| Similarly fair point. I think there's a wide regulatory spectrum available between "ban something outright" and "completely lassiez-faire noninterventionist approach". For stock buybacks, that spectrum includes (and I don't have a specific pitch or favorite in this non-exhaustive, non-mutually-exclusive list): - Requiring federal approval before a buyback event in excess of a certain value or capitalization percentage, similar to the way that mergers can be curtailed by regulators. - Restricting the volume of buyback activity per year/quarter. - Imposing different taxation behavior triggered by buybacks or as a percentage of buyback value. - Giving the government preferential purchase opportunities in the event of a buyback for large companies (I.e. "you can buy back 10% of your capitalization, but the government reserves the right to instead purchase half of that--5% of your capitalization--at the buyback rate"), under the rationalization that, if you're huge and doing well enough for a buyback event, then you're doing well enough that the public interest should have influence over your business's future. Previous HN discussions of this topic, selected non-rigorously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22616197 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21762582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20664553 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22606733 |