…cash is on the books of the Fortune 500? The S&P 500? Any 500 of them you might care to name?
Is it anywhere near the $800 billion the American people spent trying to revive the economy? Half that much? Two-thirds? I bet you could find a bunch without hardly trying.
That money was supposed to be spent, respent, and spent again. It was supposed to circulate, creating what is called the multiplier effect – creating economic demand and therefore jobs.
But if it’s accumulating on the corporate books, it’s not doing any of those things.
Whose decision was that? The question answers itself. Those people are supposed to be “Job Creators.”
To be sure, it wasn’t the President’s decision. And so he can’t be blamed for much of anything, it seems to me, except expecting the economy to work the way it is supposed to work.
Lots of people say the stimulus didn’t work. Never mind that the recession could have been, and probably would have been, a lot worse without it. The President has a measure of control over the spending of the United States government, but little or none over the decisions of the CEOs and boards of the companies I am talking about. If what I suspect is in fact the case, it is because those people preferred to perform their duties to their shareholders, and not their patriotic and social duties.
Surely the President can’t be blamed for that.
No comments:
Post a Comment