Hostile takeovers are brutal, but they are all about efficiency. If he hadn’t done that, the inefficient businesses would have gone under and ALL the jobs would have disappeared. You can count on that.
I’ve been in companies purchased by private equity firms and they get really strict about cost control. In the end, the downsized companies emerge leaner, more profitable, and more competitive and thus more likely to stay in business. Of course, some PE firms raid companies, bleed them dry, and hang them out to dry.
It’s called free enterprise. It’s tough on the receiving end, but you have to learn to adapt.
People in this town take such things VERY personally.
I had relatives who were constantly badmouthing Andrew Carnegie 80 years after he had died.