Right, so lets put hundreds of thousands of people out of work to punish those execs".
With respect, I actually didn't say anything about financial help just "lost for words" about the amount of money those execs made!
An infinitesimally small amount of the money spent on stock buy-back went to the execs - over 99% directly benefited the general stockholders. In fact, run of the mill Boeing employees are among the largest stockholders - either through direct ownership or via their 401k accounts.
While the long term wisdom of stock buy-backs are open to debate, there is no question is an effective way to give back to the company stockholders when the company is highly profitable.