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They've already laid off 26,000 people in recent months - after spending almost all of its available cash on stock buybacks over the prior decade.

Src: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/28/investing/boeing-job-cuts...

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There's nothing wrong with buybacks, they're tax-friendly dividends. They shouldn't be shamed for returning value to shareholders which it seems you're implying.

What should be shamed is a tax code that differentiates dividends and buybacks.

I mean, they very much should be shamed for that when viewed in context with the rest of their awful management.

In a vacuum, sure, it's not a bad thing to return profits to shareholders, but that's only like 1/10th of the story here.

Alright. Then any company that participates in share buyback obviously shouldn't get any stimulus money, then right? Because if they have that much cash on hand, they should give it to shareholders instead of investing in the company or saving it for lean times.

Correct, the government should generally not hand out stimulus as free money. Forcing the company to issue new stock and sell it to the government at market rate achieves all of the positive effects of stimulus, while also eliminating the perverse incentive to operate with no safety margin in the hopes of a bailout.

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