Over at Bloomberg View, Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University, says he is no fan of the current plan but concerns about corporate investment are overblown:

“When all variables are measured properly, it seems major companies are paying out to shareholders about 22 percent of their net income. It’s therefore unlikely that new profit, as might follow from lower corporate tax rates, will simply be drained out of the corporation. “More generally, sending money back to investors doesn’t have to mean no new investment. What if those investors take the money and put it in a venture capital fund or invest it in some other manner? The whole point of capital markets is to recycle resources into the most profitable new opportunities, and that may or may not involve the companies that initially earned those profits.”

The main point of Mr. Cowen’s column: “If those funds are not taken out of the financial system and used to fund consumption, the real quantity of investment in the economy should rise.”

Tech drove earnings growth in the third quarter

With 95 percent of S&P 500 companies having reported third-quarter results, earnings are on pace to grow 6.2 percent from a year earlier, according to FactSet. That’s up from the 3.1 percent growth rate expected at the end of period.

Technology companies drove much of the growth. The sector reported a 19.7 percent increase in earnings and was the biggest contributor to earnings growth rate. If the tech sector was excluded, the overall growth rate would fall to 2.8 percent from 6.2 percent.

Here are some more takeaways from earnings season:

• Profits at companies that generate more that 50 percent of their sales outside the United States, grew more than 13 percent in the third quarter. Earnings at firms that get a majority of their revenue from within the U.S., rose only 2.3 percent.