September 26, 2012
The website http://www.remappingdebate.org/map-data-tool/brother-can-you-spare-829-billion">Remapping Debate has posted a story titled "Brother, Can you Spare $829 Billion?" On it, your can see just how much the top public corporations are hoarding ... er, holding.
So how much pump-priming could America’s largest corporations achieve if they were to dig into their cash and cash equivalents as well as their short-term investments? Remapping Debate examined the relevant quarterly Securities and Exchange Commission filings of the 100 largest corporations by revenue as ranked by the Fortune 500 in 2012 (looking only at publicly-held corporations, and excluding those in the financial sector). We looked at filing data for the period closest to June 30th in 2012, 2006, and 2000.
...each of three numbers calculated as a percentage of total assets for each of the three years: cash and cash equivalents (CCE) separately, short-term investments separately, and CCE and short-term investments combined (for 10 companies in 2000, comparable data were not available).
It turns out that more than 70 percent of the corporations listed in both 2012 and 2000 showed an increase over time in CCE and short-term investments combined as a percentage of total assets, including 15 corporations where the percentage point increase was 10 points or more.
Kind of makes me wonder how much faster the economy could recover if some of those companies would put some of their resources into hiring -- and creating additional consumers for their goods. Hmmm... What do you think?
Comments
Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.
Sign in to comment
Or login with:
OpenID