Letter to the editor: Corporate greed and economic inequality

Our economic inequality is being fueled by two disastrous decisions. One is the 1982 SEC ruling to lessen Wall Street rules and regulations, including one on stock buybacks. Between 2015 and 2017 more than half of the total profits earned by PepsiCo, Kraft Heinz, Archer Daniels Midland and Tyson Foods were spent on stock buybacks. Fifty-four percent of profits from the S&P 500 companies went toward stock buybacks. From 2008 to 2018, American restaurant chains, including Starbucks, McDonald’s and Domino’s Pizza, spent $5,000,000,000,000 on stock buybacks.

The second disastrous decision was the 2017 massive corporate tax cut. With their added profits, corporations have been gouging on stock buybacks. Ten major drug companies, including Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and Merck, in one year, spent $75,000,000,000 on stock buybacks. In 2023, Chevron Corp. spent $14,700,000,000, and Exxon Mobil spent $17,800,000,000 on stock buybacks. Four large conglomerates, with a monopoly of 85% of the market, Tyson, JBS, Marfrig and Seaboard, increased their gross profits by 120% since before the pandemic, and spent $4,000,000,000 in stock buybacks.

Instead of reducing prices to help the struggling consumer, corporations enriched management and stockholders with stock buybacks at the expense of the average American. Some of the excess profits, instead of going to the already wealthy, could have increased the salaries of the workers who make the profits possible in the first place.

Joanne Garing

North Huntingdon