Recovery? Why Our CEOs Don’t Give a Hoot

[marmar]

from Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality:



Recovery? Why Our CEOs Don’t Give a Hoot
October 9, 2010 ⋅

Over recent decades, recoveries from U.S. recessions have become steadily weaker and weaker. Over these same decades, executive pay has been steadily soaring. Could these two trends be somehow related?

By Sam Pizzigati


Shocking new economic realities don’t suddenly jump up onto our nation’s front pages. They creep up, over time. One shocking new reality has now begun that creeping. America’s newspapers have begun reporting that our nation’s largest corporations — at a time of continuing Great Recession for average American families — are sitting on colossal stashes of cash.

That cash —$1.8 trillion in all, says the Federal Reserve, if you throw in cash-equivalent assets — could be going into investments, notes a New York Times analysis, that create jobs or help companies develop better products and services. But our cash-rich corporations have shown virtually zilch interest in making these sorts of economically productive investments.

In fact, only 0.7 percent of the nearly 1,000 chief financial officers CFO Magazine surveyed last month say they expect to hire more full-time workers any time soon. Outside of “necessary maintenance,” one top Standard and Poor’s analyst told the Wall Street Journal earlier this month, companies “aren’t spending much on anything” internal.

So what are corporations doing with their towering mountains of cash? They’re using those dollars, says the Washington Post, “not to hire workers or build factories, but to prop up their share prices.”

The propping details vary by corporation. Some companies like Hewlett-Packard and Pepsico are pumping cash into buyouts of other companies. Others like Microsoft and McDonald’s are funneling cash to shareholders, via higher dividends. And still others are “buying back” shares of their own stock. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://toomuchonline.org/why-ceos-dont-particularly-give-a-damn-about-recovery/

[Deep13]

1. Easy: they're rich. nt

[DCKit]

2. "“not to hire workers or build factories, but to prop up their share prices.”"

Those record bonuses have to come from somewhere.

[earth mom]

3. Why should they do anything? They got theirs.

:grr: