Do they really? I regularly find 30% cost optimisation potentials in large organisations. It is just easier to fire people than optimise workloads and infrastructure.
On the other side, I haven't seen companies giving extra bonuses when the economy is booming.
I'm sure horse and sparrow economics[0] will start working any day now...
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics Mr. David Stockman has said that supply-side economics was merely a cover for the trickle-down approach to economic policy—what an older and less elegant generation called the horse-and-sparrow theory: "If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows."
sounds like a framing error to me. “Trickle-down” is a term used by critics to reframe the creation of wealth as essentially a zero-sum game. The same Wikipedia article[0] cites Thomas Sowell [1] and I find him more compelling.
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics
1. https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents...
However it turns out that’s not the case. Most of this seems to be profit grabbing while the market expectation is, “economy bad.”
I guess we’ll find out in hindsight.
(I'm sure it's the same with Stock Options, that people just assumed they'd go up, probably why all the memes about Total Comp are all over social media?)
And what memes about Total Comp?
Options and even RSUs only have value if they go up above initial grant or strike price.