$14,000,000,000?

[u/The-Lucky-Investor]

[u/Happy_rich_mane]

Don’t the top 10% of earners own like 85-90% of all equities?

[u/Esmond0 → u/Happy_rich_mane]

Exactly. Yes, it benefits everyone, but those benefits are far from equal.

[u/Herknificent → u/Esmond0]

But they don’t benefit everyone, only people who own stock in the company.

How many of their workers own stock in the company? How many of their workers can afford to invest in the company? This is the point. The stock but backs are given to executives as a lot of their compensation for the year.

[u/UndercoverstoryOG → u/Herknificent]

buy backs aren’t given to executives, buy backs increase the values of existing shares

[u/Herknificent → u/UndercoverstoryOG]

Most top executives are paid in mostly stock. Their cash compensation is usually pretty low. A company I worked for the CEOs salary was 4 million dollars with only $30,000 of it coming in the form of cash. The rest was stock and stock options. During this time the stock price doubled, meaning he got paid twice as much as what was listed.

This also helps him avoid taxes if done correctly.

[u/Royal_Gap8611 → u/Herknificent]

The reason they do this is for taxes. They get taxed at a lower rate when cashing in stock vs payroll. They also get the stocks at a very discounted price many times.

[u/Thanatos_Impulse → u/Royal_Gap8611]

They also get taxed on the difference between the discounted price and the fair market value of the stocks when they get their hands on the stock.

[u/Herknificent → u/Royal_Gap8611]

Good ol’ capital gains.

[u/Decolady67 → u/Herknificent]

Defer taxes, right?

[u/Royal_Gap8611 → u/UndercoverstoryOG]

While the buy backs aren’t given to the executives they get bonuses that are almost always increased significantly when they buy back stock.