For decades, American corporations have sold the lie that stock buybacks and aggressive reinvestment strategies are better for investors than dividends. Yet, while companies overseas consistently return 5-6% in annual dividends, U.S. investors are left with crumbs, often earning less than 2% while executives cash out billions. The system isn’t broken—it’s rigged. Some of America’s biggest companies, from Amazon (AMZN) to Tesla (TSLA), have built empires that refuse to pay investors anything while their executives become some of the richest people in history.
True “Amazon Leadership”
Amazon was one of the early offenders. Jeff Bezos built a global behemoth on the backs of investors who believed in his vision, but despite the company making hundreds of billions, Amazon has never paid a dividend. Instead, it hoards cash, expands endlessly, and ensures that the real winners are insiders who sell stock at the right time. Investors were told they didn’t need dividends because Amazon’s stock price would always rise. That logic worked for a while—until it didn’t. The moment the stock took a hit, those same investors had no cash flow to rely on, just the hope that one day, Amazon would turn its endless reinvestment into actual rewards.
Happens With The Best of Us
Even Tesla is no angel in this regard as it follows the same playbook. As much as we love Elon Musk for making the world a better place with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and his vision for the future, Tesla’s dividend policy is no better than that of Bezos at Amazon. The company pays nothing to shareholders while Musk cashes in billions in stock compensation. Tesla investors are expected to be grateful for their stock holdings, even as they watch Musk’s personal wealth skyrocket without ever seeing a direct return on their investment.
And then there’s Salesforce (CRM), run by Marc Benioff, another tech giant that refuses to share the wealth with shareholders. Like Amazon and Tesla, Salesforce has built an empire through aggressive expansion, acquisitions, and stock buybacks, all while never paying a dividend. Instead, billions go toward executive pay and inflated mergers that often add little long-term value.
Stock buybacks have become the biggest scam in corporate America. Instead of rewarding investors with dividends, companies spend trillions repurchasing their own shares to artificially inflate stock prices. The result? Executives time their sales to cash in, while everyday investors get left holding shares that may or may not appreciate. In 2022 alone, U.S. corporations spent over $1.2 trillion on buybacks. That’s money that could have been paid out as dividends but was instead funneled into stock price manipulation that benefits insiders.
Acquisitions are another way corporations drain investor value. Walgreens (WBA) is now suspending its dividend after burning billions on failed acquisitions like VillageMD, proving that reckless spending takes priority over investor returns. The same story plays out with Microsoft (MSFT), Meta (META), and Google (GOOGL), which have spent billions buying companies that often fail to deliver real results for investors.
Only Americans Stand For This – “Find Another Sucker”
The worst part is that this isn’t how it has to be. In countries like Australia and Switzerland, investors demand high dividends—and they get them. Australian companies routinely pay 4-6% dividend yields, giving shareholders actual cash rather than empty promises of future stock price gains. Swiss companies follow the same model, treating investors as true owners rather than just a source of endless capital. Meanwhile, U.S. investors are conditioned to believe that buybacks and reinvestment are better than dividends, a lie that keeps executive pay high and investor returns low.
So why do Americans stand for it? Because they’ve been brainwashed into thinking this is normal. They’re told that stock appreciation is the only thing that matters, that companies reinvesting all profits is somehow good for them. Meanwhile, investors in other countries get paid actual money while Americans are left hoping their stocks don’t crash.
It’s time for a shift. U.S. investors need to stop feeding the system that enriches executives at their expense. If companies refuse to pay dividends, investors should look elsewhere—to markets that actually value their money. If corporations won’t reward their shareholders, it’s time to start rewarding the ones that do.
For decades, corporate media and Wall Street insiders have pushed the narrative that dividends are outdated, inefficient, and unnecessary, convincing retail investors that buybacks and reinvestment are the superior path. The goal was simple: protect corporate executives and hedge funds who benefit from stock price inflation while denying investors direct returns. Every time a major U.S. company refused to pay dividends, financial analysts lined up to justify it, using phrases like “growth over payouts” and “capital appreciation is the real wealth generator.” Meanwhile, in countries like Australia and Switzerland, dividends remain the norm because their investors refuse to accept financial manipulation over real returns. Americans, however, have been conditioned to believe that simply holding stock is enough—while insiders continue to cash out at their expense.
Favorite Corporate Media Lines Used to Condition People Against Dividends
- “Reinvesting profits is better for long-term growth.”
- “Dividends are for companies that have stopped innovating.”
- “Buybacks create more value for shareholders.”
- “Investors don’t need dividends when they can sell stock anytime.”
- “A strong balance sheet is more important than cash payouts.”
- “Dividends are a tax disadvantage for investors.”
- “Successful companies focus on scaling, not payouts.”
- “High-growth stocks don’t need to pay dividends.”
- “The market rewards reinvestment over direct payouts.”
- “Dividends are for old-school, low-growth industries like utilities and tobacco.”
Time for a DOGE of Wallstreet
It’s time for a DOGE of Wall Street—a true cleanup of corporate greed that has kept dividends low while buybacks and executive pay skyrocket. Investors deserve real returns, not financial manipulation that only benefits insiders. If Australia and Switzerland can deliver 5-6% dividends, there’s no excuse for trillion-dollar U.S. corporations to leave investors with scraps
