I have no confidence that our "monetrocracy" (legalized bribery, money=speech, etc.) will ever do anything ever again to penalize such chintzy corporate nastiness in a substantial manner.

However, all is not lost: one can look at such corporate actions as a financial signal that they are on the path to decline (e.g. IBM). Their next acts will likely comprise of executive bonuses, more layoffs, more employee churn, reduced quality, customer losses, and opportunities for new and interesting companies that are interested in ability instead of financial engineering. Depending on the horizon and personal wealth, this can serve as an opportunity to short such stocks.

Is "plutocracy" the word you're looking for.

I think I meant monetocracy: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Monetocracy , https://votesmart.org/public-statement/1043156/the-super-pac... . I thought I was guilty of a neologism but apparently the term has been in use since 2012 afaict.

eh, it takes a lot more than this to successfully short a stock. layoffs, more debt for buybacks, these long term losing strategies are often bullish for shares in the short term.

This is why I mentioned the time horizon in my original statement. I also mentioned the opportunity for new businesses (startups) that will hopefully blaze new trails while these enterpri-corpses continue down their path of decline.

The layoffs maybe in different occupations like accountant vs an H1B software engineer so it is not likely the could allow a transfer.