==================== Since I now know that corporate America and the stock markets are a rigged game for suckers, the only equity exposure I currently have is through my TIAA-CREF mutual fund.
By having many full-time employees constantly monitoring corporate activity and accounting, and in cooperation with the other mutal/pension fund managers (and state attorneys general) the TIAA-CREF funds are able to enforce at least some small degree of managerial accountability, squeezing out at least a portion of the corporate profits for the rightful owners, i.e. the shareholders, rather than the "insiders." see
Note that for the same time period IBM spend over 6 times as much manipulating their stock price as they paid in dividends, not only enriching the insiders but by using the capital gains loophole, costing the taxpayers [who had to make up the amount not paid] many billions, while exporting jobs and technology. They also screwed their employees on promised pension plans and "scammed" them on overtime pay in this same time frame.
One thing the above article does not examine is the tax status of the funds IBM used for their stock buy-back. Because of corporate influence, the US tax code do not collect income taxes on corporate profits until these are "repatriated" back into the US economy. As a result huge pools of these internationally generated profits tend to be accumulated in tax havens such as Aruba (and used to buy US governmental securities). My question is "were these tax exempt international "profits" used for the buy-back, and if so, as this transfers money back into the US economy, was [or will] any corporate income tax be assessed."
These tin-cup corporations never seem to be able to afford to pay their fair share of taxes, but always seems to have enough money to lend (if indirectly) to the government.
Unka' George [George McDuffee]
------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).