i think i believe in the effectiveness of the shareholder value revolution a bit more than you! 1/

a corporate’s balance sheet may be in good shape in terms of surviving a profitability rough patch, but share price fluctuations against which managers’ careers are leveraged overweight short-term results, so managers try very hard not to let a long view justify near-term disappointments. 2/

(however good a corporate’s fundamentals may be, recent decade management trends tend to impose continual pressure on management to sustain cash flows. that may or may not show up as overt leverage, debt service being the most straightforward way to demand cash flows.) /fin