New Business Tactic

How to fight off bankruptcy? Good question. Here's some stats from this weeks The Week:

"Although the number of passengers travelling by major airlines has returned to pre-Sept. 11 levels, there are now 200,000 fewer employees to serve them due to intense competition and cost-cutting."

What an idea! When your back is against the wall, cut employees so there will be fewer of them to provide for your customers! But for God's sake don't cut the salaries of the CEO's - they might leave to work somewhere else. So keep those bonuses coming.

It's the K-Mart syndrome. K-Mart was having trouble competing with Wal-Mart, meaning it couldn't attract as many customers. Here in Lykesboro, where the Wal-Mart is right across the highway from the K-Mart, the K-Mart solution was to cut staff, so that trying to check out was a nightmare, especially at Christmastime. The next step of their clever plan was to cut back on stock, on the theory that if you don't spend anything on buying stuff for your customers to buy, you will make a bigger profit for that month. The third step of their clever plan was to - uh - go out of business and close. Which is what happened here in Lykesboro.

My question: do they pay people to make decisions like this?