The Conversation
Readers respond to August 2019 articles on stock buybacks, the return of measles, and DIY coffins.
The Stock-Buyback Swindle
American corporations are spending trillions of dollars to repurchase their own stock, Jerry Useem reported in August. The practice is enriching CEOs—at the expense of everyone else.
I was an institutional investor in the 1980s and ’90s. Share repurchases were a fraud then and they are a fraud now. When companies take cash away from good investment opportunities, it is a sin. When they use debt to finance share repurchases, it is even worse.
American companies would have a bright future if they put money into innovation and research and development, invested in their workforce instead of pushing real wages down, and took responsibility for how their business affects the
