By Harold Meyerson “What do CEOs do to earn their pay? Presumably, something very valuable, since the average CEO pay at Fortune 500 companies in 2014 was a cool $13.8 million. Yet even as CEO paychecks have ballooned to roughly 300…
AIR IMPACT
Recognition of AIR research, opinions, and people in the media and elsewhere
Death of the shareholder and the rise of the CEO paymachine
By Mark Blessington “In Adam Smith‘s day, investment of personal savings into business drove economic growth. Most economic activity back then involved small local companies, and nearly all of them relied on individual investor capital for formation and growth.”… [Click…
Biden on whether there is an economic disconnect
By Joseph Biden [Click HERE to watch the interview] (segment, between 3:00 and 4:15)
The truth about finance
By Stephen Maher “Hillary Clinton says she’s cracking down on Wall Street. She argues that her new financial reform plan will curb speculation and push back against “the tyranny of short-termism.”… [Click HERE to read the full article]
Pfizer jacks up drug costs, pays billions to shareholders
By Liz Iacobucci “Ever wonder why prescription drug costs are so high? Take a few minutes and read Bill Lazonick’s piece on Pfizer. From January 2001 through September 2015, Pfizer paid out [to stockholders] $95.5 billion in buybacks and $87.1 billion…
Fight for $15 (Part 2): The high cost of McDonald’s low wages and stock buybacks
By Michael J. Brown “In the Fight for $15, McDonald’s is emblematic of the problems confronting fast-food workers and all low-wage earners in the U.S. It is estimated that 96 percent of fast-food workers make less than $15 per hour, and most (55 percent)…
Buybacks, part three: Washington’s warning
By 720 Global “Stock buybacks are a conflict of interest which has been exposed primarily through extravagant levels of executive pay and income inequality. As an extension of previous articles on this topic, 720 Global digs even deeper to expose…
Stock buybacks: Will the market heed Washington’s warning?
By Michael Lebowitz “Naturally, the data appears disturbing but a recent report from Reuters puts an even finer point on the issue. In an investigative article entitled The Cannibalized Company, Reuters states: “Almost 60 percent of the 3,297 publicly traded non-financial…
How corporate America is cannibalizing itself
By Steve Denning “Harvard Business Review calls it “stock price manipulation.” The Economist calls it “corporate cocaine.” Now Reuters declares that “Corporate America is cannibalizing itself.”… [Click HERE to read the full article]
America’s CEOs and hedge funds are starving the nation’s corporations to death
By Cory Doctorow “Many CEOs’ pay is based on share-price, and this, combined with “activist investors” (mostly hedge-fund managers) has incentivized the leaders of America’s biggest companies to greatly reduce their R&D spending, curtail expansion, fire workers, and flatline or…
