Traditional conglomerates spent central bank money on share buybacks instead of investment

Evidence

So why invest in such stuff? Instead, they would do something riskless, profitable and stress-free: they used it to buy back their own company’s shares – boosting their company’s share price and, along with it, their own bonuses. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 376

Categorization

• XREF: Share buyback boom is well documented; connects to William Lazonick’s work on buybacks and inequality. — connects to: Stock buybacks are profits diverted from productive reinvestment to wealthy investors — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media: How Wall Street…, 494; Central bankers inadvertently financed capitalism’s own demise — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 388; Activist investors extract existing cash flow rather than create value in target firms — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media: How Wall Street…, 482 (+1 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 376

Broader Connections

• Stock buybacks are profits diverted from productive reinvestment to wealthy investors #expands (0.85) — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 494
• Central bankers inadvertently financed capitalism’s own demise #corroborates (0.72) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 388
• Activist investors extract existing cash flow rather than create value in target firms #corroborates (0.72) — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 482