Shareholders are scapegoats as well. Just as dividing up CEO compensation among workers would be a drop in the bucket, dividing company profits (or just dividen

Shareholders are scapegoats as well. Just as dividing up CEO compensation among workers would be a drop in the bucket, dividing company profits (or just dividends) amongst them often wouldn't amount to a substantial difference. Shareholders only have made paper profits in the S&P 500 because the governments of the world have decided that debt has to be cheap in order to avoid another liquidity crisis, therefore assets must be relatively expensive. This isn't a wealth transfer, it's price inflation. Warren Buffett may have a bigger dollar valuation to his name today, but he couldn't buy any more stock or real estate with it.