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Comment by whymauri | Hacker News Reader

My favorite part about bloodsucking corporations like this and Verizon/AT&T is that the actual stock value of these corporations has barely moved in the last two decades. I thought this kind of unfettered profiteering and capitalism would be good for long term value?

All this suffering and destruction to meekly underperform the stock market. Why do these executives have jobs?

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Ah, but the bloodsucking and profiteering is predictable, so it was already priced in. If they stopped and acted like responsible global citizens instead, now that would be a surprise, and their stock price would drop precipitously.

>My favorite part about bloodsucking corporations like this and Verizon/AT&T is that the actual stock value of these corporations has barely moved in the last two decades

Maybe because they're paying out profits in dividends?

I actually didn't know this. Does Rio Tinto also fall into this category of 'objectively terrible for the human race, but pays wonderful dividends to the stakeholders'?

The point is that the stock value remains in the same place because they distribute part of their earnings to shareholders. On the day of a dividend, the stock gets discounted by the amount of the dividend. So if you pay out a large dividend and the share price is static over the long term, that’s actually quite good for investors.

(In other words, your earlier comment about bloodsucking profiteers misses the mark a little bit.)

T and VZ pay substantial dividends.

> I thought this kind of unfettered profiteering and capitalism would be good for long term value?

No, it's only good for short term value. Long-term the regulatory and social environment evolves to punish these kind of companies.

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