Daily Topics - Thursday April 17th, 2014

By shawnt56
Catch The Thom Hartmann Program LIVE 3-6pm ET M-F!!
Join Thom in our chatroom during the program today!
Hour One: Each one of us is a toxic super fund site...
Hour Two: What you need to know about Common Core - Rob Cunningham
Hour Three: Should all billionaires be banned? Peter Schiff, The Peter Schiff Show



Regarding wealth accumulation:
As Thom has pointed out too infrequently, buying/owning stock in a corporation does not benefit the corporation. Except for the IPO, sale of a stock benefits the seller only. Dividends are the equivalent of Count Dracula draining his victim's blood. The stock holder benefits but the company and it's employees do not. I suggest that the in perpetuity pay-out character of a stock be altered to a defined number of years or to a steadily decreasing percentage of the profits. Such a strategy could be used to systematically develop co-ops that distribute the wealth the corporation generates to the people who create it. This would be a way to support/redevelop a middle class and reduce our society's burgeoning inequality. It could also make a lot of people happy and cause the stock market to disappear in its current form. (And a few crooks with it?)