I feel like your statement just moves the goal posts, though. Yes, buybacks are a substitute for dividends, but that doesn't address the broader issue that I'm

I feel like your statement just moves the goal posts, though. Yes, buybacks are a substitute for dividends, but that doesn't address the broader issue that I'm seeing: companies don't have anything productive to do with their profits. Whether it's buybacks or dividends is irrelevant - giving large amounts of money back to shareholders directly isn't what companies with strong growth plans do. We're reaching a point where profits are just getting continuously recycled back into the top 10% of the population instead of being used to expand the economy in more traditional ways.