Stock buy backs are the largest point of growth for company spending since 2010. American companies spend more on that than R&D. Since it is the only growth the

Stock buy backs are the largest point of growth for company spending since 2010. American companies spend more on that than R&D. Since it is the only growth they want to do, and can't weather a couple weeks of downturn because they spent all their money on stock buy backs, it needs a mechanism to curb that bad behavior and make them able to survive without the government printing trillions to bail them out.