corruption
it's not surprising that people who generally speaking think companies should invest in workers and the productive economy object to the practice. After all, the buybacks—sometimes paid for by laying off workers—temporarily prop up stock prices, which in turn often inflates the bonuses of the executives who decided to buy back the stock. at makes it a pretty direct way of taking from the 99 percent to give to the 1 percent. Of course Robert Reich objects; of course I do.

It’s a symptom of a deeper problem, which is a lack of investment in the long term,” said William W. orge, a Harvard Business School professor and former chief executive of Medtronic, a medical technology company. If we’re not investing in research, innovation and entrepreneurship, we’re going to be a slow-growth country for a decade.

Not only is it bad for the national economy, it's not working for the companies doing it. For instance, Zimmer Holdings, a medical device maker, has cut jobs, bought back stock and seen its stock prices suffer.

Matthew Dodds, an analyst with Citigroup, said, “Zimmer has shown little appetite for acquisitions or diversification, yet they don’t sport a pipeline that can drive investor interest.

Its executives made out like bandits on their bonuses, though, so "Zimmer is on track to repurchase $1 billion worth of its shares this year, double last year’s pace, and it actually borrowed money last quarter to achieve its goal.

It's like the holy grail of awful corporate behavior: lay off workers to enrich executives while damaging the long-term economic prospects of your company and the national economy. So naturally, expect to see the practice continue to flourish.