@HLGEM @rami I didn't say it was smart or what's best for the business. Shareholders vote and they want what will put maximum cash in their pocket right now, today.
When I started investing in the 1960s, large corporations were often led by CEOs who had worked their way up and knew every aspect of the business. They played a long game. CEO's today are nothing like that. They are hired guns, hired from outside, know little about the business. What they do know and what they are hired for is knowing how to play Wall Street and shareholders to maximize cash in pocket to the shareholders.
Nobody makes long-term investments anymore. Buy stocks and hold them for years like my father did. People hold stocks for ten days. I've flipped stocks recently in as little as ten minutes. It's a whole different world and my knowledge of investing through the 60s, 70s, 80s is useless today.
None of this is good long-term business practice.
@shuttersparks @rami But that is stupid because the stock market is a secondary market and very few stockholders have provided anything of material value to the company Certainly not as much as employees do. Only a fool makes decisions based on what stockholders want. They provide neither money nor resources once the initial offering has been bought.