Stock buybacks are blatant market manipulation. There is not even the pretense of anything else. The CEOs are making themselves richer at the expense of the com

Stock buybacks are blatant market manipulation. There is not even the pretense of anything else. The CEOs are making themselves richer at the expense of the company and its customers. Companies that have engaged in such activity deserve to go bankrupt. Anything else, like the current bailout, is just feeding criminals more money so they can continue pillaging. Regular people will pay for American oligarchs to get rich while many are unemployed and about to become homeless. Same story as in 2008: fuck the poor (80-90% of America) for the benefit of the < 1% super rich who already fucked the poor at every turn they got and now need a bailout because they are too greedy and therefore irresponsible to run their businesses properly. > "The Commission has recognized that issuer repurchase programs are seldom undertaken with improper intent… any rule in this area must not be overly intrusive." Ah, so the creators of this rule knew it would be abused, were ok with it, and let it happen. The alternative explanation is that they were so stupid they knew nothing about human nature and actually believed the bullshit they wrote: impossible.