NOW Companies Want to be Economically Responsible

Please take 3 minutes out of your day and read this article. It deals with the rise of corporate income and how it is in contrast to our rapidly declining economy. Good, quick read.

I found the part of the article where they discuss how corporations are reluctant to spend their ever-growing profits on hiring and investing rather mind-boggling. One corporate asshat had this to say:

The labor market is weak, which hampers consumption, notes Charles Biderman, chief executive officer of the research firm TrimTabs. "So without growing income, where's the money to buy more stuff?" he says. "Absent a change in demand, the fact that companies have all this cash, well, good for them. It's not going to help us."

Now I'm far from a genius (shut up), but in an economy that depends on consumer spending as its backbone, wouldn't hiring more people and investing those surpluses cause people to have more confidence and spend more thus sparking the economy and the economic recovery? Isn't the economy weak because there are no jobs and therefore no oil to grease the American slurge wheels? It seems like you're trying to use the problem as the reason why you can't solve the problem.

What do you think? Am I just looking at this completely wrong?