Quote from: JimB on June 14, 2012, 03:42:12 AM
Quote from: penang on June 14, 2012, 01:01:36 AMQuote from: matrix2003 on June 12, 2012, 07:17:02 AM"Big business sitting on vast cash reserves, refusing to hire. GOP stalling economy."
"Companies Sitting On Record Surpluses of Cash"
" Mar 19, 2012 – Apple is sitting on nearly $98 billion dollars in cash and securities. ..."
"March 1, 2012 - Hundreds of Billions Sitting on Tech Companies' Balance Sheets"
I do not know whether to laugh, or to cry
What does billions or trillions sitting in corporate's vault has to do with anything ?
Or you mean that those corporations must emptied their vaults and distribute all their money to the lazy bums who are disgusted at any notion of "work" ?
I think you miss Matrix's point, and lazy bums has nothing to do with it, nor is anyone asking for corporations to empty their bank accounts. A capitalist economy requires capital to circulate for it to remain prosperous and healthy. When an ever increasing share of the means of trade is locked away to gather dust in bank vaults, a capitalist economy stagnates (look around). If those accruing more and more of the capital refuse to circulate the money, and the vast majority have effectively seen their wages drop worldwide (and unable to reinstate their wage levels due to increased curbs on their ability to organise their labour to pressure corporations to release more money to them), something must happen to stimulate the economy, right?
Reading what you've written, I admit that you do have a point
However, you may have mis-read the economic theory
You see, for the things to go true, according to what you say, the world's economy must be limited to only a certain amount of dollar bills
Or put it another way, what you say will be true if this world only works in a "Zero-Sum game"
In the zero-sum-game scenario, a dollar locked inside a vault will be a dollar lost in circulation, and the multiplier effect of the loss of that one dollar may even resulted in a "bufferly flap its wing that determines formation of a hurricane"
Unfortunately, the world we live does not obey the rules of Zero-Sum game
Heard of "Value-Add" ?
A piece of rock that may worth only 10 cents, may be turned into a piece of metal that worth $1, and in turn, may worth $100, or $1,000 if the metal is turned into an art piece, or part of a high-tech gadget
Viewing from this angle, that dollar locked inside the vault of a corporation, while may not generate any beneficial effect for the market of a whole, does not play such a significant role on the overall health of the economy
For the economy has its own way to generate even more dollars than that one dollar that is locked inside that vault
And one other thing - apology for my digress --- the BILLIONS that stays in the bank accounts of the corporations are not static.
The banks, which the billion-dollar corporate accounts reside, do "re-circulate" those money, using them as basis for loan that they give out to other customers, and so on