Gutting the Golden Goose

You want to know why layoffs are so common in corporate America?

Why entire departments get wiped out even when companies are raking in record profits?

It’s not a mystery.

It’s a strategy.

And it’s killing us.

Not just the people who lose their jobs, but the towns, the communities, the whole local economy that used to rely on those steady paychecks and strong middle-class roots.

And if companies and policymakers don’t pull their heads out of their spreadsheets, they’re going to keep slicing open golden geese thinking they’ll find a pile of gold inside… and instead, they’ll be left with nothing but entrails.

The Real Reason Layoffs Are So Common

Since the 1980s, corporate America has swallowed a toxic ideology: "maximize shareholder value at any cost."

Thank Milton Friedman for that one.

He wrote in 1970 that the only social responsibility of a business is to increase its profits.

Not employees.

Not customers.

Not the communities or even the country that made them rich.

Just the stock price.

By the early '80s, guys like Jack Welch at GE grabbed that ideology and went nuclear with it.

Welch laid off over 100,000 people, instituted “Rank and Yank” systems (firing the bottom 10% every year), and turned GE from an engineering firm into a financial Frankenstein.

That playbook: slash people, buy back stock, juice the numbers, became the template for modern corporate America.

It’s a system where layoffs aren’t a last resort, they’re the first lever.

They’re baked into the quarterly earnings game.

The Collateral Damage No One Talks About

You hear about layoffs, but what about the cities left behind?

When a plant shuts down or a call center gets offshored, it doesn’t just hurt the employees.

It kneecaps the entire local economy.

Small businesses that served those workers (diners, barbershops, auto repair shops, etc) lose customers.

Schools lose funding.

Local tax revenue evaporates.

That job wasn’t just a paycheck for one person.

It was part of the social infrastructure.

Here’s What Happens When Jobs Leave:

• Property values drop.
• Mental health issues rise: depression, substance abuse, even suicide go up after mass layoffs.
• Crime increases, particularly in towns where young men lose stable employment.
• Future employment becomes harder. Laid-off workers earn less for the rest of their lives.

Offshoring: The Coward’s Way to Cut Costs

Let’s talk about offshore outsourcing, especially customer service.

Some bean counter looks at the labor line on the P&L and thinks, “Why pay $25/hour in Kansas when I can pay $4/hour in the Philippines?”

They don’t care that the American rep knew the product inside out, or that the customer felt heard.

All they care about is the spreadsheet.

So they offshore it, call it “streamlining,” and pat themselves on the back. Meanwhile:

Customer satisfaction tanks.

The brand takes a hit.

And again, a U.S. community loses real jobs.

Offshoring isn't innovation.

It’s avoidance.

It’s trying to win the game by moving the goalposts while pretending it’s "smart strategy."

Buybacks and Bonuses: A Game of Smoke and Mirrors

Let’s zoom out.

From 2010 to 2020, companies in the S&P 500 spent over $5 trillion on stock buybacks.

Not on new factories.

Not on product development.

Not on employee raises.

Just to push their own stock prices up.

And guess who benefits?

Not you.

Not your team.

Executives.

Their comp packages are tied to stock performance.

The more they buy back shares, the richer they get, even if they’ve hollowed out the company to do it.

That’s not capitalism. That’s cannibalism.

What Real Leaders and Lawmakers Can Do

We’re past the point of needing “awareness.” We need action. Here’s how to fix it.

What Companies Can Do:

• Tie executive bonuses to long-term success, not quarterly stock price pops.
• Kill Rank and Yank: it creates fear, not performance.
• Invest in workforce development: training, apprenticeships, mentorship.
• Make layoffs the last option, not the go-to move.
• Stop hoarding cash for buybacks: fund R&D, internal promotion, and customer experience instead.

What Policymakers Must Do:

• Rein in stock buybacks: return to pre-1982 regulation.
• Tax layoffs: companies that offload employees to juice earnings should pay community reparations.
• Fund national short-work programs: keep people employed through downturns.
• Protect unions and collective bargaining: labor has no seat at the table right now.
• Create relocation and re-skilling programs tied to layoffs: don’t let people rot in unemployment lines.

Bottom Line

We’ve got to stop pretending layoffs are inevitable.

They’re not.

They’re chosen.

They’re planned.

They’re incentivized.

And the ripple effects break more than just balance sheets, they break people.

They break towns.

They break trust in the system.

This is what happens when you let suits and yes-men chase short-term gains with no skin in the game.

They gut the business, ship the jobs out, collect the bonuses, and move on.

The real question is: how long are we going to let them keep getting away with it?