This seems like one of the core problems to me. I don't necessarily think that companies should be banned from ever doing stack buybacks when they have suffici

This seems like one of the core problems to me. I don't necessarily think that companies should be banned from ever doing stack buybacks when they have sufficient cash (for some definition of sufficient), but allowing companies to take on debt to do stock buybacks seems asinine, both on the part of the company doing the buyback, and the creditor lending them the money to do it. Any company doing so should be the last one to receive a public bailout; so maybe regulations should be targeted to industries deemed too critical to fail, such as airlines.