By William A. Galston and Elaine Kamarck “When the head of the world’s largest investment fund raises fundamental questions about U.S. corporations, we should all pay attention. In a letter earlier this week to the Fortune 500 CEOs, BlackRock Chairman…
AIR IMPACT
Recognition of AIR research, opinions, and people in the media and elsewhere
Stock buybacks are shrinking the middle class
By Chris Tomlinson “Shareholders cheer when they learn that a corporation they’ve invested in plans to buy back stock because it usually means higher share values. Activist investors have pressed many companies to move away from paying dividends and instead…
Profits without honor: The sad truth about CEO compensation
By Frank Islam and Ed Crego “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”(Mark 8:36). The answer: In terms of CEO compensation at major American businesses in the 21st…
Share buybacks: Robbing Peter to pay Paul
Anonymous “General Motors announced a $5 billion share buyback in March, adding to the $2 trillion of stock repurchases that have taken place since 2009. As firms have hoarded cash since the financial crisis, it seems that the only kind…
A buyback or biotech bubble?
By Leo Kolivakis “Steven Davidoff Solomon, professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote a comment for the New York Times, General Motors’ Stock Buyback Follows a Worrying Trend: “General Motors’ announcement that it will buy back $5 billion…
The left’s new straw man: The shareholder as mafia boss
By Doug Reich “In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Harold Meyerson, an avowed socialist, compares corporations who buy back their own shares to Las Vegas mafia bosses who used to skim casino profits. The basis for his smear is “a recent…
The market mirage
By Rana Foroohar “One of the hardest-dying ideas in economics is that stock price accurately reflects the fundamental value of a given firm. It’s easy to understand why this misunderstanding persists: price equals value is a simple idea in a…
The best management article of 2014
By Steve Denning “Good news: Harvard Business Review has announced that Bill Lazonick is the 2014 HBR McKinsey Award winner for the best HBR article in 2014 for his brilliant, hard-hitting piece, “Profits Without Prosperity” (September 2014 HBR). Lazonick is…
The problem with stock buybacks
By Danielle Park “Why high corporate profits aren’t translating into widespread economic prosperity, as explained in William Lazonick’s HBR article, “Profits Without Prosperity.”… [Click HERE to read the full article]
The 1% rigged everything: Why no one can end Ronald Reagan’s ‘dead wrong’ voodoo economics
By Paul Rosenberg “Venture capitalist Nick Hanauer, a highly visible champion of Seattle’s $15/hour minimum wage, wrote a piece in the Atlantic last month pushing on another front in the war against toxic income inequality. “Stock Buybacks Are Killing the…
