This is not the only issue, obviously, but a huge one.
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Stock buybacks have become the corporate dr-g of choice — a quick hit to boost share prices and make executives look smart. But beneath the glossy numbers lies a hollowing out of real economic strength.
When companies spend billions buying back their own shares, they aren’t investing in new ideas, better wages, or stronger supply chains. They’re engineering an illusion of prosperity — shrinking the share count to inflate earnings per share and trigger executive bonuses. It’s capitalism turned inward, feeding on itself.
Buybacks reward those already at the top — the CEOs, hedge funds, and major shareholders — while leaving workers and the long-term health of the company behind. We saw it clearly when airlines and automakers, after gorging on buybacks, lined up for taxpayer bailouts in crises they helped create.
A healthy economy depends on reinvestment — in innovation, resilience, and people. Buybacks are the opposite: corporate cannibalism dressed up as market confidence. It’s time we called them what they are — not a sign of strength, but of a system too obsessed with stock prices to remember what real growth looks like.
Executives frequently time buybacks to coincide with their stock option exercises, ensuring personal profit.