Every year. The speaking portion is almost always free and open to the public and we are able to do that because you come here and you buy your books and you buy your stocks and your greeting cards and we really appreciate it. Our guests will be speaking tonight. The event will be recorded by cspan. Extra special reminder to silence your cell phones. After our guest is done speaking about the book there will be an opportunity to ask questions and we will have mikes available so that your questions can be picked up as well. If you would like to stick around afterwords and get a book signed we can accommodate that. We just ask you first purchased the book downstairs. They are available when you walk into the store at the information desk so tonight we are excited to welcome back to the store h. W. Brands. He is a professor, who holds the senior chair in history. He is New York Times bestselling author of 30 books on us history. If you can keep history that interesting that you can write
Up so you had thought that would be good for i. B. M. That theyre buying back so many shares because this is what you hear on c n b c and bloomberg that its really great for investors if theyre buying back their shares well in fact wall street gurus keep hyping the share buybacks on large shareholder value or return cash to shareholders or some other such thing but here is where i. B. M. Share buybacks did to shareholder value as measured by the stock down forty six percent since two thousand and thirteen so in fact it has not helped investors really long term investors its helped insiders at the company with their Stock Options and it has destroyed the company well share buybacks up until recently was illegal is completely illegal why because its accounting fraud in one way i mean by the. Companies right. Dollar per share in earnings if in fact they start buying back their shares that dollar is divided over less shares and it looks like the companys earning potential in earning power
Was illegal its completely illegal why because its accounting fraud in one way mean by that i mean that if a company is making a dollar per share in earnings if in fact they start buying back their shares the dollar is divided over shares and it looks like the companys earning potential and earning power is higher than it actually is and because so many corporations are involved in so much so much of the stock buyback you have a stock market trading on the top line or by c. And b. C. Reporting seventeen times earnings but if you adjust for a Stock Repurchase Programs and you eliminate the accounting fraud of stock buybacks the market is trading at the highest multiple of earnings ever probably one hundred fifty years probably cost. To forty times earnings those nosebleed levels stocks generally crash number one number two. Putting money into stock buybacks a manager not investing in the company youre not investing in cap ex youre not investing in marketing youre not investing in hiring
Companys earning potential and earning power is higher than it actually is and because so many corporations are involved in so much so much of the stock buyback you have a stock market trading on the top line or by c. And b. C. Reporting seventeen times earnings but if you adjust for a Stock Repurchase Programs and you eliminate the accounting fraud of stock buybacks the market is trading at the highest multiple of earnings ever probably in one hundred fifty years probably closer to forty times earnings at those nosebleed levels stocks generally crash number one number two. Putting money into stock buybacks means youre not investing in the company youre not investing in cap ex youre not investing in marketing youre not investing in hiring people youre not investing in technology so thats a complete waste of money i. And eventually people say you know what i. B. M. Is never going to make any money because theyve blown it all on this legal Stock Repurchase Program or above one of the big
A dozen hostages from Islamic State call us report reveals american aid money is ending up in terrorists. Can find those stories and lots more over on our t. V. Dot com ill be back with headlines again in about an hours time right now though it is. This is the kaiser report on the road with gonzo going to r. T. In december oh its going to rock its going to be awesome i got to check about whats happening and like the big bad news cycle all stacy well you remember in the last episode we kind of talked about monopoly power im going to get to that in a minute but first i want to talk about that notion of Share Buybacks because wall street had talked about where the heck our Share Buybacks in this rotten market so everybody keeps on saying the markets are going to come back once the you know the blackout period for when. Companies are allowed to buy the Share Buybacks happen well thats not happening like the markets are continuing to decline and where the Share Buybacks are they going to he