It has come to my attention that I (along with hundreds of other people) am being laid off because the company I work for cancelled my project - TO APPEASE INVESTORS. Let me say that another way: in order to get people to keep buying stocks in the company I work for, the top executives have decided to publically cancel the huge project that so many of us were pouring our sweat and blood into for the SOLE REASON that it would show investors that they are concerned about the economy and cutting costs to stay afloat, nevermind that the company desperately needed the project to remain competitive and efficient, this has nothing to do with that.
OK, here's an idea. How about firing the CEO and the entire board of executives? Together they make MORE money each year than the ENTIRE PROJECT I was on cost. A handful of men, who are each rich as fuck, would be out of work - instead of hundreds of hard working lower white collar workers. They could all say "fuck it" and just retire in luxury, but we all have to scamper to find work in order to pay the mortgage.
So far this month, over 200,000 American workers have been cut loose from their jobs. For the exact same reasons I did - to boost investor confidence. Microsoft laid of 5,000 consultants, one of whom sat two rows over from me until he got the e-mail that he was being let go. Does anyone really believe that Microsoft needs to cut 5,000 jobs to stay afloat? No, they don't. They could absorb millions of dollars worth of losses annually and still survive. They are doing just fine, recession or no.
So in a "me first" mentality where the investors and bankers reign supreme, everyone suffers in the end. People who are out of work don't spend money like they used to (or at all). This means that all businesses across the board will sell fewer products. When they sell fewer products, they have to make fewer products. When they make fewer products, they purchase fewer resources. When they purchase fewer resources, fewer resources will be mined / harvested / fabricated. Everyone along the way suffers financially from lower sales and they lay off employees to stay afloat, contributing to the problem exponentially.
It's a long train and everyone's getting it up the ass.
Unemployed people don't pay taxes either, instead they ask for unemployment benefits. 15 states will be insolvent within the next 6 months, mine being one of them. That means that they DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH MONEY to pay unemployment benefits, so they have to go to the Federal government for handouts to cover it. The Federal government has already given away, what, 1.6 TRILLION dollars in the past few months - where the hell are they going to get the money?
Oh right - they're borrowing it. From our children's futures. The money itself doesn't actually exist, they are quite literally printing it.
All of this mess started because those same executive-type asshats were playing around with credit, lumping really badly underwritten loans in with really profitable ones so that they could sell them to investors. See, there's that word again: investors. That's right, they are the fucking assrapists that started this whole mess, and here we are, appeasing them by firing people who did nothing but show up to work and do their job.
So again, we're back to the CEOs and donkey-fucking board members of these giant conglomerations who are happily swinging the pink axe of job cuts around - once they get back from their 3 martini lunches or golf meetings.
Here's a fun fact: 90% of the executives of the banks that were the first to reeceive bailout money still have their jobs.
I'm going to repeat that using smaller words in case any of them are reading this, I want to make sure they understand.
Nearly all of the overpaid, cheating, lying, and money-grubbing snakesuckers that run the companies that started this entire financial disaster by lying to and cheating their investors have not been fired for their incompetent self-serving manipulation of the system, which ultimately broke it. THEY. STILL. HAVE. THEIR. JOBS.
And these shitballs make so much money it makes Derek Jeter jealous. Firing ONE of those monkey turds would be the equivalent of laying off 250 REALLY HIGHLY PAID white collar workers, or 500 well paid ones.
But we're sitting here on the chopping block to appease investors. Sounds amazing right?
Not when you stop for a minute and think about who's making the call to cut a company's workforce, again, to make investors happy.
It's the CEO. And the Board of Directors.
Look, I'm no Communist, but this is exactly what's wrong with our model of Capitalism. A small board of douchebags making decisions that clearly only benefit them, and indirectly, I suppose, benefit the company by keeping it in business - with no-one to answer to except these mysterious "investors" that move their money around based on rumor and speculation. Maybe it's because I'm an engineer, but I work with cold, hard facts. There's no room for guesswork in what I do, but these fuckwits base all of their decisions on it.
All of this makes me want to direct a board right at the head of the next uncle-fucker in a suit I see.
