Thread by @kurteichenwald

1. If the $22 billion @McDonald's had spent to buy back stock had instead gone to 1.7 mill worker's salaries, they could have been paid $19.94 an hour for the 20 hrs a week they normally are allowed to work, or $13.50 for 40 hours a week.

There is a reason this is important...

@mcdonald 2...start of with this - any business analyst knows, stock buybacks are a sign of bad management. It signals that management cannot think of anything to invest corporate money in other than itself. And of course, investing in itself pumps up prices temporarily, while business...

@mcdonald 3...investments that produce returns are permanent means of boosting stock prices. This is a sign of bad management - and the workers are paying for it.

Making it all the worse, in order to pump up their stock using buybacks, @McDonalds and other companies are shifting their....

@mcdonald @McDonalds 4...expenses onto the federal government. Why? Put simply, people on minimum wage don’t make enough to live. Take one example: according to the Fiscal Times, renting an average place for a minimum-wage worker “became near impossible” as long ago as 33 years.....

@mcdonald @McDonalds 5....If the companies don’t pay enough to their employees to live—but still have to have employees to keep their doors open—what do they do? They depend on your tax dollars to make up the difference between their refusal to meet the minimum employment expenses they would have...

@mcdonald @McDonalds 6...to pay to keep their business in operation and the amount that employees need to survive.

Let me make it even simpler: if an employee needs $10 for basic necessities and is paid $7, then your taxes will be used to supply that employee the other $3. Saying it the other way...

@mcdonald @McDonalds 7... companies reduce their required expenses by $3 by taking the money from you; then they can directly count that $3 as profit. Yes, EVERY dime they avoid goes directly to bottom line. Food stamps cost for McDonald's employees? EVERY dime spent goes to McDonald's profits...

@mcdonald @McDonalds 8...oh, not every dime. Because McDonald's actually runs something called "McResources" which tells employees how to apply for federal money. That's right - McDonald's SPENDS money to tell employees how to take YOUR money, rather than figuring out how to pay a living wage....

@mcdonald @McDonalds 9..Businesses have to earn enough money to pay employees. Companies whose employees don’tearn minimum wage do it, and lots of them have far lower profits than giants like McDonald’s. And the truth is....

@mcdonald @McDonalds 10...there is a name for the type of corporate C.E.O. who argues that his business can’t possibly function without turning over the cost of his workforce to the taxpayers: incompetent.

So, C.E.O.’s with minimum-wage workers: stop stealing our money.....

@mcdonald @McDonalds 11..stop showing your incompetence by engaging in stock buybacks to enrich rich folks and CEO's on the short term while proving you have run out of ideas for the long term.....

@mcdonald @McDonalds 12...Pay your employees a livable wage. And if you don’t know how to make that work, if you feel you must use billions to lure shareholders to sleep through buybacks, I have a suggestion: get out of the executive suite, and let somebody with some business sense take over.