their entire function is to serve as a "tax-evading dividend". I fail to see why there is a difference besides on tax revenue for a buyback vs a dividend. Can you expand on why they are so bad? Would you be equally unhappy if an equal amount was spent as a dividend instead of buyback?
Dividends can only be paid from profits, that have already been taxed.
Stock buysbacks can be leveraged, can be financed with debt and you could use them to raid the company.
They also have different effect on stock price - you pay out dividends, and then market reacts. A human being decides if now your company is more valuable.
When you buyback stock, the effect is purely mechanical - sell orders are closed, and the more expensive sell orders now sell the price - price goes up in milliseconds, without any human decisionmaking.
If you paid 1 billion in dividends, it will not raise price as much as spending 1 billion on shate buybacks.
