“The corporate cure is always the same—lay off workers,” said one critic. “Stock buybacks and layoffs are joined at the hip. It’s time they were outlawed entirely.”
They were illegal till 1982 (thanks to FDR) then like a lot of shit Regan ruined it and said they were exempt.
As always fuck you Reagan
The 1980s is when the baby boomers discovered the stockmarket but hadn’t learned from the 1920s why some forms of regulation exist and then they just continued that mentality right up to the present.
The last baby boomer turned 21 in 1985 so that tracks.
Boeing, which is currently facing a machinist strike, spent an estimated $68 billion on executive-enriching share repurchases and dividends between 2010 and 2019—spending that critics say refutes the company’s claim that layoffs and inadequate worker compensation are necessary.
We can’t afford to pay our workers a living wage because we’re greedy.