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U.S. companies hoard record amount of cash

It is not so much that labor costs must be cut, but that they may not rise so much as to give the competition an artificial advantage. If company A becomes too generous then they start losing customers to company B which can then offer similar goods/services at lower prices. Do you shop for a fence/deck based on what the install crew gets paid or based on what that fence/deck costs you to have it built?

On those details, I'm in over my head. I have not run a business in 30 years.

Maximizing the profit is good, but does it control one's sense of right and wrong? And I'm not blaming anybody for anything, just asking the rhetorical question.

In a moral society, would a sense of right and wrong prevail, or recede?
 
They are hoarding, imo, principally because normal macroeconomic fundamentals have been out the window ever since the Great Recession and the government/Fed went hyper aggressive at economic stimulation.

When something as powerful as the Fed - which can, in essence, 'print' a virtually infinite amount of money, any time it wants to - decides to go all in in trying to control, it throws everything out of whack. Because now the economy is almost completely up to the Fed. If the Fed wants to boost the economy (or at least, the equity markets), it just starts another QE (which, btw, is still going on to the tune of several hundred billion per year...they just don't call it QE any more as they do not use 'new' money to buy the bonds - they use the money from maturing short term bonds they bought to buy more bonds).
This is why everyone on Wall Street holds their breathe whenever the Fed meets or says anything as a group.
And since the Fed has given NO clear direction about the economy, few know what they will do next. For years the Fed said 6-6.5% U-3 was one of the targets. Well that has come and gone and now they do not even talk about the U-3 any more (probably because they are realizing what a relative joke it is as an accurate measurement of employment).
Before the Fed started butting in so strongly, corporations used their own people to decide which way the economy was going and thus decide when to spend and when to 'hoard'. Well, now it's up to the Fed and all the corporate CEO's can do is wait for the Fed to decide to finally say the economy is strong enough to raise rates or that the economy is in trouble and needs more help.

One thing is certain, if the economy was growing healthily, the Fed would have long removed their ZIRP (zero interest rate policy). Obviously, it is not, so they have not. And as long as that is the case, many corporations would be foolish to risk spending their reserves on expansion.

If any of you think the epicenter of the U.S. economy is Wall Street right now? Guess again. It is the Fed building in Washington. They are - for all intents and purposes - running the show.

And remember, the Fed is the same organization that in 2007 (as the minutes from those meetings show), had virtually no clue how bad the housing crash was...even though it had already begun and should have been obvious to them.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/abc16b8a-6193-11e2-9545-00144feab49a.html#axzz3V36Ljctp
 
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On those details, I'm in over my head. I have not run a business in 30 years.

Maximizing the profit is good, but does it control one's sense of right and wrong? And I'm not blaming anybody for anything, just asking the rhetorical question.

In a moral society, would a sense of right and wrong prevail, or recede?

When discussing wages one must first define what is a right or wrong wage. If two qualified candidates apply for a given position is it right or wrong to hire the one asking for a lower wage? Is it right or wrong to base wages on the number of dependents that a given worker has (the "living wage" concept)? Obviously some workers will do faster and/or higher quality work than others (in a given position) - is it right or wrong to pay those "higher performing" workers more even though they are supposed (alleged?) to be doing the same job?
 
Of course it is. Ensuring the liberty, tranquility defense and welfare of its citizens are the governments role and responsibility. And you are the threat and the danger.

LOL!!

And you see telling people what to do as the means to get those thing? You see removing freedoms as the preferred route to ensuring liberty?

What are you? A closet communist? Do you condone a dictatorship and spin it to be "for my own good"?

And you call ME a threat?

I've know lefties don't care about personal freedom, choice and responsibility, but you take the cake, dude.
 
Promoting the general welfare is about promoting the opportunity for all - not income redistribution to promote equality of outcome for some.

Yes...and the key word is "opportunity". There is no mention of "guarantee".
 
They are hoarding, imo, principally because normal macroeconomic fundamentals have been out the window ever since the Great Recession and the government/Fed went hyper aggressive at economic stimulation.

When something as powerful as the Fed - which can, in essence, 'print' a virtually infinite amount of money, any time it wants to - decides to go all in in trying to control, it throws everything out of whack. Because now the economy is almost completely up to the Fed. If the Fed wants to boost the economy (or at least, the equity markets), it just starts another QE (which, btw, is still going on to the tune of several hundred billion per year...they just don't call it QE any more as they do not use 'new' money to buy the bonds - they use the money from maturing short term bonds they bought to buy more bonds).
This is why everyone on Wall Street holds their breathe whenever the Fed meets or says anything as a group.
And since the Fed has given NO clear direction about the economy, few know what they will do next. For years the Fed said 6-6.5% U-3 was one of the targets. Well that has come and gone and now they do not even talk about the U-3 any more (probably because they are realizing what a relative joke it is as an accurate measurement of employment).
Before the Fed started butting in so strongly, corporations used their own people to decide which way the economy was going and thus decide when to spend and when to 'hoard'. Well, now it's up to the Fed and all the corporate CEO's can do is wait for the Fed to decide to finally say the economy is strong enough to raise rates or that the economy is in trouble and needs more help.

One thing is certain, if the economy was growing healthily, the Fed would have long removed their ZIRP (zero interest rate policy). Obviously, it is not, so they have not. And as long as that is the case, many corporations would be foolish to risk spending their reserves on expansion.

If any of you think the epicenter of the U.S. economy is Wall Street right now? Guess again. It is the Fed building in Washington. They are - for all intents and purposes - running the show.

And remember, the Fed is the same organization that in 2007 (as the minutes from those meetings show), had virtually no clue how bad the housing crash was...even though it had already begun and should have been obvious to them.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/abc16b8a-6193-11e2-9545-00144feab49a.html#axzz3V36Ljctp

Well said.

And the obvious solution would be for the Fed to keep its nose out...stop trying to "fix" things. The economy will fix itself, it'll do it quicker and the results will be more fair to all.
 
Until they see long term growth trends they will sit. They would be stupid not to. Their job is to make money, not squander it.

Quite true, I think.

But what does that have to do with what I said?
 
Their sense of conscience? A sense of what is right and what is wrong? Assuming that a compassionate conservative really does exist, and I happen to know a few do exist.

Or is it right that the 99:1 ratio exists as it does in this country today? I say no.
They already do that, it's called taxation. They do their part, moreso in fact. Same with the 1%. They already do more than me, and I do more than-93% of the workforce. I don't speak for sny corporation, but I know I'm done.
 
Yes...and the key word is "opportunity". There is no mention of "guarantee".

That may be technically so yet we have established a Federal Poverty Level (FPL) and many income redistribution programs (aka the "safety net") with the express aim of getting/keeping folks above the FPL. This has the (unintended?) consequence of making one's "fair" earnings become based on household size/household income rather than the market value of the work alone. That means that even though the MW may be legally paid to both a live at home teenager and to a head of household (working side by side at the same McJob) only one will be further subsidized by the taxpayers.
 
Their sense of conscience? A sense of what is right and what is wrong? Assuming that a compassionate conservative really does exist, and I happen to know a few do exist.

Or is it right that the 99:1 ratio exists as it does in this country today? I say no.

How, exactly, would you go about changing that ratio? My earnings (self employed handyman) are not affected by what a CEO makes, nor is what the CEO makes affected by my earnings. Do you propose that a national pay scale be established by the government - similar to what the GS pay schedule now does for federal workers?
 
On those details, I'm in over my head. I have not run a business in 30 years.

Maximizing the profit is good, but does it control one's sense of right and wrong? And I'm not blaming anybody for anything, just asking the rhetorical question.

In a moral society, would a sense of right and wrong prevail, or recede?

How many companies lost to hostile take overs of stock because they didn't have the liquid assets to protect their stocks? Just how stable is our current economy? Why is that Chesapeake no longer advertises itself as the largest independent producer of natural gas? (Hint, it's related to the first question).

When a company bases itself and it's profits on a certain market, they have to retain control to pursue their vision and goals. Stock piles of money (liquid assets) is one way to hedge against hostile take overs and other downturns, such as regulation.

Even the largest of companies need liquid assets to keep control of their companies. There are many other things that those liquid assets exist to protect a company from. Considering the actions of Obama and the DNC towards corporations, is it really that confusing on why they would stock pile money for the future?
 
Quite true, I think.

But what does that have to do with what I said?

It touches on your point of who has the "right". No one as it is a business and their role is to make money.
 
You're a Lib for a reason, so I wouldn't expect you to understand anything beyond empty talking points and bumper sticker slogans.

The DOWs #s are in no way connected to the economy.

Thanks to QE and ZIRP investors have been pushed out of fixed rate investments and into the equities markets.

If the economy was as good as you libs say it was Corporations wouldn't be hoarding their capital and the FED wouldn't be hoarding Trillions in excess reserves.

Well, you don't know what you're talking about. Very high DOW numbers are directly related to high volumes of capital circulating in the markets, both primary and secondary. QE is inserted due to weak markets and bad policies like we had up to the crash and its design is to increase asset value and keep inflation under control. Zero interest is a way of keeping many in the markets. Though it has little return it keeps the markets full of capital. As for corps, they could, but refuse to release some of their capital to stimulate job growth, but they have all their way these days, so why gamble?
 
Dont worry they will start letting it trickle. Just got to give it another 25+ years.
 
Well, you don't know what you're talking about. Very high DOW numbers are directly related to high volumes of capital circulating in the markets, both primary and secondary. QE is inserted due to weak markets and bad policies like we had up to the crash and its design is to increase asset value and keep inflation under control. Zero interest is a way of keeping many in the markets. Though it has little return it keeps the markets full of capital. As for corps, they could, but refuse to release some of their capital to stimulate job growth, but they have all their way these days, so why gamble?

What Capital has QE contributed to the markets ?

Over 80 percent of all that new liquidity that was produced by QE sits idle on the books of the FED marked as " excess reserves ".

So YOU have no idea what you're talking about.

QE was " inserted " for one reason. To make all of Obamas new debt CHEAP...for now.
 
It touches on your point of who has the "right". No one as it is a business and their role is to make money.

LOL!!

Okay...I get it...though the touch is quite ethereal.
 
How many companies lost to hostile take overs of stock because they didn't have the liquid assets to protect their stocks? Just how stable is our current economy? Why is that Chesapeake no longer advertises itself as the largest independent producer of natural gas? (Hint, it's related to the first question).

When a company bases itself and it's profits on a certain market, they have to retain control to pursue their vision and goals. Stock piles of money (liquid assets) is one way to hedge against hostile take overs and other downturns, such as regulation.

Even the largest of companies need liquid assets to keep control of their companies. There are many other things that those liquid assets exist to protect a company from. Considering the actions of Obama and the DNC towards corporations, is it really that confusing on why they would stock pile money for the future?

I know basically how taking over a company works. You buy enough stock in a company and you have the votes to eject someone out of the company...even the person that built the company from the ground up.

What I don't understand is why is such allowed? It would seem to me that allowing something like that to even be possible would be wrong. Isn't that a bit like stealing...legalized theft?
 
I know basically how taking over a company works. You buy enough stock in a company and you have the votes to eject someone out of the company...even the person that built the company from the ground up.

What I don't understand is why is such allowed? It would seem to me that allowing something like that to even be possible would be wrong. Isn't that a bit like stealing...legalized theft?

Not at all. The people who buy stock own a part of the corp. and they have a right to take part in making decisions, including the decision of who should run the corp.

"The person who built the company" will retain any stock they have held onto, but if they sold enough shares for someone to takeover the business, it's their own fault.
 
Companies are hoarding their cash because they don't see enough DEMAND to justify expanding their operations. They don't see the demand because the middle class wages have been stagnant for 15 years, while the cost of living goes up. Companies have handed workers a larger share of their health insurance expense because it has risen faster than general inflation for decades. Companies have stopped providing pensions, so the individual must save out of his pocket with a little help from their employer. Costs shifted to workers, but wages stagnant.

Then companies have been busy off shoring jobs, call centers to India, reading x-rays to India, manufacturing to China, programming to India, Russia, Ukraine, Mexico, Brazil, engineering to China. Our workers now have to compete globally with workers making a fraction of a US wage. That is why wages don't go up.

Now the US is bringing some manufacturing back to the US. Robots can do more jobs now because they have developed over the last 40 years, the price of robots has come down dramatically the last 20 years, and they can do the job even cheaper than the chinese can. So, there are a few high paying good jobs for robot programmers, but not many more for your average middle class worker.

Population grows. The types of jobs that used to employ many middle class workers don't grow, and those out there have to compete with cheaper foreign labor.

Discretionary income has disappeared for our middle class, that is why there is reduced demand. Factories are much more efficient than they used to be and labor content has been taken out of many product production processes, which means in many cases we can ramp up production without hiring many additional workers.

It is not the 1960's economy, it does not work the way it used to. Many old rules of how an economy work apply to the old world '60's economy, so when people try to apply those rules today, they don't understand why they don't work. One rule that still works is the rule on supply and demand. When the demand is high and the supply is low, prices rise. When demand is low and supply is high, prices fall. The worldwide supply of labor is high, and demand is falling for low skilled labor, so wages in that sector of the workforce have stagnated. Many workers lost their jobs to off-shore and they could not replace their former wage (see law of supply and demand). The small segment of the workforce with the high education in "demand skills" like engineering can still get raises by changing jobs if necessary.
 
What Capital has QE contributed to the markets ?

Over 80 percent of all that new liquidity that was produced by QE sits idle on the books of the FED marked as " excess reserves ".

So YOU have no idea what you're talking about.

QE was " inserted " for one reason. To make all of Obamas new debt CHEAP...for now.

Obama has spent less money than Bush OR Reagan. Who Is The Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower? Would You Believe It's Barack Obama? - Forbes
Like Carter and Vietnam, Obama got stuck with a helluva bill. His abilities to at the very least keep our heads above water and save US from complete collapse is what's making his presidency. For the record, Obama is no friend of mine, but I know very well what's been going on and his policies have at the very least stabilized the economy into the upswing that we have now. QE BTW has gotten the demand side spending which is what its designed to do.

Your hate for Obama is clouding your ability to read the signs.
 
Obama has spent less money than Bush OR Reagan. Who Is The Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower? Would You Believe It's Barack Obama? - Forbes
Like Carter and Vietnam, Obama got stuck with a helluva bill. His abilities to at the very least keep our heads above water and save US from complete collapse is what's making his presidency. For the record, Obama is no friend of mine, but I know very well what's been going on and his policies have at the very least stabilized the economy into the upswing that we have now. QE BTW has gotten the demand side spending which is what its designed to do.

Your hate for Obama is clouding your ability to read the signs.

Beautiful, and Forbes is the one to point it out, nice.
 
Obama has spent less money than Bush OR Reagan. Who Is The Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower? Would You Believe It's Barack Obama? - Forbes
Like Carter and Vietnam, Obama got stuck with a helluva bill. His abilities to at the very least keep our heads above water and save US from complete collapse is what's making his presidency. For the record, Obama is no friend of mine, but I know very well what's been going on and his policies have at the very least stabilized the economy into the upswing that we have now. QE BTW has gotten the demand side spending which is what its designed to do.

Your hate for Obama is clouding your ability to read the signs.

Yes...this is all well and good...from a liberal commentator with liberal spin applied.

But there's more to the story, as told by the American Enterprise Institute: Actually, the Obama spending binge really did happen - AEI | Economics Blog » AEIdeas


052312spending2.jpg
 
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The money will "trickle down" when the time is right.
 
When discussing wages one must first define what is a right or wrong wage. If two qualified candidates apply for a given position is it right or wrong to hire the one asking for a lower wage? Is it right or wrong to base wages on the number of dependents that a given worker has (the "living wage" concept)? Obviously some workers will do faster and/or higher quality work than others (in a given position) - is it right or wrong to pay those "higher performing" workers more even though they are supposed (alleged?) to be doing the same job?

I would say it would be right and good to incorporate into the pay structure a means to pay some sort of bonus to the worker who performs better than others. Whether by promotion or bonus, high performance should be rewarded somehow.
 
They already do that, it's called taxation. They do their part, moreso in fact. Same with the 1%. They already do more than me, and I do more than-93% of the workforce. I don't speak for sny corporation, but I know I'm done.

Are you saying that by way of taxation, compassionate conservatives demonstrate their sense of conscience? I don't see what you're saying. :confused:
 
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