Can it also be argued that share buy backs mean they didn’t spend that money on staff, research and development, and growth efforts, and definitely didn’t save

Can it also be argued that share buy backs mean they didn’t spend that money on staff, research and development, and growth efforts, and definitely didn’t save it for a rainy day. I don’t what the name for this would be, but it is a weird thing and the only thing that’s coming to mind is this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_sheet_recession https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_sheet_recession It’s different but feels like a class of phenomena the private sector take part in.