Corporate profits hit highest share since WWII, as worker payouts wilt
ft.com
ft.com
Pretty impressive long-term charts, and dramatic surge in the last years. Of course there are lot of other relevant details (e.g. more people own capital, and this is pre-tax numbers). But overall this seems pretty consistent with the story Piketty tells in Capital in the Twenty-First Century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Ce...
https://lobste.rs/s/z0mdor/archive_today_is_directing_ddos_a...
So Trump cuts tax on the rich, and the rich cut out human workers or depress their pay.
The debt will have to be reckoned with if the govt ain’t getting their share to build infrastructure.
On the other hand US has the highest participation of people who own stock.
Unlike China, where the median Chinese doesn’t benefit from growth of state run companies.
Sure it can. Take shares in companies. Put them into a sovereign wealth fund.
Adding a rule that 10% of whatever you print must be put under national democratic control is not inconceivable.
What you are proposing is literally what China does to ensure CCP control of all businesses.
Do you really want whoever is in power at the moment to have (even more direct) control over every business in the country?
Because that is literally how you do that.
Connection between shares and ownership is tenuous at best and rarely exercised.
> What you are proposing is literally what China does to ensure CCP control of all businesses.
10% is not control. China is not democratic. Given that, Chinese companies seem to be doing quite well under those conditions. Better than Western ones.
> Do you really want whoever is in power at the moment to have (even more direct) control over every business in the country?
Do you really want all economic power to be controlled in undemocratic manner rather than democratic?
Because that is literally what we have now and society and governments are getting impoverished and companies are getting outcompeted too.
In most large corporations, 10% is often the largest single shareholder and/or bloc.
In democratic countries, we pass laws and let that do the talking. If the gov't owns direct shares, whoever is in charge of the gov't is de-facto the 'controller' of them, eh?
So no congress, no laws, no vote of the people after they pick whoever is 'in charge'. Doesn't sound very democratic to me?
Look at the stock market. Out of billion trades maybe one is related to actual ownership of actual company. “Shares are mostly casino tokens tied to the success of a company - or rather, the perception thereof.
> In democratic countries, we pass laws and let that do the talking. If the gov't owns direct shares, whoever is in charge of the gov't is de-facto the 'controller' of them, eh?
It could be shares without any control rights. Still reduces the amount of resources outside of democratic control. Not by taking control yourself but by removing it from unelected individuals.
That everyone retail seems okay buying shitty share classes doesn’t change what I’m saying, just that most retail investors are chumps.
So you want the gov’t to be an even bigger chump?
And Zuck owns meta. He has 57% of voice so he can single handedly make any decisions forever. Not very democratic.
He has 13% of shares, which as I mentioned are basically casino tokens he was allowed to create out of thin air (at barely any cost) and sell to capital holders to get their actual money into meta.
But they don't have to be. There could be a law that shares paid as tax have no voting power. The government gets capital gains and dividends but no votes.
The sovereign wealth fund could be required to be structured as a black box, with visibility into it severely constrained. Selling is governed by a strict mechanical algorithm, or at random, to prevent indirect pressure by the government ("Do what we say or we'll dump all your shares").
I'll expand on a theme I've written about many times before.
We want businesses to become more efficient and productive. We want them to produce more with less labor. This is highly desirable.
But we tax that ever-shrinking pile of labor more and more to make government finances pencil out.
That makes no GD sense.
Shares are also not property, in the real sense.
They are fractional ownership.
Potato property. A property is whatever you own. Do you or do you not own the contents of your fridge?
> Shares are also not property, in the real sense.
I assume by "real" you mean "land". Who cares?
> They are fractional ownership.
So you acknowledge that shares are property then.
There are plenty of systems answers, power just doesn't care, and neither do voter bases.
Of course it can. Like, for AI, put a surtax on wattage consumed and use it to extend and expand unemployment insurance.
https://everywheremillionaire.substack.com/p/why-the-labor-s...
https://everywheremillionaire.substack.com/p/another-reason-...