In this Washington Post article, the nation's biggest corporations explain why they're sitting on top of billions of dollars in cash without expanding hiring or making investments. You see, it's apparently our fault as the consumers for saving more money and making sure we live within our means these days in the recession.
They blame their profound caution on their view that U.S. consumers are destined to disappoint for many years. As a result, they say, the economy is unlikely to see the kind of almost unbroken prosperity of the quarter-century that preceded the financial crisis.
Across the industrial parks and office towers of the Chicago region, in more than a dozen interviews, senior executives said they see Americans for years ahead paying down debts incurred during the now-ended credit boom and adjusting spending to match their often-reduced incomes.
This seems to be the kind of topsy-turvsy thinking that led to the recession--the belief that the housing bubble would be sustained by those under high debt loads--and it's that kind of thinking that leads us in an never-ending spiral down to the bottom of the pit.
The so-called prosperity we had was nothing more than an illusion constructed as a giant Ponzi scheme designed to benefit Wall Street and their shareholders. There was nothing real or concrete about it since Americans were overloading themselves with debt, unrealistic mortgages, sharp rises in gas, utilities, and food, all to feed the illusion of prosperity.
So when I hear about corporations like these with dumb executives sitting on billions of dollars that could reinvigorate the economy and boost people's incomes, thus increasing the number of purchases in this economy, it makes me furious because they're intentionally depriving us of strengthening the middle class. They think that they deserve to profit even more by continuing the business of the race to the bottom.
What happens to their products when we no longer have the money to buy because our companies followed suit among them by cutting our wages and laying more workers off? Their products sit on the shelf, don't get sold, and they lose out on profits. The more they squeeze the middle class, the less juice comes out of it, and in the end, we're just an used towel to them. And they'll look for the next country where they can continue their same business practices there.
As a result, our wages will continue to be stagnant, and the unemployment rate will become the new normal. It's normal to be overeducated, to be so deeply in student loan debt, and working for much less these days. Many in my generation have moved back home to be with their parents since they can't afford the rent, their debt, and utilities on a small salary. Also, many couples my age I know are holding off on children and marriage until their late twenties and early thirties. They just can't afford to continue the same traditional path to adulthood that our baby boomer parents took.
We need more than this. We need direct job creation. Small-scale stuff like small business loans, and tax incentives will not go a long way in boosting the morale of voters for November. What they need is direct, visible action that is translated into their lives. So far, they don't feel that from financial regulation and health care reform.
It's time for the Democratic Party to go big and bold---or else they'll lose seats in Congress. It's as simple as that--produce tangible results, and you'll get the voters.
If you don't, you're going home.