Corporations are forcing Americans to pay more for less – in their own words

I wonder what the sentences before and after some of those quotes were, like “all the shareholders that I’ve talked to said that if anybody goes back to growth, they will punish those companies”

I have a difficult time believing that shareholders punish companies for growth as such. Much easier if the next sentence were "shareholders believe that it's better to take the money and run than to invest $$$ in additional production capacity for the long term".