Are American ‘Investors’ Killing Their Golden Geese?
This started as far as I can tell with offshore cheap labor. Adding to the mess was a tax penalty on very high salaries aimed at gazillionaire CEO’s. So a small exception designed to allow small cap corporations attract big league talent to grow on became a tax dodge. A tax dodge with what should have been expected consequences-First those CEO’s and later as shown below would be “pillage the village” investors hold sway. Add corporate influence on regulatory policy and we have the full hat trick of how we got where we are.
Voters, take heed of all this in 2016. and especially also in 2020. Our wounds and lost excellence in actually making things and developing new things that must be made should be retaken.
Bring back the middle class.
Remember when American enterprise was the best the world? Sadly, that is changing. A little over a month ago, the venerable DuPont Company surprisingly won an epic battle over Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund. DuPont, the company that brought us Cellophane, Neoprene, Teflon, Lucite, and so many other wonders of modern life had been forced into a grueling two-year fight for its life. Why? Because Trian, an “activist shareholder,” decided that by trimming research, selling divisions, and firing employees DuPont’s shareholders could make more profit more quickly. Although this time the company won, most companies don’t win. They either lose or capitulate. Battles such as DuPont’s are becoming widespread, and that is changing the nature and vitality of America’s public companies and the American economy.
Several decades ago I founded Rodel, Inc., a manufacturing company that eventually became global with plants spread around the world. It was the classic American success story. We started in a rented garage and built the company using retained earnings. Over time, we outdistanced our competitors and achieved such a high market share that almost every electronic device made anywhere in the world was made using at least one of our products.
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