tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post4984866514172592329..comments2024-03-06T06:34:42.881-05:00Comments on EconoSpeak: Why Aren’t Corporations Paying More in Dividends and Does It Matter to Aggregate Demand?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-64510041326253893352013-02-12T03:02:43.561-05:002013-02-12T03:02:43.561-05:00Interesting. Part of the answer may be that shareh...Interesting. Part of the answer may be that shareholders are a very weak form of ownership. They are disparate, and even worse, often mutual funds are shareholders, meaning they own hundreds of issues. They sell if they don't like management. <br /><br />So, management likes to build up a hoard to play with, to build an empire, or to slice off to friends and family hired as consultants, vendors etc. <br /><br />Stopping the double taxation of corporate income would help; maybe eliminate taxing dividends. <br />Benjamin Colehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14001038338873263877noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-37778502469010640662013-02-11T14:21:41.288-05:002013-02-11T14:21:41.288-05:00You make a good point that a large portion of shar...You make a good point that a large portion of shareholder wealth (and financial assets for that matter) are held by wealthy individuals. Where I think your story may be overlooking a link is between corporate profits, interest income and inequality. <br /><br />As I see it, rising household and nonfinancial business debt has transferred significant sums of interest income to wealthier households and financial institutions. At the same time, undistributed corporate profits have risen substantially (possibly in response to repatriation taxes), which reduces the potential income for labor. These effects have combined to heighten wealth and income inequality, which reduces spending capacity for the majority of households that were already borrowing constrained.<br /><br />In tow recent posts I have highlighted these effects by disaggregating gross private saving (http://bubblesandbusts.blogspot.com/2013/02/inequality-really-is-holding-back.html) and net interest payments/receipts (http://bubblesandbusts.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-rise-of-debt-interest-and-inequality.html).Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00720722626969395929noreply@blogger.com