STOCKBROKERS OR RAPISTS: WHICH ARE MORE NUMEROUS IN HEAVEN?
So let me take a minute to share with you a cold, hard reality about the financial markets, namely the way in which they wildly reward the outsourcing and elimination of jobs.
Winn-Dixie, one of North America's largest supermarket chains, announced today that it is eliminating 10,000+ jobs and closing 156 stores. In the response that is common to such news on Wall Street, the stock was immediately trading as much as 5-7% higher. Similarly, Gateway rose from the dead after closing all 135 of its retail locations (2500+ jobs lost, 1500 more in April) in March. Kraft Foods and Sun Microsystems experienced similar boosts in reaction to job cuts in early 2004. In fact, it's such a well-accepted tenent of the financial markets that pointing out individual examples is almost unnecessary.
This is approximately equal to society gathering on the front lawn of a neighbor and applauding him for evicting his children. "Good job, John, we were waiting to see more fiscally responsible behavior from your household. You've been taking a loss on the costs of your infants for the past 2 years. It was time for you to downsize a little. Here, have a medal. We are glad you see that the more cost-effective solution to parenting is to send your 70 cents per day to a Third World child, where food and benefits cost less."
Far be it from me to lapse into theology, but if there is a hell, it is populated mostly by economists and traders who roast over fires kindled with Klansmen.
