“…The airline executives are not simply lying that the money is gone. A lot of it is gone: Economist William Lazonick, a longtime critic of stock buybacks, notes that the airlines and freight companies paid out about one-fourth of their…
Author: Oner Tulum
Insider Trading and Stock Option Grants: An Examination of Corporate Integrity in the Covid-19 Pandemic
“…In the first quarter of 2018 alone, with the new tax law fully in force, American corporations bought back a record $178 billion in stock.21 During this period, the market hit record highs. When a corporation buys stock, it should…
Real versus Fictitious: The Pandemic Closing In on the World of Finance
“The COVID-19 pandemic is stretching the contradictions of the present economic arrangements to the limits. The system survived inflating financial assets and feeding on inequalities. The divide between the real economy and the sphere of finance cannot be left unchecked…
Stock buybacks have totaled $5.3 trillion over the past decade — has that contributed to U.S. pandemic failures?
“…Authors William Lazonick, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts and the president of the Academic-Industry Research Network, and Matt Hopkins, a Ph.D. student at SOAS University of London and a senior researcher at the Academic-Industry Research Network,…
Big Pharma Wants to Pocket the Profits From a COVID Treatment You Already Paid For
… “In an April 30, 2020 letter from Representatives Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) and Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar, the Representatives requested “an appropriate accounting of the taxpayers’ investments. … to ensure patients and…
No Vaccine in Sight
… “Though early shifts in IP law set the stage for this financialization, it soon became a self-fueling cycle. Pharma today is a creature of Wall Street, where high drug prices are not intended to fund future R&D so much…
Top US companies lay off thousands of workers while rewarding shareholders amid coronavirus pandemic
“In a downturn like this the first thing a company should do is give up any distributions to shareholders,” William Lazonick, an economist at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, told The Post. “But in a crisis, companies will differ. Some…
U.S. companies cut thousands of workers while continuing to reward shareholders during pandemic
“William Lazonick, an emeritus economics professor at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, has been one of the leading critics of companies that distribute cash to shareholders through stock buybacks and dividends rather than reinvesting the profits into employees, innovation…
How To Manage Public Stakes In Bailed-Out Companies
“On such a model, it makes intuitive sense for the government to take equity from the companies in which it is itself an investor. A government loan, for example, is essentially a government investment; and in general, it is well…
Coronavirus Crisis and Bringing Manufacturing Back
“Tripp Babbitt shares his interpretation of wide-ranging aspects and implications of Dr. Deming’s theory of management. This month he looks at the Coronavirus crisis, past crises, and where we go from here.” [Click HERE to listen the interview]