Circus of Finance Events
Pilot Session I
Extractive wealth & Concentrated Power
Rockweed, 156 High St in Belfast on Fridays from 4-6:00 pm: 3/15/24-4/5/24
The session began in personal storytelling and introductions, followed by an exercise of adding questions to index cards they hoped to address. “How is it ‘growth’ is unrelated to prosperity for most Americans?” Through review of questions, the group narrowed the focus to study of private equity, looking at case-studies with a regional focus: the effect of Private Equity, a.k.a., leveraged buyouts on nursing homes and water in Maine.
Session I summary
As a group, participants reviewed the basics of private equity and came away puzzled over why an existing owner would agree to the terms of a private equity transaction, after reading and discussion of a landmark case study in Mother Jones. In the resulting theater sketch, participants turned to role play, imagining the decision as a dangerous high-wire act.
Pilot Session II
Majority shareholders & Share buybacks
We reviewed the stock exchange and looked at the impact of decisions by majority shareholders as well as the effects of share buybacks
“…payments to shareholders — share buybacks and dividends — have exploded. This comes at the expense of worker pay and benefits, investment in research and development, or more capacity that would sustain and create future jobs. In 1981, before SEC deregulation enabled stock buybacks on a large scale, S&P 500 companies spent approximately two percent of their profits on buybacks, by 2017, it was 59 percent.” Lisa Donner, Executive Director, Americans for Financial Reform