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To: harpseal
Re: Layoffs.

I am making basic sense, you're just extrapolating without making any sense. Watch the biz news, whenever a company lays off workers, the stock markets reward them, under the impression that they're improving the bottom line. You can't deny that.

however, the company will lose employee morale and the productivity of the remaining may actually go down (my theory, since I'd consider people to either get so scared that the quality of work suffers or they do anything to improve, but it can go either way).

Saying that if they fire everyone they'll have killer stock prices, is, to put it bluntly, stupid. It's like saying that if a bit of Prozac makes you slightly better, why not down the whole lot?

No, my rant is that the stock markets reward a company for indulging in the tactics you're condemning. And those stock markets are run by folks who own the stocks who, in most cases are ordinary Americans. So, what's the point of blaming a CEO if he's just following the dictates of his shareholders??
377 posted on 08/08/2003 1:06:37 AM PDT by Cronos (Bush 2004 (Reagan waz best, but Dubya's close!))
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To: Cronos
I am making basic sense, you're just extrapolating without making any sense. Watch the biz news, whenever a company lays off workers, the stock markets reward them, under the impression that they're improving the bottom line. You can't deny that.

I will state that often when a company lays off workers the market price for shares of that company goes up to to the perception of cutting costs. However that in no way should be extrapolated to stating the economy is better off withmore unemployed. the stock market rise in share prices is based on presumed productivity increases or better adaptation to a shrinking market.

however, the company will lose employee morale and the productivity of the remaining may actually go down (my theory, since I'd consider people to either get so scared that the quality of work suffers or they do anything to improve, but it can go either way). On this you may be right but then we have an example of the difference between perception (the market's) and reality.

Saying that if they fire everyone they'll have killer stock prices, is, to put it bluntly, stupid. It's like saying that if a bit of Prozac makes you slightly better, why not down the whole lot?

No, my rant is that the stock markets reward a company for indulging in the tactics you're condemning. And those stock markets are run by folks who own the stocks who, in most cases are ordinary Americans. So, what's the point of blaming a CEO if he's just following the dictates of his shareholders??

Now we come to the crux of the matter. First, from your prior post I was presuming you were arguing that it was good for companies tolay off workers and the more unemployed in the USA the better. So naturally I gave what was the logical extrapolation of that argument. A CEO who merely implements actions a market almost always rewards is simply following trends and is doing nothing a reative unsophisticated computer program could do for a an investment of less than the annual salrary of any Fortune 500 CEO. The problem is the longer term improvemnets in stock proce and shareholder value come from going against trends where appropriate.

383 posted on 08/08/2003 5:13:07 AM PDT by harpseal (Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown)
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