Juggling Dynamite

As government revenues fall, deficits compound and debt levels leap, corporate executives have been directing the corporate cash freed up from recent tax breaks to pump up their company share prices with buybacks, while dumping their own personal holdings into the strength created.  ‘So long suckers’, indeed.  Buyers and holders beware, your longer-term financial interests are not a priority here.  See Executives are selling off their company stock at the fastest pace in a decade:

“Companies this year have announced $827 billion in spending to purchase their own shares — well above the buybacks that took place during all of 2007, which set the previous annual record.

‘Insiders have been committing lots of money for stock buybacks, and they’re not doing buybacks because they think stocks are cheap. They’re doing to it to pump up the stock so they can sell it,’ said David Santschi, director of liquidity research at TrimTabs.

…what we are seeing is that executives are using buybacks as a chance to cash out their compensation at investor expense.” In June, a group of senators asked the SEC to review its buyback rules.

Said Santschi: “Insiders are doing one thing with their own money, and another thing with shareholders’ money.”

Worth listening to this 1-hour segment.  Understanding the developments that have brought us to the present, help us to think about where we may be heading next.

Deregulation. Infinite growth. Self-correcting markets. All are hallmarks of neoliberal thinking. But they’re more than just assumptions about the economy. They undergird much of the most influential thinking about governance right now and dominate political and economic thinking everywhere. The results, according to some, have been disastrous. Investigative journalist Bruce Livesey asks four experts about the rise and rule of neoliberal thought, and what it may mean for societies around the world.   Here is a direct audio link.

Labor migration has long been the necessary life-blood of economic and population rebalancing.

As student debt has soared in recent years, and shelter costs in many areas moved firmly into the unaffordable zone, young people have wisely begun moving to areas where they can afford to have a roof over their head.   This enables them to start households and short-cut the many years of debt-servitude needed to repay jumbo mortgages and rents.  In the process they are able to live and save and have familes, while also revitalizing new areas and helping to spread prosperity and increased productivity.

Some are working from home and some are commuting.  In other cases, employers are getting the memo and relocating to areas where their staff can afford to live.

Proof yet again, that the solution for too-high-prices is too-high-prices, where eventually less demand in expensive areas leads to more affordable prices there as well.  All good news, except perhaps, for owners and landlords hoping to extract top dollar on properties in unaffordable markets over the next few years.   See Why millennials are flocking to Rust Belt real estate:

They’re investing in homes in such states as Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, experts say, in search of more affordable living and new places to plant down roots.

…”Millennials are swiping up properties for next-to-nothing prices near downtown city areas that have completely revitalized,” Boomsma said. LeadingRE member Haring Realty has listed a three-bedroom Victorian home in Mansfield, Ohio, with an asking price of $39,900.

…”There is a community-mindedness with millennials that attracts them to the smaller Rust Belt towns,” said Peter Haring, president of Haring Realty in Mansfield, Ohio.

“We are seeing an intense interest in participating in the revitalization of our towns and being a part of the community. It’s palpable, and it’s exciting,” he added.