Intel Brags of $152B in Stock Buybacks. Why Does It Need an $8B Subsidy?

Re:Intel Brags of $152B in Stock Buybacks. Why Does It Need ... by bryanlarsen on Thursday March 28, 2024 @08:05AM (#39850174)

Businesses have always been for putting food on the table of their proprietors. We've got a few more levels of abstraction now, but the fundamental is the same.

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Re:Intel Brags of $152B in Stock Buybacks. Why Does It Need ... by danbruc on Thursday March 28, 2024 @11:33AM (#39852804)

Why does anyone work? Because they need or desire certain goods and services. They entire idea of a business falls flat if it does not produce stuff people want. It is of course true that from the perspective of the business owner running the business is how they work, how they get the stuff they want by making money to buy things, but putting the emphasize on that seems wrong to me, after all you can run a business without trying to make as much profit as possible but you can not run a business that produces nothing.

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Re:Intel Brags of $152B in Stock Buybacks. Why Does It Need ... by ToValueFunfetti on Thursday March 28, 2024 @01:19PM (#39854635)

>you can run a business without trying to make as much profit as possible but you can not run a business that produces nothing

This is not an even comparison. A business that produces the minimum amount (0) of product/service should be compared against a business that produces the minimum amount (-$assets) of profit, which corresponds to 0 revenue. Neither business can be run, but the former can at least sit on its assets or pivot into actually making something.

A business can also produce too much and collapse (see Atari and DeLorean), but it can't collapse from too much profit.

It makes more sense to put the emphasis on profit, I think.

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Re:Intel Brags of $152B in Stock Buybacks. Why Does It Need ... by jorvi on Thursday March 28, 2024 @02:01PM (#39855202)

You can run a business with negative profit (say, to capture market share or using a loss leader), but you can’t run a business with negative production.

Production is essential to a business and profit is not, strange as that may seem.

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Re:Intel Brags of $152B in Stock Buybacks. Why Does It Need ... by ToValueFunfetti on Thursday March 28, 2024 @02:59PM (#39855948)

What does negative production mean to you here? I can run an incineration business or a demolition derby, as long as I get paid to do so. If that doesn't count as negative production (because I'm producing space or entertainment value; potentially at a loss to acquire market share), what does? If negative production is a physical impossibility, the claim that you can't run a business with it doesn't tell us anything about business.

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Re:Intel Brags of $152B in Stock Buybacks. Why Does It Need ... by danbruc on Thursday March 28, 2024 @05:36PM (#39857621)

This is not an even comparison.

This was not intended to be one or at best in the following sense. Making products and making profits are two features of businesses, the first one is essential, the second one is dispensable. No products, no business. No profits, no problem. Even more, no profits is where every business would ideally be, in a functioning market competition should drive the margins towards zero, the price should be equal to the costs of production.

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