Posted by Leonard Steinberg on July 16th, 2012

It is fact now that US corporations are sitting on almost $ 5 TRILLION in cash, both domestically and internationally. This cash sits idle as corporations’ frustration grows because consumer demand is not strong enough to justify solid, meaningful business investment.

This is my argument:  Consumer demand is weak because unemployment is high and consumers are nervous. If that is the case, creating working, SPENDING, functioning consumers should not just be the priority of politicians and government (something most business leaders say is not the responsibility of government!) but should be the NUMBER ONE priority of corporations too. I have much greater faith in corporations ability to do this.

So this is what I am proposing…… $ 5 trillion is enough to pre-pay for 100 million $ 50,000.00 per year jobs for one year. To be more conservative and prudent, just take one third of that amount ($ 1,66trillion) and create 16,5 million $ 50,000.00 per year jobs for 2 years. Can anyone honestly tell me that this investment would not pay off? I don’t believe it would help, I believe it would make our economy SOAR. Just imagine all those people with their $ 50k salaries buying I-pads, stoves, cars, clothing, furniture, homes, etc, etc. The money these people would re-distribute into the economy would fuel demand that would fuel more business investment. (And some of the taxes they would pay could help pay down the deficit.)

Corporations could argue that it is not their role to cure the unemployment problem in the USA….really? Are corporations too weak to invest in their future, even 12 -24 months from now? Yes, they would all take a big hit on their cash positions accounting-wise. But what if the IRS/government stepped in and said all those squirreled away trillions could remain tax exempt but only IF used to create jobs? And surely the increased consumption would re-fuel those cash coffers? Its time to re-evaluate the ridiculous short-sighted quarterly mentality of our economy anyway and this could fuel a change.

A combined effort between corporations and the government is the key to our economic woes in my very humble opinion.