From an editorial:
A Republican-controlled Congress leapt at it, passing the Homeland Investment Act, which allowed companies to repatriate some $300 billion in 2005 and pay only 5.25 percent in taxes. As for all of those promised factories and jobs, they did not materialize. Research by three prominent economists, including Kristin Forbes, a former top economic adviser to President George W. Bush, found that between 60 and 92 cents of every dollar brought home found its way into shareholders’ pockets.
And what did shareholders do with that money? They spent, saved or invested it!
Jeebus. Money that gets paid to shareholders doesn\’t just disappear from the economy.
And there\’s absolutely nothing at all that says we actually want investment to be done by currently extant companies anyway. Indeed, we\’d largely rather it wasn\’t. We would prefer that money is returned to shareholders so that they get to decide where it\’s invested, quite possibly in entirely new companies.
Which is sorta what we want, isn\’t it? The creation of vibrant new compaines to drive the economy along?
This is the “tobin” mentality. Every time something happens, the State wants its piece.
Friction needs its grease before it lets anything move, right?
Not quite, Roger. Remember that it is a tenet of leftist ideology that any money not taken in tax is somehow ‘lost’ to the economy.