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#4 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-08-07 06:04 PM
Are corporations using their new tax cuts to buy back their stock, raising the stock price?

There were no significant "new" corporate tax rate cuts or increases in One Big Bloody Budget-Busting Bill - it mostly stopped the tax rate set in 2017's TCJA from expiring at the end of 2025, making it "permanent"... unless and until Congress changes them. It was the same 2017 rate throughout the "great economy" and deficits of both Trump and Dark Brandon. There are some accelerated deductions and amortizations for R&D and other expenses but these are not "new tax cuts" that would materially affect corporations decisions to "buy back their stock."

Also, I don't know why "stock buybacks" would be considered "evil" or such a sore issue for anyone.

They aren't necessarily "raising the stock price" - many public/listed corporations routinely buy back stock to account for dilution, i.e., issuance of new stock as compensation to its employees, including directors, executives, pension and 401(k) plans, stock mergers/buyouts, outside contractors etc.

It's also a tax-preferred way of returning some value to the stock owners, as opposed to direct dividends, which usually drop the price of stock ex-dividend and are taxable, unless in tax-deferred or tax-free accounts.

For example, "Oracle of Omaha" Warren Buffett's Berkshire-Hathaway ($1T market cap) doesn't pay dividends and has often used buybacks, especially during NZIRP times, when he didn't see a better opportunity to invest somewhere else and excess cash from profits didn't yield much in safe deposit accounts.

Buyback is a responsible way for the boards, CEOs and CFOs to manage corporate cash. Large buybacks are often presented to stockholders for a vote.

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Redneck Recession Hits Working-class the Hardest

Recessions usually do; and felt first by the lower quintiles.

Wall Street and Silicon Valley are booming ...

Not quite accurate. It only looks like it because "rising tide lifts all/most boats" and the way the market indexes and passive investment funds work.

Mag Seven now account for 35.4% of S&P 500. That's almost 3x in 2015, when they were 12.3% of SPX - near concentration in financial sector in 2006-7, before 2008 GFC.

62% own stocks. Top 10% own 93% of the value. Top 1% own 50% of the value.

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#9 | Posted by BellRinger at 2025-08-09 12:01 AM
This deal ends 35 years of fighting.

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Something about word "nuclear" is always getting some people all hyper and buggered.

The premise of the article is idiotic - that "This should stop before an arms race, atomic terrorism or even nuclear war results."

"This" being R&D of nuclear energy for peaceful and safe(r) nuclear plants and reactors. As if any of that will result in (new?) "arms race, atomic terrorism or even nuclear war."

On the contrary, the new reactors are designed to be safe from exactly the ills author describes, that previous designs and plants were susceptible to, and move from costly and un-safe LWR into multiple solutions that have nothing to do with "arms race" because they don't depend on "enriched" U-235 or Pu-239.

For example, 30 safe CANDU (Canada Deuterium Uranium) reactors are currently deployed worldwide - 19 in Canada, 4 in Korea, 18 (16-modified) in India, 2 in China, 2 in Romania, etc.

FTA: |------- ... Biden also gave nearly $2 billion to TerraPower, a nuclear energy venture founded by billionaire Bill Gates, for a similar but larger "fast" reactor that also is touted for export. Experts say this inevitably would entail far greater plutonium extraction, even though the company denies any intention to do so. The U.S. Department of Energy also has funded the American branch of Terrestrial Energy, which seeks to build exotic "molten salt" reactors that use liquid rather than solid nuclear fuel. ...
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LFT/thorium MSRs (Malten Salt Reactors) are hardly "exotic" - they burn ALL nuclear fuel, some MSR designs go back 60+ years (one went "live" at Oak Ridge NL, TN in 1965) - and newer U-Pu "fast reactors" designs depend on cheap repurposed fuel that can be "extracted" from spent nuclear rods used in now-predominant LWRs, at the same time helping solve problem of storing the accumulated "nuclear waste."

Author "instead" is pushing for vague "... new reactor types that use tiny particles of coated fuel, which can bolster resistance to both accidents and plutonium extraction" (IOW, he means tristructural isotopic coated-fuel particles / TRISO CFP, which are also safe) ... but fails to mention that they also require processed uranium in UCO or UO2 (or Pu), and that TRISO-based reactors emit l2x-15x of SNF (Spent Nuclear Fuel) per unit of energy produced than a typical LWR. This creates several problems of both pre-processing and post-processing of radioactive materials, not to mention the total cost and radiation safety outside of reactor time, which also reduces the time the fuel can be stored and/or transported.

Different designs have different immediate and lifetime cost structures, and issues of operational and storage/transport safety, emissions, etc., so may need to be balanced depending on environment. But once built (amortized) they can produce immense amount of clean cheap energy.

Some of these companies are public or planning to go public via SPACs... Few, like Oklo (NYSE:OKLO), look like "vaporware" with nothing but slick PR and gov't ties. Be careful if you want to invest in them - remember a slew of "renewable energy" companies that spectacularly went bust.

There have been R&D funded by the US and other governments (Germany, UK et al) on improving all these designs, including bipartisan in the US (see above), so the author pushing the panic button because Trump admin (just like Biden admin before him) chose to fund some R&D outside of his fav solution, using "arms race, atomic terrorism or even nuclear war" rhetoric is nonsensical and plain scaremongering, playing on people's fear of "Nukes!" like use of "depleted uranium" in armor-piercing shells.

Not cool.
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#4 | Posted by oneironaut at 2025-07-28 10:21 AM
How dare they use math. --- #3 math?

Yes, math - algorithms that adapt to variations of supply and demand.

These aren't free market principles. This is no different than a social scoring system. Earning or lising points because government wants you to behave a certain way.

This is EXACTLY "free market principles" - Delta is not the government and can't force you to buy anything, only incentivize you by cheaper prices or upgrades when supply exceeds demand and they have open seats to sell [for marginal profit], or raise prices when seats are in short supply and demand exceeds supply.

|------- If passed, the law would allow anyone to sue companies found unfairly using AI, lawmakers explained in what's called a "one-sheet." That could mean charging customers higher prices - based on "how desperate a customer is for a product and the maximum amount a customer is willing to pay" - or paying employees lower wages - based on "their financial status, personal associations, and demographics."

Hepner pushed lawmakers to support the legislation... suggesting that could help "restore fair, transparent, and predictable pricing." Otherwise, "there is no such thing as a good deal when every consumer is charged a different price"
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Really? What is "a good deal" to him? "One size/price/wage fits all" is a "good deal"?

More [class] lawsuits and/or government interference and regulations based on someone's "perception" of being "gouged" by "predatory" airlines or employers that take into account education, experience (demographics), work history, mental capacity, etc.?

That will only raise costs and, correspondingly, prices for everyone.

|------- Delta denied that its AI system used personalized data for individualized pricing. Instead, it apparently relies on AI to forecast demand for certain flights... factors like... customer demand, and competitive offers that perhaps that customer is known to be weighing also influence the AI's pricing, which lawmakers and critics may be interpreting as individualized pricing.

Delta said: "There is no fare product Delta has ever used, is testing or plans to use that targets customers with individualized offers based on personal information or otherwise. A variety of market forces drive the dynamic pricing model that's been used in the global industry for decades, with new tech simply streamlining this process." -------|

This is just an extension of what Sen. Warren and Bernie Sanders and Ron Wyden tried last year, to blame Kroger and/or other grocers or companies in other industries (like real estate/rent management company RealPage, etc.) that used tech and math ("algorithmic pricing" / "dynamic pricing") for so-called "algorithmic collusion" (aka "hi-tech price fixing") and "gouging" ("corporate greed") while in reality it usually benefits both the consumers and companies, e.g.: