That’s why I said “many parts” and not “all.” I wouldn’t want to pick up a good number of their practices, but I think a company seeing layoffs as an embarrassing last resort is a positive trait.

I also think that concepts like debt to GDP ratio are somewhat detached from corporate policies.

> I also think that concepts like debt to GDP ratio are somewhat detached from corporate policies.

Corporate policies ultimately decide growth. More growth leads to higher profits and higher tax collected by the Government which in turn means they don't have to borrow more.

Corporate policies can’t make people have babies, decide how much money to spend on public infrastructure, make foreign policy decisions, tell national banks how to lend, etc.

> but I think a company seeing layoffs as an embarrassing last resort is a positive trait.

Don’t most companies think of layoffs as a last resort? I don’t think one ought to be embarrassed about correcting course when you have made a mistake. It takes courage.

“Mistake” implies that it’s not done on purpose.

Corporations in the US don’t have any negative impact when laying people off. They have minimal to zero financial obligations to employees and essentially zero meaningful regulations on the matter.

From the employee perspective the admission of a “mistake” in this regard is not “courage,” it’s an admission of cold-heartedness.

To the company, you are nothing but a purchase order, and your livelihood is meaningless.

Maybe someone would say “of course, it’s a business, that’s logical.” Maybe you would even say “easy to fire, therefore, easy to hire, more innovation.”

I say, we don’t have to run society that way, and it’s not a pleasant way to live. It was a choice.

I say this as someone with personal experience getting laid off twice in a row within the last decade. One time the layoff was in the same month I was hired. That was not fun.

These aren’t “mistakes,” these are companies who treat people like disposable lab rats. My whole team was hired as an experiment and quickly let go when it didn’t work out. The company doesn’t just “make a mistake” and find out they suddenly can’t pay the people they hired that quickly. They knew they were playing us.

How many mistakes does it take to layoff 30% of your work force in a few months (Lucid)?

Embarrassment should always be warranted when you make mistake on a scale where you are laying off a percentage of your work force instead of a couple of people.