I don't think every company can be expected to have the reserves to go through several months of zero revenues without any preparation, especially ultra high ca

I don't think every company can be expected to have the reserves to go through several months of zero revenues without any preparation, especially ultra high capex, low margin firms like airlines or steel mills. At the same time, taking on debt to buy back shares at a high valuation makes companies much more vulnerable than they should be. The implicit assumption of "nothing bad will ever happen to us and everything will stay great forever, so we can take on mountains of leverage" is deeply imprudent. Bad things occasionally happen and airlines are particularly exposed (terrorism, war, outbreaks of vulcanos, oil price shocks etc) Management teams are poorly incentived and many shareholders are greedy in the short term. Ryanair is a nice exception here, low debt, a healthy balance sheet. Maybe because the firm is led by the founder?