End Stock Buybacks, Save the Economy?
&gt; The stranglehold of this doctrine of “shareholder-value maximization” over corporate decision making has been a leading cause of ... sagging productivity.<p>lol...maximizing shareholder value is a cause of sagging productivity? Do these people even read their own words before they publish them?<p>This whole &#x27;stock buybacks are evil&#x27; meme is beyond silly. The only difference between dividends and stock buybacks is tax efficiency. So yes, corporations are avoiding some tax burden by doing this, and that may be a bad thing - so change the tax policy. But there&#x27;s no reason to expect stock buybacks are the cause of anything other than a slightly lower tax bill, and, predictably, this article doesn&#x27;t even bother to try to make the actual case otherwise. It just makes a bunch of blanket, baseless and unsupported assertions.<p>It&#x27;s seriously irritating the absolute garbage that gets published in places like the NYT these days. This article doesn&#x27;t even try to make its case. It just pushes a narrative with innuendo and bald assertions. How can something like this possibly get past their editors?