Originally Posted by loquitur

Poppinjay, read what I wrote. Your response is nonresponsive. None of the examples that you cited cut little people's salaries for the purpose of freeing up money so that they could afford a second yacht. In Dunlap's case, if I recall correctly, he fired people to improve the bottom line of the company, which was in a bad way and would have gone under without the costcutting. That's why he was hired in the first place. You can argue about whether he did it correctly or not (IIRC he also was a felon at Sunbeam), but corporate turnarounds have a long and perfectly respectable history - some are done by consultants and some by execs, but most do involve firing people. Companies that don't shed unneeded payroll tend to go bankrupt, which can lead to EVERYONE losing their job. Or is it your position that firing people is immoral, that companies are supposed to keep unneeded employees no matter what? I'm sure glad you're not running my company.

I'm not familiar with the other two examples you gave. But I doubt anyone fired an employee and used the savings for a yacht. Talk about stupid - a boss would have to be really stupid to do something like that.