will be spend outside of the US. And the usual crowd will whine about how those evil businesses are exploiting cheap labor or some such nonsense when, in fact, they are merely seeking friendlier nations in which to invest.
The left does everything in its power to run business away - then whines when business does run away.
Shhhh! Not too loud. The Libs will just seethe and gnash their teeth over this. The Libs would like nothing better then to lay their filthy hands on that money.
If the Idiot in Chief (IiC)would simply ask these business leaders what it would take for them to pour these piles of cash into their OWN businesses, then the IiC he might learn a valuable economic lesson. If he would simply follow through on their suggestions, he just might get re-elected. Shhhhh!
But wait, it is impossible for the IiC to create a non-hostile envirnment for businesses. The IiC would violate his own core beliefs if he did so.
If consumers and businesses pay down their debts, economy will boom again. Problem is banks have huge liabilities and the fed gov assumed all the bad assets under TARP. They are trying to find ways politically to tap private business and personal piles of cash to payoff the losses and not assume the losses. If gov will cater to your needs, why not??!! All of us need to remember, when an individual or organization gain so much power (ala wealth) they are capable of being abusive just like gov. Much of their abusive usage of power is done behind the scenes. Atleast Soros is very visible, but there are many like Soros who are hidden. Big gov is not the only enemy to freedom, super rich people and business are also capable of being enemy to freedom and liberty. Conservatives should not let their blind faith in free markets blind them of this abusive power by very people and private institutions we admire. In my advanced years I never could fathom how some people and organizations make more money then they could ever spend in hundreds of lifetimes, still succumb to greed and jeopardize themselves thru illegal or unethical actions.
The grab could be accompanied by some form of a punitive transfer or severance tax that would make it prohibitive to transfer funds out of the country. Companies would be wise to be moving balances now to get them out of Obama's reach.
That would be an Act of War. There are literally trillions of dollars tied up in Sovereign Wealth funds. What action you just described would be akin to the US unilaterally locking up the investment capital of every nation with connection to the US or US headquartered businesses.
Without a doubt, that would be a financial Armageddon - and that is understating it. Within minutes of trying to enforce it, DC and NY would be smoldering ruins, and China would have launched its feared cyber attacks. We are talking near Wrath of God levels of trouble here.
What little I have, I’m ‘hording’ too.
What the libtards don’t understand.
we can TAKE the 2T in cash from ALL the companies operating in the US.
we can TAKE the 800B from EVERY Millionaire in the US (that’s their entire networth)
What will happen? Business will collapse. Immediately. And we (the US would still be 12-13 TRILLION in debt).
Kinda illustrates why this is a Spending problem, not a revenue problem, no?
But keep in mind, the true goal (of the libtards) is to get rid of personal property, anyway.
The biggest problem is that this cash would only feed the government beast for around six months.
We just gave Obama $2.4 trillion in fake money just last week. That will pay for the deficit until a little past November of next year.
The reports all claim this is sooo much money, but the government pisses away a trillion dollars a quarter with no benefit to society to show for it.
Plain and simple the nasty ol’ corporations, businesses of America, and really not only America are rightfully guarding their treasure as the government under the Socialist Obama, his Czars, their radical sycophants, and the other idiots that play their Leftist games will steal every penny should those business entities attempt to expand as those of the Left encourage them to do.
The Left is salivating to get their hands on that alleged $2T. They are trying to sucker those corporations into dropping their guard, and putting their money into circulation where it’s fair game.
Here is an excerpt from an old thread about a booklet from 1939 about FDR and the New Deal. The same tactics are being used today.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2185147/posts
In his first inaugural address, March 4, 1933, the President said: “Values have shrunk to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay. has fallen;... the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side....... Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance....Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed,... Practices of the unscrupulous money-changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.... They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers.... Yes, the money-changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of that restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.”
....It is not unnatural for people to think envious thoughts about large profits, and envious thoughts are very easy to exploit, as every demagogue knows. But no government before the New Deal had ever deliberately done it....Large profit as such becomes therefore a symbol of social injury, merely because it is large; moreover, it is asserted that large profit had long been so regarded by the government and penalized for that reason.
Of all the counter symbols this was the one most damaging to the capitalistic system. Indeed, if it were accepted, it would be fatal, because capitalism is a profit and loss system and if profits, even very large profits, are socially wrong, there is nothing more to be said for it.
———They have a motivated work force , and with muted demand, no need to expand -——
And the lefties are alarmed.
The corporations are not following the rules. They are no longer concerned with unbridled growth. They are making money and making new rules.
The new game is Tegwar the exciting game without any rules
Businesses sitting on cash have an emergency fund to remain operational if sales drop even further. This is to ensure long term survival if things get worse. They can also use the cash to buy floundering competitors at rock bottom prices.
It is smarter to have the cash and not need it than need it and not have it.
His hero, FDR, faced the same situation and tried very hard for a corporate retained earnings tax. It was one of the few times that he failed.
You know the 401(k)'s and IRA's are already in play, don't you? His pseudopodia are already feeling and oozing their way toward them.
I'm morally sure FDR's conscription of gold -- that's what it really was -- in 1933 had something to do with people's unwillingness to invest: they knew that someone hostile to their property was sitting in the White House.
The Confederates began conscribing gold only in 1865, as a measure of terminal desperation (thus Gen. Longstreet in his memoirs), which gives you an idea of the gratuitousness of FDR's gold grab.
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