Inequality Watch: 2018 Promises Record Stock Buybacks

JP Morgan says S&P 500 companies will buy back $800 billion of their own shares this year, up from the $530 billion spent in 2017. Read the whole story here. Read about financial stripmining, the extraction of wealth from companies for the benefit of the wealthy, and how it crushed the middle class, here.

Link: Stripmining Toys

What can happen when debt is used to buy a troubled business and financial manipulation ensues. The bankruptcy of Toys R Us. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/09/toys-r-us-and-the-trump-voter

What Do You Think? A New Introduction to the Third Printing of Runaway Inequality.

[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”] After two printings and more than 50,000 copies sold, Runaway Inequality will get a new introduction and a new printing early in 2018. While we discussed a new title for the book, Runaway Inequality in the Age of Trump, we decided to not change the name, but the draft of the new introduction, which follows, discusses what we’ve been doing to reverse runaway inequality, and the changes our new president has brought to the nation. Since you’re likely already familiar with the book and our education program, we’re interested in hearing your …

Read moreWhat Do You Think? A New Introduction to the Third Printing of Runaway Inequality.

Reading Material: Kodak 1987 versus Apple 2017

The New York Times looks at a janitor at Kodak in 1987 and compares it to the same job at Apple in 2017. Wages in the two jobs are similar after adjusting for inflation, but the differences in benefits and opportunities go a long way toward explaining how and why inequality has become entrenched. Read the story here.

The Financial Strip Mining of Puerto Rico

(This article was sent to subscribers to RunawayInequality.org. If you would like to receive more content via email about inequality and how to reverse it, sign up here.) How does Wall Street financially strip-mine a country, territory or state? It loans governments more and more money knowing that, no matter what, they have to pay it back — even if it means closing schools, cutting thousands of jobs and turning day-to-day life into misery for working people and the poor. The US territory of Puerto Rico has run up massive debts (approximately $123 billion) in the last 15 years. Programs …

Read moreThe Financial Strip Mining of Puerto Rico