Thread: This is not good

Mensa has nothing to do with personality...only capacity. You would know that if you were invited to join. There are some real dick-bags in mensa from what I understand...

And technically you didnt, since I was able to get it quoted.

We're coming up on end of year, how's your bonus looking? It's been a while since you flexed your paycheck...*checks watch*.....it has to happen again soon, right?

Originally Posted by Consultant

(how was that, I used my mensa brain to count time zones and make a worthless personal jab. har har har)

No, you're just living up to those lofty ideals befitting a forum mod. Toodles.

Not of this forum, haha. I'm just a poster in here.

Originally Posted by triggerhappy2005

Why should a business that profits from this country need a tax incentive to hire? They didn't need it before this economic mess started. Now that they are profitable again, it's time to give back. They need to take those outsized profits they are hoarding and re-invest them back into the country.

Hoarding not Hiring

Well that's a good article headline there Trig (and I know that it wasn't your choice, but the author's implication is clear) especially for those folks who won't read the article. However, the subtitle does the discussion a lot more justice than the article headline itself.

Reluctant to Spend or Expand, U.S. Companies Are Sitting on a Record $1.6 Trillion

One could even remove the last bit of text behind the comma and leave it this:

Reluctant to Spend or Expand

And the meaning and context have not changed at all.

That article was from April of 2010 and so it is not clear if the "mountain of cash" is still large, growing, shrinking, put into use, etc etc. But that doesn't really matter.

What matters is that the reasoning behind businesses "hoarding" cash, to use the author's overly descriptive word, is fairly sound practice from a business perspective. That is, after all, what they are there for. The business. $$. In uncertain markets/economies companies are hesitant to spend (read: take risk) without clear advantages or almost certain guarantees of increased profitability. That is as true now as it has always been. In this country and others where individual business is allowed/supported/fostered.

Couple points from the article worth highlighting:

"Companies slashed their work forces and now find that they could function far more resourcefully than they ever realized possible," Bianco said. "If anything, we could start to see some of the money being used to expand overseas or to acquire other companies. In either case, that does not bode well for job creation. In fact, mergers lead to job reductions unfortunately."

HIRE, for example, exempts companies from paying social security payroll tax if they hire someone who has been out of work for more than two months, and offers them a $1000 cash bonus if they retain the worker for a full year.

The $1000 cash bonus and the SS Payroll Tax are negligible costs when compared to the overall cost to the business incurred in a new hire scenario. If the company doesn't have a surefire way to profit from that hire, or doesn't see some gain in cost/risk avoidance or mitigation (e.g. regulatory issues) from that new position, then the act of hiring that new person is a net loss regardless of the tax credit/incentives.

Regardless of how many hiring incentives the government passes, experts say the jobs market faces a long, tough recovery. Companies simply won't begin to hire workers unless they see a valid business reason to do so. As long as the economic outlook remains cloudy, employers will continue to hold on to their reserves, predicts Rene Stulz, a finance professor at Ohio State University and an expert in cash reserves.

"It makes sense to put cash [...] in hiring people if you can make money. It doesn't make sense to take the cash and hire people if you're going to make losses," he said.

This ^....until the market/economy stabilizes and the trend lines cease looking like sine waves companies will continue to try and insulate themselves from the market/economy volatility.

As for the main, opening, point and the linked article.....

I think it is sad that this is the case; that any municipality is faced with accepting grants/assistance/aid from a foreign country (and/or its business holding a la Citgo). However, I also think that it has less to do with the Federal branch of the US than it has to do with the horrible mismanagement that goes on in almost all municipalities that I've ever had residence in. And that complaint is extensible to the local/state governments as well. They do not know (by and large) how to budget/spend any better than their counterparts at the federal level. This is nothing new. Sad? Yes. New? No. Would I like to see it change? For the better? You betcha.

But, at the risk of changing the topic of this post from its beginnings to something altogether different, I seriously am beginning to doubt the ability of the US to function, coherently, in its present form (i.e. far too large and spread out with far too many disparate and divergent "wants"). Meaning - for the sake of the sanity of the nation (if such a thing is even real) that this united collection of states might be best served in the long run by splitting into smaller (and hopefully more manageable) groups of states along regional lines and then creating formal treaties with the other regional groups.

Wild I know. And probably never happen. And probably shouldn't. But, I do know that things need to change in regards to the way that this country (and the states and cities and municipalities) operates and budgets and spends the peoples' money. Sustainability looks harder and harder to come by.

Originally Posted by rock_lobster

So would you spend money just because you had it during a recession? Simply having the money to hire additional workers doesn't make it a smart idea to do so.

And I'm not saying that tax incentives should be required to stimulate hiring all the time, but in a time like this where businesses are afraid to spend money, it may be necessary.......just like consumer's need(ed) to be confident in spending their money. Hell, sugar daddy Barrack even said that (about the consumers).

I would be looking for ways to invest that money back into the country that gave me the privilege to earn it. I feel civic responsibility should go hand in hand with making a profit. Perhaps that's too idealistic but that's what I believe.

Costco is an example of what I'm talking about.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/bu.../17costco.html

Originally Posted by Consultant

And technically you didnt, since I was able to get it quoted.

I don't care about the time stamp. I regularly go back over threads to correct errors. But if it makes you feel better.

It's funny how people who post in these threads pop in and out from guest to user. Pussies.

Originally Posted by Alundil

But, at the risk of changing the topic of this post from its beginnings to something altogether different, I seriously am beginning to doubt the ability of the US to function, coherently, in its present form (i.e. far too large and spread out with far too many disparate and divergent "wants"). Meaning - for the sake of the sanity of the nation (if such a thing is even real) that this united collection of states might be best served in the long run by splitting into smaller (and hopefully more manageable) groups of states along regional lines and then creating formal treaties with the other regional groups.

Wild I know. And probably never happen. And probably shouldn't. But, I do know that things need to change in regards to the way that this country (and the states and cities and municipalities) operates and budgets and spends the peoples' money. Sustainability looks harder and harder to come by.

I totally agree...I've said for a a while now that I doubted that the US was governable given the dramatic variance in demographics, political concerns, and cultural differences. Look at Norway...widely known as one of the greatest places to live in the world...it's about half the size of Texas...imagine having to manage a "Country" the size of New Mexico. I can realistically see the US split into about 6 different countries...

Originally Posted by triggerhappy2005

It's funny how people who post in these threads pop in and out from guest to user. Pussies.

In case you are referring to me, I didn't do that. I never log out. I'm no pussy.

*Disclaimer: I am about to leave the thread to check and see if the TF2 servers are up yet...then I may check my clan forums and the sitemod forums...any guests seen viewing this thread are not me*