>I suspect Google is seeing less demand for ads right now while simultaneously dealing with expectations that their profits not go down correspondingly.
This seems like the root of the problem right here. Why shouldn't corporate profits go down when the economy falters? This should be expected. If you just keep running the company the same way and not pissing off the users/customers, things will improve when the economic situation improves. Rocking the boat just increases risk.
We do have that, to an extent: capital-gains taxes are higher for securities held for less than 1 year. Maybe this needs to be extended or improved somehow.
This seems like the root of the problem right here. Why shouldn't corporate profits go down when the economy falters? This should be expected. If you just keep running the company the same way and not pissing off the users/customers, things will improve when the economic situation improves. Rocking the boat just increases risk.