"Mark Cuban says bailed out companies should never be allowed to buy back their stocks ever again"

From CNBC:

• Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban told CNBC that companies that receive federal assistance in response to the coronavirus should be prevented from buying back stock ever again. 
• “Not now. Not a year from now. Not 20 years from now. Not ever,” Cuban said.
• He also said, “Whatever we do in a bailout, make sure that every worker is compensated and treated equally.”

Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban told CNBC on Wednesday that companies that get federal assistance in response to the coronavirus crisis should be prevented from buying back stock ever again.

“No buybacks. Not now. Not a year from now. Not 20 years from now. Not ever,” Cuban said on “Squawk Box.” “Because effectively you’re spending taxpayer money to buyback stock and to me that’s just the wrong way to do that.”

He also said, “Whatever we do in a bailout, make sure that every worker is compensated and treated equally — in that the executives don’t get rewarded extra to stick around because they got nowhere else to go.”

On Tuesday, Cuban first argued that any assistance must be designed to reduce inequality between executives and workers. “If we are going to bail out companies, we need to make sure all employees benefit from a turnaround, not just execs,” Cuban said on Twitter.

Cuban, owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, said he thought any mechanisms of executive compensation — such as equity or repricing existing stock options — should only be allowed if they are offered to all workers. ...MORE

Hard to disagree.
Especially having written this as the introduction to yesterday's "France could nationalize big companies if necessary: finance minister":

In the U.S., for those companies that have been doing stock buybacks and are now begging for bailouts, said bailout's should be borderline punitive.
Boeing wants $50 billion? Fine, here's $50 bil., structured as senior bank debt, 1st liens on everything and senior to everything.
 And warrants. Maybe 10 years for 50.1% of the equity.
Or somesuch.

These big companies have been playing the tax scam of buybacks since the rules were changed in '82 But I actually don't care all that much about Rule 10b-18. It's the tax avoidance that pushes the behavior and would be the most efficient place to effect change.*....

The outro is rather pointed as well.