SlorgNet said:
This is pure rentier idiocy. Total losses are under 1% of annual sales, far less than many other companies, despite the depth of the recession. Sony doesn't have much debt and has plenty of cash flow, so it doesn't need the extra cash. This notion of giving the money to "shareholders" is a sick joke -- a polite way of saying, forking billions over to a bunch of greedy, self-interested oligarchic scum who don't know a frame-rate from an interest rate, and whose speculative folly screwed up the world-economy so bad, it needed a $4 trillion (and counting) government bailout financed by ordinary taxpayers like you and me. Here's a better idea: instead of financing the yachts and private jets of Wall Street overlords, Sony does what it always does -- spend money on world-class studios, top-tier technology and great games. |
There is just so much wrong or misleading in that post...
1- If you look at the fiscal year, the net loss was 1.3% of revenue. But that includes 3 profitable quarters, in the quarter where they lost money the net loss was 10.8% of revenue:
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/fr/viewer/08q4/slide/image/22_image.jpg
2- Cash flow is negative ($4.3 billion lost in the past year):
http://www.google.com/finance?fstype=ci&q=NYSE:SNE
3- Shareholders are the owners of the company. It very often happens that shareholders receive money. Ever heard of dividends and share buybacks?
4- They have more debt than cash:
http://www.google.com/finance?fstype=bi&q=NYSE:SNE
My Mario Kart Wii friend code: 2707-1866-0957