07-05-2016, 12:05 AM
I’ve climbed the professional ladder reasonably well. We have the trappings of middle-class success – a nice house in a safe, quiet neighborhood; annual holidays; happy, healthy children; money saved for their college years. But it has come at enormous personal cost to me. My stress level has increased dramatically with added responsibilities at work and my health has deteriorated. People who haven’t seen me for years flinch when we meet again and I’ve attended more than one event at which I have overheard someone remarking on how much I’ve aged. I don’t think I can do this for another 25 years. I often dream of leaving my firm for a less demanding position, with you making up any financial deficit with a job – even a modest one – of your own. I’ve asked, and sometimes pleaded, for years with you to get a job, any job. Many of my free hours are spent helping with the house and the kids, and I recognise that traditional gender roles are often oppressive, but that cuts both ways. I would feel less used and alone if you pitched in financially, even a little.
What could be more American than to pop a cold Budweiser, put a hot dog on the grill, slather it with Heinz ketchup, watch the kids chase the Good Humor Ice Cream truck, and maybe catch the latest summer blockbuster? Well, technically, you'd be drinking a beer owned by a Brazilian-Belgian conglomerate, your hot dog may well have come from Smithfield Foods, a Chinese-owned company, the Heinz ketchup partly owned by a Brazilian private equity group, the Good Humor Ice Cream truck part of a British-Dutch conglomerate, and the movie house you visit will likely belong to Dalian Wanda, a Chinese real estate giant that controls more U.S cinema screens than any American company.
The Fourth of July, Brought to You by Belgium, Brazil and China - Bloomberg View
In a note to clients published Thursday, Jonathan Glionna, Barclays' head of US equity strategist research, highlights that the total payout ratio for S&P 500 companies — which includes dividends and share repurchases — has totaled 128% of net income over the last four quarters. Excluding the financial crisis, when net income for S&P 500 companies fell off a cliff, this is a record high based on 40 years of data available to Barclays. And the simplest takeaway is that this implies future returns for the benchmark stock index will be low.
Total stock market payout near a record high - Business Insider
It won't surprise any market-watcher to learn that in the run-up to earnings season, companies tend to lower the bar for top and bottom line performance, thereby giving themselves better odds of exceeding analysts' expectations. However, a new working paper suggests that the sins of omission that occur during the corporate "cheating" season, as it was dubbed by Societe Generale Global Head of Quantitative Strategy Andrew Lapthorne, are far more insidious. Authors Kenneth Froot, Namho Kang, Gideon Ozik, and Ronnie Sadka conclude that managers mislead analysts and shareholders during earnings reports, and that their penchant for massaging expectations downwards may be employed in order to open up a window to buy their stock on the cheap in the near future.
New Study Claims Corporate Executives Intentionally Mislead Investors for Personal Gain - Bloomberg
The suit follows on a survey conducted by Consumer Reports last year, asking meat buyers what they thought they were getting when they picked up a package labeled “natural” at the grocery counter. The majority thought it meant that no growth promoters, such as hormones, had been used; that no antibiotics were administered to the animals; that their feed contained no GMOs; that the animals were free-range; and that no artificial ingredients or colors had been added in processing the meat. The report also found that more than 80 percent of consumers buying “natural” meat products were doing so because they were concerned about overuse of antibiotics and the mistreatment of animals in industrial farming facilities.
The Stomach-Turning Truth Behind Hormel’s “Natural” Pork | New Republic