Ahh the old "shareholders are the only thing that matters" argument. Buybacks and dividends are not equivalent, buybacks are tax advantaged in ways that divide

Ahh the old "shareholders are the only thing that matters" argument. Buybacks and dividends are not equivalent, buybacks are tax advantaged in ways that dividends are not. We've allowed numerous companies to get to a size where they are "too big to fail". They know they are too big to fail, and they get to take advantage of this position. They get to go into near unlimited amounts of debt to finance buybacks to enrich shareholders and C levels, and when times are good this all works out. When the economy enters a downturn and they don't have cash on hand to weather the storm, they know the Fed will be there to bail them out. Something is fundamentally broken here. You can reasonably argue whether it is with the buybacks, or the bailout, but this system is fucked. For more in depth reporting on this, I highly recommend checking out Matt Taibbi. https://taibbi.substack.com/p/resetting-the-bomb https://taibbi.substack.com/p/resetting-the-bomb