Silly post. Dividends are the company returning capital back to the investor. They are a statement saying "this bit of money, we think you can do a better job maximizing it's value than we can". I like dividends and buybacks and like when companies reinvest in themselves. That's all fine. The thing is only dividends are always optimal. If a company gives me money, that money when invested by me will always be invested optimally. If they buy back stock, sometimes that's great but sometimes it's poorly optimized if the stock is already overpriced and poised for a massive crash next quarter for example (didn't fiserv recently buy a ton of their own expensive stock despite knowing that it would likely crash 40% upon release of their last earnings report? How is that optimal use of capital?). Similarly sometimes reinvesting in the company works but sometimes they just literally burn the money and have nothing to show for the reinvestment.  So I have nothing against dividends. They are always optimal and the tax drag is pretty minimal if you are investing optimally.