https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-sec-rule-that-destroyed-the-universe

“This breaks a taboo of nearly forty years, during which politicians in both parties mostly kept silent about a form of legalized embezzlement and stock manipulation, greased by an obscure 1982 rule implemented by Ronald Reagan’s S.E.C., that devoured trillions of national wealth.

The mechanics of buybacks are simple. Companies buy their own stock and retire the shares, increasing the value of shares remaining in circulation. This translates into instant windfalls for shareholders and executives that approve the purchases. That this should be proscribed as market manipulation, and additionally offers a clear path to insider trading – former SEC chief Rob Jackson found corporate insiders were five times as likely to sell stock after a share repurchase was announced – is just one problem.”

…

“Again, when companies buy up their own stock, they’re artificially boosting the value of the remaining shares. The rule passed by Shad’s S.E.C. in 1982 not only didn’t define this as illegal, it laid out a series of easily-met conditions under which companies that engaged in such buybacks were free of liability. Specifically, if buybacks constituted less than 25% of average daily trading volume, they fell within the “safe harbor.”