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Comment by stopads | Hacker News Reader

Absolutely. What we are witnessing is people extracting as much money as possible from healthy and unhealthy companies just because they can. This has been going on in the private equity/hedge fund world for decades, buybacks are the mechanism that is now being used on the public markets in similar, unethical ways.

Oracle is betting on not having a future, they are extracting as much money as possible from the vehicle before it goes off a cliff.

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Based on what I know about Oracle's software quality to customer inertia ratio, they're probably betting right. I wonder if the future is as legitimately bleak for all of the other buyback companies.

Take a look at balance sheets. Price to Book ratio has been growing on major company names. Book value is the equity remaining after assets - liabilities. Assets are dwindling/remaining constant and liabilities are growing due to debt funded buybacks. There will be no equity left many big names in the public markets due to the debt load.

It’s all a big wealth transfer game. The entire world is along for the ride hooked on index funds owning enormous stakes in these large companies and will be left with the bag in any downturn. No downturn can ever happen now and everyone knows it, especially the Fed. The current system can never correct otherwise it would implode. CEOs are exploiting this fact to full potential and will be gone/dead before any consequences arise.

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