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kalikshama -> RE: President Obama says "The private sector is doing fine" (6/8/2012 7:28:48 PM)
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I assumed the President was referring to this:
American Businesses Sitting on Record Profits, Still Not Hiring
the private sector is sitting on a huge pile of cash, effectively "taking their ball and going home" in an effort to cause Obama to lose this election -regardless of whether such a tactic completely kills the middle class and our economy. IOW - the private sector is doing fine.
Companies Sit On Cash; Reluctant To Invest, Hire
Google's plans to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion might seem like a lot of money, but the Web giant can easily afford it. At the end of last year, Google was sitting on nearly $35 billion in cash.
And it's not alone. The U.S. economy may be slowing to a crawl, but a lot of individual companies are richer than ever. They're being cautious about how they spend their cash, though.
"Companies are generating and maintaining more cash than they have aggregate uses for," says Rick Lane, a senior vice president at Moody's.
In a recent report, Moody's said the 1,600-plus U.S.-based companies it rates had $1.2 trillion in cash at the end of 2010 — 11.2 percent more than they did a year earlier. Companies that have a lot of cash can use it to invest and hire. That's what Caterpillar is doing, says spokesman Jim Dugan.
"In 2011, our plan for [capital expenditures] is $3 billion, which would be an all-time record for us," he says. The heavy equipment manufacturer plans to spend about $1.5 billion in the United States, Dugan says, "and the focus of cash for Caterpillar is growth."
But a lot of other companies right now are sitting on their cash — using it sparingly, if at all.
Apple, Cisco and Microsoft had each amassed $40 billion or more in cash by the end of last year, according to Moody's.
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