Big Business to the rescue?

Joe Nocera indulges in a lovely fantasy in this op-ed:

I am coming more and more to think that with the government essentially paralyzed for the foreseeable future, the only way we’re going to get jobs is by turning to actual job creators: business itself. With all their cash, companies shouldn’t be waiting for Congress to give them tax incentives to hire people. They should be trying to jump-start the economy — and fend off another recession — by making investments, and hiring workers, that will lead to renewed prosperity.

The only way that’s going to happen, however, is if our society implicitly makes the kind of compact that German society makes explicitly: We have to be willing to allow companies to sacrifice short-term profits for the long-term good of the country. As the leadership expert Michael Useem wrote recently on The Washington Post’s Web site, business needs to make “people a priority, not just earnings.”

Fat chance of that happening. To be fair, Nocera does admit it's a long shot that would require a tacit agreement among the players to voluntarily do it as a group effort. But with the culture of greed so firmly ingrained in the Corporotacracy, I'd guess you have a less of a chance of seeing this happen than you would seeing God answer Good Hair Perry's prayers for rain in Texas.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]