A truly bizarre trend is having an impact on the economy — wealthy people and corporations have so much money they literally don’t know what to do with it.

A truly bizarre trend is having an impact on the economy — wealthy people and corporations have so much money they literally don’t know what to do with it.

Why it matters: At a time when growing income inequality is fueling voter discontent and underpinning an array of social movements, the top 1% of earners and big companies are holding record levels of unused cash.

The big picture: U.S. companies raked in a record $2.3 trillion in corporate profits last year, while the country’s total wealth increased by $6 trillion to $98.2 trillion (40% of which went to those with wealth over $100,000).

So, where is all the money going? The IMF notes large companies around the world are overwhelmingly and uniformly choosing not to reinvest much of it into their businesses. They’re hoarding it in cash and buying back stock.

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“There are only 2 things that money can do — sit on a balance sheet unused, where it’s just earned income earning an interest rate of zero,” ICI chief economist Sean Collins points out. “Or it makes sense to release it to share buybacks or dividends.”

  • Companies could pay their workers more, but “that would be terrible for the stock market,” says Neil Shearing, chief economist at Capital Economics — half-jokingly.
  • Companies made a record $1.1 trillion in stock buybacks in 2018 and are on track to surpass that number this year. But they still have record cash holdings of close to $3 trillion.

Wealthy households and individuals are pouring money into asset managers, betting on companies that lose $1 billion a year, bonds from little-known Middle Eastern republics, and giving hot Silicon Valley start-ups more venture capital than they can handle.

But even that hasn’t been enough to account for all the new money. The top 1% of U.S. households are holding a record $303.9 billion of cash, a quantum leap from the under $15 billion they held just before the financial crisis.

www.axios.com/money-companies-investors-assets-buybacks-dividends-f0a4d79b-bfa7-4205-9d27-f09b50266307.html

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