8 ms·
Families will get torn apart, people with health issues will be on their own, immigrants will get booted. C-suite will get a raise from the stock price bump.
by whatever1 4y ago
Families will get torn apart, people with health issues will be on their own, immigrants will get booted.
C-suite will get a raise from the stock price bump.
Congrats on our system.
- jarym 4y agoThe Federal Reserve wants to tame inflation by cooling the economy. I don't believe that historically that has ever been achieved without causing unemployment to rise. These large companies are ultimately doing what the Fed wants them to do, no point blaming the c-suite for that?
- malcolmgreaves 4y agoThey could all take massive pay cuts to preserve jobs. They have agency and they have chosen to enrich their stock price at the expense of people’s lives and well being.
- shiftingleft 4y agoMicrosoft net income 2022: ~$70B. Why force pay cuts or fire workers when you have roughly $300k of net income per employee to work with?
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y agoWhy make a profit when you can pay your employees >100% of your revenue and just go into debt instead? It's not how business works. You hire people if you need people, and you pay them the least you can get away with, so you maximize profits - because long ago, you raised money with the promise to the people you raised the money from that you would do this, and you have a Fiduciary obligation to do so...
- coldpie 4y ago> you pay them the least you can get away with, so you maximize profits We agree then that employees should put in the least amount of work that they can get away with, right? Fair's fair.
- ckdarby 4y agoThat is what a lot of employees do. That is why these layoffs are probably happening, cutting 5% could have been done by freezing hiring and performance evals. They're particular individuals who will take a stance like what you're outlining and sit in a limbo state outside of performance firing them. They bring down team moral, high performing employees feel cheated, etc.
- coldpie 4y agoI think it would be more accurate to say it exposes to the high performers that they are being cheated. Those employees are donating their time & effort to the company so that their bosses can drive fancy cars, fund yacht racing teams, take tourist trips to LEO, buy social media companies to use as toys, and pay off politicians to keep those same employees desperate. The owners want employees fighting amongst themselves for scraps because it keeps them distracted from their real enemy.
- roflyear 4y agoLots of companies do take no profit and pay out entirely to their employees, and there are some famous examples of that.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y agoLots of co-ops and private companies... Please show me one public company that has said - sorry shareholders - we're returning 100%+ of profits to our employees forever.
- skinnymuch 4y ago
- w0m 4y agoThe argument would be sustainability I believe.
- skinnymuch 4y agoMicrosoft will survive even if they never fire another person for years.
- coldpie 4y agoMicrosoft spending $70B in cash this year is proof of that, in case anyone reading doubts the above statement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_acquisition_of_Activision_Blizzard_by_Microsoft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_acquisition_of_Activi...
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y agoContrary to popular belief, at a company the size of MSFT - the execs could drop all their wages to $0 - and it would not be able to save 5% of the workforce from getting fired. The execs get paid a lot - but there's not that many of them, and there's 200k people at MSFT making an average salary (with benefits) >$200k. That's >$40B per year. The execs don't take home >$2B per year. Satya made <$60M last year. There's not 35 execs at MSFT making the same amount of money or higher. There's 18 others, and they make a lot less money on average.
- culi 4y agoIf all 10k of these workers get paid an average of $150k, Satya's salary alone would cover 4% of them. I find it hard to believe you couldn't save 5% Do you have any actual numbers on the number of execs vs workers and their salaries?
- mrandish 4y agoI just saw a headline yesterday based on a new study which said the average U.S. CEO's compensation is 399 times the average employee. So there's your number. A CEO taking zero would cover less than 400 employees. Also, keep in mind the vast majority of Satya's compensation is in long-term vesting stock options which can become worthless if the stock is lower in four years than it is this year. Also, due to how capital gains taxes work, Satya is going to hold his vested options for at least another year after they vest. Plus, every sale of the company's stock by a key executive is immediately reported to the SEC and publicly available on the SEC and company's websites. Wall street watches this like a hawk. If any key exec unloads more than a few percent of their entire holdings at any one time, it will hurt the stock price pretty substantially. Effectively, it makes it so the CEO can't sell a lot their stock at once while they are CEO. The big numbers you see for CEO compensation for this year are largely stock options that were granted years prior which vested this year. Almost all of Satya's compensation is performance-based instead of guaranteed. The company he leads must deliver sustained profitable growth over the long-term for his comp to be worth a lot. The fact it's worth a lot this year is almost entirely due to him already delivering on his commitments to shareholders in the past. Keep in mind that the average public company CEO is in the CEO job less than five years. Satya is in the minority that is succeeding. Due to the high visibility of the CEO role, the majority who don't succeed have a high likelihood of never earning significant compensation again.
- unity1001 4y ago> The Federal Reserve wants to reduce wages by cooling the economy There. Corrected. https://mronline.org/2022/05/26/u-s-federal-reserve-says-its-goal-is-to-get-wages-down/ https://mronline.org/2022/05/26/u-s-federal-reserve-says-its...
- whatever1 4y agoHow did the Fed force the companies to over-hire?
- kyrra 4y agoSee the Fed's own theory on this topic: https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/money_12856.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/money_12856.htm > For example, when interest rates go down, it becomes cheaper to borrow, so households are more willing to buy goods and services, and businesses are in a better position to purchase items to expand their businesses, such as property and equipment. Businesses can also hire more workers, influencing employment. And the stronger demand for goods and services may push wages and other costs higher, influencing inflation.
- mattnewton 4y agoMy layman’s understanding is that near zero interest rates make borrowing nearly free and so investments like lots of headcount are rational. The companies don’t have to be doing the borrowing directly (though some do), they can simply benefit from investors willing to tolerate more risk since they have fewer “safe returns” as options, or more income from consumers who are willing to spend at low interest rates.
- notch656c 4y agoBy lowering interest rates to the point people chased ever more expansive and risky investments. If all your competition is getting free money you as a business must generally take it too or extinguish to your over-capitalized competition. People also have more loose money which means if you can't up your production your customers will find alternatives and your business will dry up.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mikojan 4y agoInflation has been attributed to rising profit margins[0]. Surely, you can take a jab at those who profitted at every step. [0]: https://www.epi.org/blog/inflation-minimum-wages-and-profits-protecting-low-wage-workers-from-inflation-means-raising-the-minimum-wage/ https://www.epi.org/blog/inflation-minimum-wages-and-profits...
- hnfong 4y agoWorse, they're actually sort of using unemployment rate as a benchmark on when the economy has cooled down and when to stop raising the rates. eg. https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/10/12/does-the-fed-want-you-to-lose-your-job-its-complicated/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/10/12/does-the-f... It's politically incorrect to say the Fed is trying to make x% people lose their jobs but that's basically what they're scheming for the past year or so...
- MSFT_Edging 4y agoIts politically incorrect because you're not supposed to say the quiet part out loud. Our system relies on the fear of the bottom. Capital is in charge, they require the threat of destitution in order to continue to get away with their continued extraction. When wages go up, more power is vested in the worker which isn't okay by the folks at the top.
- Ancalagon 4y agoI didn't used to believe this but its actually true.
- rcme 4y agoPeople with health issues should still be able to purchase their existing insurance through COBRA, and, once that expires, through the public exchanges that are guaranteed to cover their existing condition. Thanks ACA.
- chimeracoder 4y ago> once that expires, through the public exchanges that are guaranteed to cover their existing condition. Thanks ACA. The ACA just states that insurers can't refuse a customer who wants to purchase a plan just because they have a preexisting condition. It doesn't actually require that the plan cover treatment for said condition. In many states - including wealthier deep blue states - the marketplace plan options are actually quite terrible.
- rcme 4y agoThe HHS disagrees with you: https://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/about-the-aca/pre-existing-conditions/index.html https://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/about-the-aca/pre-existing-co... > Health insurers can no longer charge more or deny coverage to you or your child because of a pre-existing health condition like asthma, diabetes, or cancer, as well as pregnancy. They cannot limit benefits for that condition either. Once you have insurance, they can't refuse to cover treatment for your pre-existing condition.
- notch656c 4y agoDoesn't this create a huge incentive for people to buy rolling "temporary" insurance plans which can consider pre-existing conditions, and then switch to subsidizing off the healthy once they actually get a condition and buy the regular ACA plans?
- rcme 4y agoYou can only switch plans during the open enrollment window or in cases of specific life events. You can't arbitrarily change plans whenever you want.
- monero-xmr 4y agoAh yes, the “let’s force companies to become unprofitable” theory. I think Venezuela and Argentina are good places for you.
- whatever1 4y agoCompanies have externalities (environmental, societal etc) from their operations, and someone pays for them. You can close your eyes and cheer about profitability, but the bill is coming anyway.
- yokoprime 4y agoPlenty of profitable companies in Europe. It might be easier to become profitable in the US since you have less of a safety net, but that's a price US voters are willing to pay. Pointing to corrupt developing countries whenever socialized healthcare is brought up is disingenuous.
- mardifoufs 4y agoDo you think european corporations don't do mass layoffs? What is this completely false view of europe so many seem to have?
- Apocryphon 4y agoPeople at the risk of suddenly losing their health insurance start to envy countries where that doesn’t happen
- listless 4y agoI understand the frustration here. But the same system that takes away so much also gives so very very much. There is no system that is only upside.
- leet_thow 4y ago[flagged]
- refurb 4y agoI mean you could change the laws so that you get a job for life. Of course the countries with those laws have never created a company like MS in the first place, so..
- skinnymuch 4y agoAmerican companies/privilege benefit from the US being the hegemonic imperialist power of the world while screwing over the Global South. Domestic America has arguably never created a company like MS either.
- Apocryphon 4y agoEven without such laws, doesn’t the corporate culture in Japan foster jobs for life, and they have plenty of megacorps akin to Microsoft?
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y agoWhew, are you for lifetime employment? Look what that did to Japan. >>people with health issues will be on their own Maybe the US sorts this sheet out, really about time
- geodel 4y agoYes, the other system is so much better.
- dehrmann 4y agoThese sound like problems for government to solve.