system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Extended payment terms should be abolished. They are a powerful force in the economy right now and nobody is talking about them.

I’ll explain quickly how they work then offer a quick syllogism arguing why you should care about this issue.

First, I’m not an economist or an accountant, I’m a business leader working in a large corporation who has drawn some conclusions watching what happens in my corner of the world and has done a little research.

A large corporation that has lots of leverage over its vendors simultaneously negotiates the shortest possible payment terms (when one party actually has to pay another) for all of its receivables and the longest possible payment terms for its payables. Doing so adds to free cash flow, a key metric Wall Street looks at to determine the health of a business- it is how much money the business has to spend on stuff at any moment. If you are a small business with the capital to float all of your expenses (or the ability to borrow to cover them) while you wait four months to get paid for the service or good you provided your customer (the large corporation), then you can play ball. Almost invariably you will include your cost of borrowing in your bid- and there’s the rub, as the large corporation you actually pay more in the long run because the cost of borrowing for the little guy (almost certainly more than the big guy) gets added into the cost of the contract. On the other hand, if you’re a small business who can’t wait four months to get paid you are excluded from the potential work. 

So, 

Extended payment terms hurt small businesses.

Numerous taxpayer funded programs and tax credits exist to prop up small businesses.

Small businesses could be made healthier as a result of dialogue/legislation around this issue and consequently less reliant on this taxpayer funded backstop.

You are a taxpayer and/or you benefit from taxpayer funded stuff.

Therefore you should care about this issue.

Edit: To rearrange first sentence.
gpt
I follow the argument.

I wonder though, are payment terms the root problem here?

It seems like the real problem is an imbalance of power in certain markets. A concentrated buying group holds all the power, and can dictate terms. If sellers have more options, they can choose to sell to folks with better terms.

It feels like killing off payment terms would just lead to new tactics. Amazon and Walmart have largely moved to fulfillment models, which is really just a nice way of saying "you own all of your inventory and the costs associated with it until it sells".

Perhaps more should be done to promote competition and break apart large monopoly powers?