There are many gauges of the depth and breadth of economic inequality, and they often measure what middle-income working people have today against what they had prior to 1980 ā that time when homes were affordable, along with doctor visits and college educations. Yet few of the astonishing charts and metrics that have captured this widening gulf explain how it all came about. So when economist William Lazonick pointed a finger at a very specific aspect of corporate behavior, people took note.
In a September 2014 Harvard Business Review article, Lazonick, a University of Massachusetts at Lowell professor, declared that much of the trouble began when corporate America decided to stop funding research and development (which introduces new products, expands the manufacturing base and creates more jobs), and instead concentrate its efforts towards increasing profits through stock buy-back schemes.
[For more of this story, written by Gary Cohn, go to http://billmoyers.com/2015/02/...ty-corporate-secret/]
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