Sitting on $2 trillion in cash, our corporate chieftains appear to have decided that their inability to find suitable investments and create new jobs is not due to any lack of imagination on their part but solely to adverse policies of the Obama administration.
We're used to the incessant whining about the government from Tom Donohue, the stridently partisan head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Donohue makes his living by begging, and the more trouble he stirs up, the easier it is for him to gouge the money from member firms for his multimillion-dollar salary.
Sometimes he goes too far, even for our corporate CEOs, as last year when the Chamber denied the very existence of global warming, prompting Apple and several other companies to quit.
Sitting on two trillion dollar in cash, most big businesses can't think of anything better to do with their hoard than buy back their own stock.
This spokesman for big business, a profile in the current issue of Washington Monthly points out, has never actually worked in a corporation. Aside from a stint with the U.S. Postal Service, Donohue has worked exclusively in trade associations and lobbying groups, so his knowledge of the difficulties faced by corporations is hearsay at best.
That's why it's significant when a real corporate chief executive joins the whining chorus, as Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg did last month. He is currently chairman of the Business Roundtable, a grouping of some 140 top CEOs, and was speaking in that capacity in Washington when he criticized the Obama administration
Read more at
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/business-vs-obama-is-whining-a-good-strategy-2010-07-14-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This show these CEOs and titans of industry have no solution.
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