A new report from the Political Economy Research Institute at UMass Amherst says U.S. commercial banks and large nonfinancial corporations have been carrying huge cash hoards and other liquid assets, totaling $1.4 trillion. At the same time, small businesses have been locked out of credit markets, preventing them from expanding. In the report, UMass Amherst Economics Professor Robert Pollin, James Heintz ’01 PhD, Heidi Garrett-Peltier ’10 PhD and Jeannette Wicks-Lim ’05 PhD of PERI examine the impact that mobilizing these excess liquid assets into productive investments could have on job creation. They find that if we moved those liquid assets into business expansions, U.S. employment could expand by about 19 million jobs by the end of 2014, with unemployment falling below 5 percent. (Physorg.com, 12/7/11; News Office release)