Looking at income disparity/inequality...

HR departments are largely useless when it comes to sexual assault & harassment by management.

Ummkaay

United Way Worldwide hired a law firm to investigate the claims and the way the nonprofit’s leadership handled them. Last week, the firm, Proskauer Rose, concluded that management’s handling of the complaints was appropriate and that the dismissals were “based on legitimate, non-discriminatory, and non-retaliatory reasons.”

 

In the USA, in the last few years (since 2018) income of the poorer Americans has increased more than that of wealthier Americans.

The incomes of America’s poorest are growing faster than those of its richest | The Economist

 

BUMP! I almost put this in the Socialism or Democratic Party threads. It's remarkable that this thread has been dormant for 4+ years.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/mar/04/workers-medicaid-snap-low-pay


Workers at top 20 US low-wage firms rely on public assistance, report says

 

Stock buybacks should be illegal.

 

I'm listening.

 

Taxed heavily.

 

We're nearing a "let them eat cake" point...

 

This is nonsense; all a buyback is is a loan being paid off. Should it be illegal to pay off your mortgage early? To make a balloon payment on your car or your business?

I had an involuntary buyback a few years ago; I paid off my mortgage with it (about the same amount) which turned out to be a much better deal than a few more months of dividends.

 

I think it is in the context of getting a bailout to get through hard times, and then doing a buyback that goes to shareholders. I would tax the shareholders who cash out like you would a bonus, or at least put conditions on the bailout money.

 

So critique the bailout if you will, but the buyback may well be the best option for the bailed out entity.

The presumptive purpose of the bailout is to restore the business to stability, And the shares are just the record of loans and debts...

It may well be that the bailout should be defined in such a way as to have to be spent on improved production facilities or better wages or something-- but if it isn't so limited and defined and management concludes that dividends are hurting them more than anything else...

Mine was an old investment inherited from my father which was still paying 8% at a time where loans were available at under 2%. I didn't want them to buy it back-- but for the same reason as they wanted to. My mortgage was old enough to be costing 5% so I just pulled the same trick on the bank that that company pulled on me.

 

Like the stock market itself, that may have been what it was originally designed for but that ain't how it's being used now. Buybacks are solely a means to inflate prices to give dividends. To allow executives to meet their goals to get massive bonuses.

Short term profit for the wealthy at the expense of the workers.

Markets should be to help companies create more widgets, hire more workers, increase worker pay. Not gamble to make short term profit for the wealthy. ***** all of these people who use the markets as slot machines rigged in their favor and buybacks as a way to make money now over security later.

Make it illegal and tax these companies heavily. Tax billionaires into extinction.

 

When you buy stock back, you no longer have to pay dividends on it, you know...

Companies have no obligation to create more widgets, hire more workers, or increase worker pay, other than whatever is required to retain or increase market share. And raising prices is not a way to do that.

Oh, and buybacks absolutely increase "security later." If the stock isn't out there it cannot be used in a hostile takeover. And they are a way to spend money now, not to make money now. If your administrator is able to use them to "meet his goals," then his contract is very poorly designed. And remember, he works for the owner, he is not the owner.

Taxing billionaires into extinction is a complete misunderstanding of how the actual government is financed. If they cease to exist, then they will no longer buy bonds, which is how the government is at root financed. If that stops, then and only then does the national debt begin to matter much. We are absolutely dependent on 1. The United States remaining a sound investment and 2. people having money they need to store someplace for a decade or two, who will therefore invest in the U.S.

See, ultimately all of us need the U.S. to continue its currency, keeping it stable, so that our billions or hundreds or thousands are still worth that much when we need to buy something. And we need people to be allowed to pay back loans when they can in order for that to be true. Jefferson was a terrible economist-- but even he understood that much. he just never got ahead of the wolf enough to invest himself, and so he saw bond sales as "speculation" not as "investment." Not even when it made it possible for the U.S. to buy Louisiana pretty much painlessly during his administration, although it quintupled the national debt that he was trying to pay off by not buying firewood for the White House while he was living there...

 

I don't see anything wrong with stock buybacks. Fewer shares mean each share is a bigger piece of the company, so share price should go up. When the shares are later sold, any capital gain is taxed at the same rate as dividends, so it's not really evading taxes. Now using bailout money to buy back shares should be illegal, if it isn't already.

 

Exactly. I think there is a conflation going on in the minds of US, where most only know of buybacks in relation to the bailout.