Why do you think they are sitting on these piles of money rather than investing it? It's because of the incessant sabre-rattling from the left over the past six years about raising taxes and ramping up even more regulation. It has a chilling effect.
oh Please. What a silly excuse. How about they've cut back on investing because they've been bitten twice in the span of one decade by two bubbles (one in housing, one in tech) & they figured out it's better to be more discriminating about capital allocation. simply stated when given a choice between wealth destruction & capital preservation, the latter is more desirable. Has it occurred to you that maybe, just maybe there aren't enough good enterprises to invest into. You're APPLE sitting on 125 Billion $ in cash, would buy Autonomy ?
That kind.
Just to be clear, I'm mostly talking about companies drastically scaling back their plans for growth in recent years, which obviously impacts private investors in the equity markets as well. Countless CEOs have gone on the record saying they've postponed hiring and capital investments because of the current tax and regulatory environment, in addition to the general dysfunction of Washington.
As you point out, Apple is sitting on over 100 billion, and countless other companies are sitting on amounts of capital that were previously unheard of. You can't honestly argue that it's a coincidence that all of these companies are simultaneously gun-shy to invest in growth.
It's funny how quickly people forget. There is one inevitable end result of such severe disproportionate concentrations of wealth. I'm sure we're nowhere near that point yet, but those who argue against redistribution are guaranteeing we will get there at some point.
I take you to mean that people forget that this is the inevitable outcome, but is there proof of that? China and ancient egypt for extremely stable examples of societies with hugely disproproriate distribution of wealth. Is it possible that revolutionary France and Russia are the outliers of history?
Look, before PG rightfully jumps in here like the SkiFree Yeti and tells us both to knock it off, let's see if we can squash this:
http://xkcd.com/667/
I'll concede that my last comment was inappropriate (it's super-basic Python, not a proof).
Can you at least concede that loose talk of beheading capitalists is, at the very least, counter-productive to what we should all want, which is a robust recovery?
Are you really advocating that people like PG and Elon Musk should be murdered without due process for being successful?
If not, why say so? Even solely as a rhetorical device, it's extremely distasteful, polarizing, and makes a rational person discount anything else you might have to say on the matter.
Or maybe you and people like you have no intention of really following through with these threats - they're just attempts to bully political opponents into adopting your tax policies. So, we're just talking soft-extortion here, not outright plans of murder and violence.
How about "evil" financiers like Warren Buffett (or is he "one of the good ones"?), or the other bankers and financiers - many of whom heavily donated to Obama, some of whom even served in his administration. Should the chopping block be reserved just for them? Do they get a pass if they donated to the right political parties and organizations?
This extreme demonization of capitalism is really troubling to me, and I think it helps explain the sluggishness of the economic recovery. The holders of capital are a bit spooked, and rightfully so.
Uh huh. The name of your method was "proof". I've been on HN for four years and you think I don't know how to read and write python? I'm a lisp hacker who came to this place back when it was about lisp hacking for hackers. Now, right wing business douches like you come along spouting talking points straight out of the corporate PR department.
First of all, I did not threaten anyone with the guillotine. The simple fact of the matter is that if the wealthy keep spouting bullshit designed to fuck the poor (which is all that your kind of speech is) then they are going to get guillotined. Don't think the reincarnation of Robespierre is not chomping at the bit to chop your neck.
Naturally, I have no interest in killing pg or myself or any other rich people. However, I have an interest in the survival and success of the human species.
These CEOs that you cite should be afraid. Their poor hearts are chilled at the possibility of a tax raise on their 14% tax burdens. Boo hoo! I am making the point that a tax raise on a billionaire is warm and balmy next to the ice cold steel that you get on the chopping block.
If these CEOs, the richest in all of history, keep acting like idiots they are going to get us all killed. And we'll deserve it. Fuck us if we are so myopic and pathetic that we can't create a rational vision of a human future to build and instead surrender all our autonomy to some metaphysical libertarian nonsense that is widely ridiculed by Nobel Prize winning economists.
In conclusion, welcome to HN. There are a lot more people here than just corporate blowhards and their nerd-slaves. Hacker culture still has some blood in its veins.
This post written in Vim on Ubuntu (not that I'm a fan of Ubuntu or anything. But apt sure is nice!).
Okay, thank you for confirming that there is no reasoning with you forensic. I'll save PG the trouble of yelling at us and end my part in this here.
Also, just to clarify, I've been an independent freelance programmer/serial entrepreneur for over 10 years - I've never worked for or held an interest in a big corporation, and my bank account balance looks a lot more like an OWS member than a VC. I'm just not gullible enough to fall for this class warfare nonsense, or blame others for my success or lack thereof.
Tell you what: when OWS rounds you up, I'll have a talk with my fellow plebs and see if I can get you a pass.
If you don't recognize the high privilege of working as an entrepreneur in the first world for 10 years, you are just clueless. There are people starving to death because of the first world economic policy that you advocate, or at least that you perpetuate.
I'm not an Occupier. I advocate meritocracy. And meritocracy doesn't happen when you deny opportunity to the majority through economic policy that keeps the plutocracy entrenched.
Occupy is a great example of how sad the underclass is. Look at how pathetic they are. They are completely irrational and lost and have no idea what to even do. Of course, they're just sheep. But if the Goldman Sachs of the world keep growing the numbers of that herd (and all signs point to yes) then eventually there will be enough sheep for a Fuhrer to come along and point them at the enemy.
