I'm as red as they come in economic matters, but I never saw any reason to doubt the frequent assertion that stock buybacks and dividends are functionally the s

I'm as red as they come in economic matters, but I never saw any reason to doubt the frequent assertion that stock buybacks and dividends are functionally the same. Nor do I, in principle, see any problem with paying dividends: it's precisely because nothing grows into heaven. There should come in any company a time where it's grown enough that it doesn't have room to grow as much anymore, and can pay back its investors. Those investors these days will pretty much always reinvest in something else (because they are so rich, actually eating the dividend just isn't feasible). It's just reallocation from a venture which says "I can't grow as much as I used to" to other ventures. (In theory, at least. I do see e.g. the notoriously fabulously capital intensive semiconductor manufacturers paying dividends/doing buybacks at the same time as begging governments for money, which makes me wonder if their actual business is what they say their business is. But never mind). I also had no problem with the related concept that a business should usually have plenty of loans, and should not repay them. As a greedy investor, I think it's great that my company gets most of its money for expansion from the bank, because the bank in theory only demands to be repaid once, and in any case only demands a fixed %, whereas me and my greedy investor colleagues demand more money the more profit the company makes, and demand to be paid in perpetuity. Clearly, I prefer that the company is mostly financed by the comparatively less greedy bank, and only by my rival super-greedy investors as much as it absolutely has to.