I just finished reading an article in yesterday’s WSJ about how the six largest US banks have issued a record amount of debt so far this year. What has my head spinning is that a law passed after the financial crisis in 2008-2009 requires banks to have a certain percentage of their liabilities in the form of long term debt. Not assets on the balance sheet, like an individual might have a 60-40 stock/bond allocation for diversification purposes. No, this is on the liability side, because regulators thought to avoid fallout from a run on deposits by customers, banks should have some of their funds come from issuing long term debt. How does that help you when they use that debt to fund stock buybacks so their executives like the crook, Jamie Dimon, get stock options worth hundreds of millions because you are borrowing money to buy back stock? This has got to be the stupidest thing I have ever heard. To avoid the damage from some theoretical bank run(which isn’t going to happen with FDIC deposit insurance) you make banks issue long term debt, but you don’t limit the amount of that debt that can go towards levering up your balance sheet by buying back stock. Sheesh!