By Robert Borosage “At the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative this week, former President Bill Clinton predicted corporations would soon care less about maximizing profits and more about employees and society. This would happen without significant government involvement because “of…
Author: admin
Share buybacks, quantitative easing, secular stagnation and the risks of Myopic Share Virus..
Anonymous “The point about share buybacks is that they sit uncomfortably in a widening narrative of increasing inequality, weak income growth (worse at lower income levels), falling economic growth rates and disturbing trends in both human and capital investment. The…
Are buybacks hurting the economy?
By Cydney Posner “According to “Companies’ Stock Buybacks Help Buoy the Market,” by Dan Strumpf, published in the WSJ on September 15, 2014, “[c]ompanies are buying their own shares at the briskest clip since the financial crisis, helping fuel a stock rally…
Maximization of shareholder value: Flawed thinking that threatens our economic future
By David Larrabee “One of the most widely promulgated falsehoods in investing is the notion that those managing publicly held companies are obligated to maximize shareholder value. In recent years, US companies have taken on record amounts of debt to…
Think debt-funded stock buybacks are pernicious? Here’s why you’re right
By Steve Roth “I’ve ranted about this phenomenon for a long time: Do Businesses Borrow to Invest in Productive Assets? Quoting JW Mason: “the marginal dollar borrowed by a nonfinancial business in this period was simply handed on to shareholders, without…
To reduce inequality, end buybacks: Harvard Business Review
By Jeff Cox “Root causes of massive wealth disparity come down to one issue: Companies would rather use cash to buy back their own stock than to grow their businesses, a study in Harvard Business Review says.”… [Click HERE to read…
Media giving corporate executives a free pass on their value extraction
By Yves Smith “I’m a day late to get to a revealing Financial Times comment by Edward Luce, who has among other things served as Larry Summers’ speechwriter. Luce has written important articles on politics (for instance, being one of the…
Nightmare on Wall Street: Are stock buybacks creating another ‘financial bubble’
By Liz Iacobucci “Some blog posts are easy to forget. But the one I wrote last week is beginning to give me nightmares. Here’s why: the stock market keeps hitting record highs. But the so-called “economic recovery” – which started in June 2009 – is…
Are stock buybacks too high?
By Tyler Cowen “Edward Luce writes in The Financial Times: According to William Lazonick, a scholar at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, seven of the top 10 largest share repurchasers spent more on buybacks and dividends than their entire net income between…
Richard Trumka on “Profits Without Prosperity”
Richard Trumka talked with reporters at a “Monitor Breakfast” held by the Christian Science Monitor and discussed the recent Harvard Business Review article on stock buybacks authored by theAIRnet president William Lazonick.
