From 2007 through 2016, stock repurchases (especially the buying back of their own shares) by 461 companies listed on the S&P 500 index totaled $4 trillion, an amount equal to 54 percent of their profits. Between 1996 and 2016, the number of publicly listed stocks in the U.S. This has been based on China’s strategic shift to building its own plants replete with the most modern technology – plants that rival and increasingly exceed the quality and productive capacity of those owned and operated by U.S. This simple explanation accounts for elonplay.online capital’s hesitancy to invest in ever more advanced technology where profit rates are ever declining.