Companies doing stock buybacks to boost their share price (and executive pay), instead of re-investing the money into their business. As Ben Norton said, this is why Boeing is in such a fucked up place now. Price to earnings ratios that prices stocks at well beyond their worth. People invest more money to prop up the overvalued stock market, causing an even more unreasonable price. People look at stonks-up, assume that it will always go that way, and keep dropping money into it.

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Not to mention that so much of a company's "value" is symbolic shit like their trademark. For instance, Apple's logo is worth over $100 billion, Tesla's is somehow over $70 billion, even though the cars are fucking shit. So much of clothing is just a company slapping a label on the product and the storefront and calling it a day, while subcontracting everything in the design and production.

I'm tempted to put this in badposting, because this is not incredibly new or insightful.

  • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]
    ·
    2 months ago

    I feel you on this post, I wouldn't put it in badposting. It's worth pointing out. Companies that used to make X now make Y (not inherently bad but usually it is in this system) or now they make a shittier version of X. It's just brand name.

    Which, speaking of Tesla and by extension everyone's favorite K-holed asshole, is one of the funniest parts of the twitter buyout. The name change. The brand recognition alone was the real value because the website was shit from a dog. But, being a captain of industry billionaire-tears had to change it to satisfy his adolescent obsession with a letter. Consequences be damned. And the billions lost in that endeavor? Forgettable. It's just more ones and zeroes in the banking cloud. More numbers on screens. So detached from tangible reality they are closer to videogame scores. Definitely adjacent to crypto. So I agree with your sentiment here.

    • Dingus_Khan [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      2 months ago

      Companies that used to make X now make Y (not inherently bad but usually it is in this system) or now they make a shittier version of X.

      Or even better (worse): they still make X nominally, but all their growth comes from over financialized bullshit related to it. Like the airlines or Starbucks making more money from financing than selling their products