Its not the only way to grow. You can grow through productivity too. Problem is that corporate shareholders "hoarded" the productivity value that was created with stock buy-backs instead of raising wages.
Since 2008, corporation buy back stock over investing in capex or raising wages. From my intuition, it is bc they were so scarred by the 2008-2010 GFC, that they have been anticipating another crash since, even though it was over 10 years ago.
Here are some instances of what CEOs do when they are flush with cash:
- A top Trump adviser’s startling response to CEOs not doing what he’d expect [1]
> "As Cohn sat comfortably onstage, a Journal editor asked the crowd to raise their hands if their company plans to invest more if the tax reform bill passes. Very few hands went up. Cohn looked surprised. “Why aren't the other hands up?” he said." [1]
> Make no mistake: The proportion of net income distributed to the shareholders of S&P 500 corporations is indeed high. From 2007 to 2016, the S&P 500 firms paid out $7 trillion to shareholders—$4.2 trillion through repurchases and $2.8 trillion through dividends—representing 96% of net income. Microsoft was one of the top cash distributors, paying out a total of $188 billion to shareholders. [2]
> In 2011, Senate Democrats, arguing against another repatriation tax holiday, issued a report asserting that the previous effort had actually cost the United States Treasury $3.3 billion, and that companies receiving the tax breaks had thereafter cut over 20,000 jobs." [3]
All of this signals pessimism in the upper ranks of corporate america.
If people can't own a home do they cease to exist? Weird how "overpopulating" comes up when discussing homes for people that are here already, but not other issues like jobs or office construction.
