Business Insider quotes and cites Lazonick’s INET-funded research on Boeing’s stock buybacks.

“The people who are at the top are there for a reason, which is to maximize shareholder value,” University of Massachusetts economist William Lazonick told me. “It’s so ingrained in their thinking that they don’t understand the problem themselves. It’s built into the structure of these companies.” Simply changing CEOs or hiring more engineers won’t solve Boeing’s problems. The company must rethink its real reason for existence and think about what it should do for society as a company.

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Lazonick’s research shows that from 1998 to 2018, Boeing made $61 billion (56.5 billion euros today) worth of share buybacks to drive up its stock price, and $29.3 billion (27.1 billion euros today) paid out in dividends. During these three decades of plenty for Boeing shareholders, the company’s workforce was encouraged to save pennies.”