This is a battle cry rumbling up through the more Progressive folks – that “Big Corporations” are “hoarding cash”, rather than hiring employees and expanding their business – as if it is up to the government to tell a business what it can do and when and how high to jump (a guy named Mussolini tried this in Italy)
The idea that it is government’s role to prevent people or companies from “hoarding” their own private property has a very distinguished history. It is what FDR blamed the crash of 1929 on. It was why FDR “needed” to outlaw private ownership of gold in 1933. It was why the government needed a rationing system of almost all commodities during WW II. FDR’s move to “stop the hoarding” of corporate profits is what extended the Big Depression in the United States after it was largely over in the rest of the world.
It’s probably worth pointing out that if the government “seized” every penny sitting in the treasuries of U.S. corporations, that would just barely cover the Federal Government’s budget deficit for 2011. That’s how big our problem is. [GE is “hoarding” $122 billion in cash and marketable securities]
How about that abortion ban thing? Now there is the change we all voted for!
