Underscoring the “con” in semiconductors
Well that didn’t take long. Just nine days ago I wrote about how Washington was picking up the check for the semiconductor industry’s aggressive stock buyback programs, distributing billions in subsidies to an industry that could have funded itself if it hadn’t chosen to shower its shareholders with cash. And despite the passage of the wittily named CHIPS Act, which was supposed to encourage real investment in research and production, they’re turning the taps on the cash shower on again. The Financial Times reports: On the same day that Congress passed the law, Intel,… Read More
Making capital pay for the GND
Christian Parenti has an excellent piece up at Jacobin arguing that Corporate America could pay for a lot of the Green New Deal. They’re rolling in cash, and through a combination of regulation, taxation, coercion, and incentives, all that surplus capital could be steered into environmentally beneficial investment. I endorse this completely. I’m just here to underscore how much cash they have and show what they’re now doing with it. According to the latest edition of the Federal Reserve’s financial accounts*, as of the end of 2018, nonfinancial corporations had $4.4 trillion… Read More
LBO News from Doug Henwood 