If we were seeing occasional buybacks obviously tied to company performance, you might have a point.
But realistically we're in a situation where that is not the case, and it's dishonest to make arguments as if it is, or to have a hand-wavy "I guess it's possible it could be bad" throwaway line at the end to dismiss the pretty obvious reality that buybacks are not being used for the purpose you yourself advocate.
But realistically we're in a situation where that is not the case, and it's dishonest to make arguments as if it is, or to have a hand-wavy "I guess it's possible it could be bad" throwaway line at the end to dismiss the pretty obvious reality that buybacks are not being used for the purpose you yourself advocate.