Next year, corporations are expected to spend a total of $707 billion buying back their own stock.
That’s enough to buy a new Ford Focus for every single man, woman and child in Washington DC. And everyone in Maryland…Delaware…Pennsylvania…and New York state. (And still have money left over.)
When you stop to think about it, $707 billion is a lot of money. It would cover the entire federal deficit. (And still have money left over.)
But corporations are going to pull that money out of the US economy, next year, just so they can buy back shares of their own stock. Why do corporations buy their own stock? Because it increases the per-share price on Wall Street. (And that’s pretty much all it does: reduce the number of shares of corporate stock.)
That amount – $707 billion – is about twice as much as corporations will pay in federal taxes next year.
It would be enough to create about nine million Middle Class jobs, with benefits. (If they weren’t buying back shares of their own stock.)
It would also buy a whole lot of new cars.
Read more here.
