Hoarding cash...

U. S. corporations are hoarding cash. We're talking about commercial corporations, not banks or investment firms. At the end of last year, non-financial corporations had socked away $2.2 trillion in cash and short-term securities. That's trillion, the 12 zeros kind. That's a lot of cash, and it's 60% more than such corporations had in 2008.

You know what short term interest rates are like, they're close to zero, for all useful purposes they ARE zero. So the corporations aren't stashing the cash away to earn interest...

And actual corporate tax payments (not the tax rate, but what they actually pay, after figuring in all the deductions and loopholes) are the lowest they've been in decades, so they're not saving money to pay taxes….

It's hard to avoid suspecting that they're deliberately keeping their feet on the brake pedal instead of the gas pedal, intending to tamp down our national economy and weaken President Obama's chances for re-election in November.

Why aren't they investing that cash and creating new jobs?