Obama Challenges Big Business to Spend and Hire

[babylonsister]

Obama Challenges Big Business to Spend and Hire

Monday 07 February 2011

by: Steven Thomma and Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers | Report

Obama Challenges Big Business to Spend and Hire


President Barack Obama delivers remarks at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, on Feb. 7, 2011. Obama pledged to eliminate unneeded regulations and simplify the tax code, but said companies have responsibilities to help the economy recover. (Photo: Drew Angerer / The New York Times)


Washington - President Barack Obama challenged big business Monday to tap into its huge reserves of cash and start hiring.

"Now is the time to invest in America," Obama said during a peacemaking visit to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, across Lafayette Park from the White House.

"Today, American companies have nearly $2 trillion sitting on their balance sheets. I know that many of you have told me that you are waiting for demand to rise before you get off the sidelines and expand, and that with millions of Americans out of work, demand has risen more slowly than any of us would like.

"But many of your own economists and salespeople are now forecasting a healthy increase in demand. So I want to encourage you to get in the game."

more...

http://www.truth-out.org/obama-challenges-big-business-spend-and-hire67541

[DJ13]

1. So long as the SEC mandates corporations operate solely to benefit shareholders

Obama can beg and plead all he wants, the corporate execs can thumb their noses at him.

[RandomThoughts]

2. Funny use of 'game' label

[Billy Burnett]

3. Maybe they'll be a good halftime show in this one? n/t

[abelenkpe]

4. Ah, he's challenging them now?

After two years of asking nicely. I'm sure that will work.

Was hoping for FDR....appear to have gotten Hoover instead.

[JuniperLea]

5. Demand drives the job market...

No smart business person is going to hire more people until there is a demand for goods and services that drives the business beyond what they can provide. That's how business works. Forecasting a healthy increase in demand is a very good thing, don't get me wrong. But no one is going to hire more people until the current employees can no longer handle the workload.

[RC]

6. It's a chicken and egg thing.

One that can be fixed by bringing our living wage jobs back into this country.

Ask Henry Ford how that works.

A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.

It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.

There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.
Henry Ford

[JuniperLea]

9. The problem being...

Profit... it must remain constant! If a company's bottom line suffers, by GAWD you better fire some people and lower the overhead so profit can remain consistent! Fire some people is just the simplest means of exploitation and corporate book manipulation. Stock holders come first.

Seems to me that socialist countries such as Norway still have a fair share of wealthy industrialists, just not at the expense of the people.

[Cali_Democrat]

7. How exactly is he challenging them?

All he's doing is asking nicely and getting rejected. Then big business and the wealthy will ask for even more tax breaks and he will oblige.

They will continue to hoard cash and cry that taxes are too high. They will say that they need to keep even more of their cash than send it to the Federal Government in the form of taxes. :eyes:

And there's nothing anybody can do to stop them because they've bought the politicians in Washington. What a sad state of affairs we are in.

[inna]

8. +1. You're exactly right. nt

[ProSense]

10. "All he's doing is asking nicely and getting rejected. " The cynicism is thick, but

wrong. The SOTU already generated support.

Facebook, Intel, IBM Join White House in Startup Investment Campaign

[Cali_Democrat]

12. Meager support with only a handful of companies

And even those companies involved in the startup America partnership have NOT pledged to use a high percentage of their cash on hand.

It's chump change when it comes to the $2 trillion on the balance sheets of corporate America. Yet they want even more tax breaks, more cash in their coffers. They will never be satisfied.

[progressoid]

11. Yeah, c'mon businesses. Build some shit none of us can afford because all the wealth is

concentrated at the top. :eyes: