Sir Richard

I don't think Trump was the only one that owned that stock, and $15B is a large number. I'm guessing a lot of average people will be having an above average Christmas. Or Hannukah. Or miscellaneous.

yes buying back stock instead of hiring people or raising wages is real helpful to the average person. wtf?

I guess I don't understand your point, and here's where I'm coming from. In 2017 HD earned $94B on a COGS of $64B, based upon the report from market watch (https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/hd/financials). If we exclude the cost of salaries (since they don't list them) and assume that they have been included in the COGS (not likely, but for ease of discussion), then they made $30B. Of that $30B they paid out an income tax of $5B for one year. Assuming that they've been in business more than 3 years and that their income is flat (both bad assumptions) then this $15B payout is the equivalent of 3 years of taxes...which seems like nothing when compared to the benefit. So, what is that? Well, if the total sales are $100B and we assume a local tax rate of 10%, then local economies collected $10B for potholes and whatever, which helps the average person. Additionally, lets assume a tax rate of 25% for the stock buyback, which nets the gov't almost $4B. The stock buyback then places HD in a better position for growth and (I would assume) expansion, since CEO's and business owners are simply blood-sucking capitalists - so more HD stores = more jobs = more taxes. So, my answer is yes.

Those who don't learn from history… Perhaps the clearest evidence that a tax holiday will finance stock buybacks, not new jobs, is history: This has been done before. https://money.usnews.com/investing/articles/2017-05-08/why-trumps-tax-cut-plan-will-fuel-stock-buybacks-not-jobs

An interesting read, but truly neither of us can say how the market will react - though history is a good starting point for discussion. The only constant in economics is arguments over the future.

That being said, I think that maybe HD was a bad example to use - I think that Apple would have been better. Apple has no incentive to hire Americans or bring jobs back from China (or to even be located in the US, truly), where HD has to have a footprint on US soil. If Apple expands, it will be in China and Chinese will benefit. If HD expands it will be on American soil and Americans will benefit (ignoring all overseas locations).