US Corporations USED TO invest about half of all profits into R&D, infrastructure and their employees.
Now...they are returning almost all profit to shareholders.......and, as a result of stock option compensation plans.....that means that the decision makers are lining their own pockets as never before.
In corporations it s owner-take-all - The Washington Post
Not good for America.
US Corporations USED TO invest about half of all profits into R&D, infrastructure and their employees.
I wonder if there is anything we could do to make America more attractive for corporate investment?
Maybe if we add a few thousand more regulations and raise our already highest in the world corporate tax rate?
Talking points.
AMERICAN CORPORATIONS ARE ENORMOUSLY PROFITABLE
At issue here is not whether or not American companies can compete and profit. That is already established. Instead....the question is what is being done with ENORMOUS PROFITS.
The shift from reinvestment and growing business to profit taking for executives and shareholders is not the result of regulations and taxes. It is the result of DEREGULATION.
TRY HARDER.
But it's not. You can say that... .but saying it, and it actually being true, is not the same.
It seems as though you people on the left, you come up with what you believe first, and then find some article that says what you already believe, and then because you already believe it anyway...
you don't fact check anything.
Yet, most of the big companies, publish this information publicly, and if you wanted to look it up, you could, but you don't.
Walmart Annual Reports
Walmart posts all this stuff. You can look it up. Now, the 2014 report is out, but... I happen to already have the 2013 numbers, so I'm going to post them, since I have them already.
Walmart made $28 Billion in profits last year.
Page 25. Effect tax rate was 31%. Page 34. Total provision for income taxes $8 BILLION dollars.
Page 34. Total Net Interest on debts. $2 Billion. Companies have debts and loans they borrowed to invest and grow their business. Debt service must be paid out.
Page 28. Total Capital investment. $13 Billion. New stores. Remodeling old and declining stores. Expanding stores. Distribution systems. E-commerce systems. In short... more jobs.
So already, out of $28 Billion in cash profits, $23 Billion dollars went out in debt payments, taxes and the majority in capital investment.
That leaves only $5 Billion for the investors, which is still $3 Billion dollars less than how much the government
stole to pay off political supporters, kick backs, and green-energy boondoggles.
Clearly from the evidence, Walmart is not investing at all into the US, and is not paying taxes. Nope, clearly it's *ALL* going to profit taking by the share holders! [/sarcasm]
Facts trumps unsupportable opinion.
Now, let's talk about the shareholders, and dividend payments.
There are two different ways that a shareholder makes a profit from the ownership of a share in a company.
First, and the most obvious and widely cited, is the capital gain. The capital gain, is how much that share in the company increases in value in the market. This gain, does not cost the company itself a penny. If I own stock in Walmart (which I do), and that stock increases in value by 50%, from $50 to $75. And I sell the stock on the market, that profit taking, doesn't cost walmart anything from that $28 Billion in profit... UNLESS Walmart does a buy back. But otherwise, it's whoever in the market bought my share from me.
So that doesn't effect the situation.
What does, is the dividend payment. That $5 Billion Walmart spent in dividend payments, is doled out to the shareholders. Now that seems like a ton of money, but there are millions on millions of Walmart shares. The actual dividend payment in 2013? 47¢ (per quarter $1.88 for the entire year)
Not exactly a monster amount of money for us shareholders.
But you made a statement implying that profit taking has drastically increased. Is that true?
Dividend Yield: The dividend yield, is how much the buyer of the stock, gets back in dividends, relative to the value of the stock. Obviously..... if you buy a stock that costs $200, you want a higher dividend for that $200, than you would if you bought a stock worth $10.
The Dividend Yield, is the annual dividend payment, divided by the value of stock.
So Standard and Poor's data from the S&P 500, allowed Robert Shiller to create this graph.
The dividend yields over the past 15 years, have been the lowest, since 1870 to 2000.
S P 500 Dividend Yield
In other words..... everything in your OP, and the cited link, is total and complete crap.
Any questions, or is class dismissed?
