May 9, 2018 Tim Cook, CEO Apple, Inc. One Apple Park Way Cupertino, CA 95014 Dear Mr. Cook: Last week, you announced the largest single stock buyback in corporate history, amounting to $100 billion. Probably no more than you and two other Apple executives made this decision prior to receiving the expected rubber stamp from […]
May 9, 2018 Dear Member of Congress: Colossal CEO pay harms employees, impedes economic growth, and is a major cause of income inequality in America. CEO pay will continue to skyrocket unless it becomes a major political issue. You have been a consistent critic of excessive CEO compensation. We hope you will consider one proposed […]
Dear Fund Managers, Active money managers are well advised to avoid investing in companies that overpay their CEOs and engage in massive buybacks. But passive investors make no judgments about CEO pay (or most other issues) before investing. The desire to simulate an index drives investment decisions. Nonetheless, it is still in your self-interest to […]
Dear Senator, Please see my recent column on the practice of stock buybacks. This would be an effective point to raise to aggressively push back against the Republican tax plan, which would only provide corporations more capital to burn buying back their own stocks. If they want the tax cuts to get more capital for […]
By Ralph Nader September 13, 2017 The monster of economic waste—over $7 trillion of dictated stock buybacks since 2003 by the self-enriching CEOs of large corporations—started with a little noticed change in 1982 by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) under President Ronald Reagan. That was when SEC Chairman John Shad, a former Wall Street […]