This is another story that’s been drowned out by Roberts and Rove. Or perhaps we’re all just used to this sort of thing by now.
Last week, Hewlett-Packard announced that it was planning to lay off 14,500 employees, or 10% of its workforce, over the next 18 months. This is on top of 17,800 layoffs in the wake of HP’s failed merger with Compag. Meanwhile, in case you missed it, former HP CEO Carly Fiorina walked away with about $51.5 million.
HP’s current CEO, Mark Hurd, said that workforce “reductions will be achieved through involuntary actions”. Nice, eh? I’m a capitalist in the classical liberal mold, but it’s hard to defend capitalism when, as in this case, it is so blatantly obscene.
(Can you imagine if Donald Trump had ended each episode of The Apprentice with “Your reduction is being achieved through an involuntary action”? Doesn’t exactly have that “You’re fired!” ring to it.)