Misery loves companies

If I ask you what these companies have in common... Mattel, Bank of America, Nortel, Sun Microsystems, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, Wachovia, Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, DHL, BT Telcom. ...you would probably have no trouble guessing that they've all announced layoffs. Citigroup leads the pack, having announced Monday it will trim more than 53,000 jobs. Citigroup Chairman Win Bischoff says it would be irresponsible not to look at staffing in a prolonged slowdown and said "many of us, perhaps injudiciously...added a lot of people over...this very benign period." I don't know what Bischoff's first language is but for a seven-figure corporate CEO he doesn't speak English very well. He didn't "look at staffing," he cut 53,000 jobs. Adding a lot of people wasn't "perhaps" injudicious, it WAS injudicious, and a better word than injudicious would be foolish. And the period he refers to was not benign, it was malignant. If the Associated Press quotes are accurate, and if he thinks the way he speaks, this is not a precise thinker. Most of the other companies cutting jobs have had the good taste to sound more regretful about it, but cuts are cuts, and the cumulative effect will be viral -- calamity, concern and caution spread in all directions, curbing consumer spending at the most important time of the year for retailers. This is the point at which the lack of precision thinking of Wall Street banks and investment firms causes a broader recession. More companies will cut staff. Some will consider taking out loans to maintain current payrolls until better times, but so far the main recipients of bailout money are NOT lending more, even though that's what the money was for and they know it, so basically some of the same companies that caused this mess are now making it worse. What are they trying to do, cause a resurgence of socialism? Regardless of what they may be TRYING to do, what they are, in fact, doing, unwittingly, is teaching Americans two important lessons: (1) Unlike the nation's many excellent community banks, the megabanks and investment houses do not actually possess the collective competence on which their reputations rest. (2) Unlike the nation's many excellent community banks, the megabanks and investment houses do not actually work for their customers in order to produce results for their shareholders. They work against the interests of their customers to benefit their shareholders.