With this third round of layoffs at Wayfair, I feel that American capitalism may not hold its edge over other systems in the longer term, primarily because CEO greed and stock buybacks have caused decades of underinvestment in what really matters long-term, thus lowering long-term growth. Boeing and its faulty planes are an example. Intel's inability to manufacture Foxconn-level chips in the US is another. GM's and Tesla's inability to produce reliable vehicles. Equifax and its data breaches. Banks such as Lehman, SVB, and various others keep failing. It's only a matter of time before the likes of Twitter and Wayfair fail. The argument in favor of RTO was that remote workers are not productive. Guess what, repeatedly laying off and hiring workers is also bad for productivity. Each round of layoffs and hiring produces more tech debt, and more time is needed for onboarding. Documentation gets poorer and poorer as everyone is busy producing documentation that is impressive to higher-ups and not one that has technical details. And then, of course, the Federal Reserve, aka, the money printing machine. When equilibrium interest rates were around 3%, they kept printing money (by buying mortgage bonds) to push them close to 0% to stimulate growth and preserve the velocity of money, but that made the system inherently corrupt and unfair, also due to bailouts. C-level executives and consultants of public companies such as Wayfair that took massive debt paid themselves handsomely. When interest rates rose, these companies ended up under so much pressure to preserve cash that they started laying off those at the bottom while continuing to believe that they themselves deserved those obscene salaries. Not a single Wayfair C-suite has been laid off in spite of more than half of the firm having been laid off over the last 2 years, either in one of the 3 rounds or via attrition due to toxic workplace or natural attrition plus hiring freeze. Western governments are so dumb that they hire McKinsey/BCG to solve climate change. McKinsey used insider information on FDA to help clients manipulate FDA on opioids, check out John Oliver's video on McKinsey. Due to the involvement of these managements consultants at the highest levels, Western governments are quite incapable of breaking obvious monopolies such as Google or Disney, forget algorithmic monopolies or those that limit market access (Apple). Not only is the population of Western countries going down because people can't afford children, but the life expectancy of the US has also been going down every year lately. Wayfair relies so much on these consulting firms that it doesn't even have coding interviews. It literally does case interviews like a consulting firm. We might as well all go to the office wearing a suit and focus more on polishing communication skills than doing any actual work. End of rant.
What other systems do you see overtaking it?
One where capitalism and free market exist for real, and where money printing for friends is not the norm. And one where antitrust works.
Where will this system be allowed to sprout forth? Not many governments are itching to have less power, and the things you don’t like are sustained by international forces much bigger than any one country at this point.
I mean… I think you said it right and you don’t even realize… what you describe is only partially capitalism
Agreed, OP is making points for capitalism and doesn’t understand it. If wayfair fails to innovate or retain talent or grow, like every other business, over the long term they are less likely to survive. Buybacks are a way for companies to become more efficient. Is Apple a dumb company for doing buybacks?Government subsidized funding (which Boeing and specific companies get) in its nature is anti-capitalistic. In the long run, this can make a company less competitive in the international market economy
this retard thinks john oliver is smart 🫵😹
Joke's on you as I didn't mention IQ anywhere, just greed and the destruction it has caused.
We don't have capatilism. It's socialism for companies and feudalism for us workers. If it were true capitalism, there would never have been bailouts. And there wouldn't be things like stock buybacks (which was illegal until 1982). What the greedy fuckers want is a total return to Feudalism. I'm frightened at the decline in home ownership. Especially in Europe. But then again, they still cling to Monarchies despite all of history showing that it's the bane of human existence.
I totally agree that paying more than 400k (total) to a CEO is a total f-king waisted of money. Boars members are worthless sacks of dirt than don't do anything for their tens/hundreds of millions. Congress should enact a max salary and max lifetime earnings laws on the wealthy, especially these business twits that take over well oiled/proftable companies and do nothing during their tenure except pass GO 10 times and collect 100 million dollars that could have been better spent on pretty much anything else. Companies should re-invest that money instead of giving it to a nitwit. Only people that build suit with their own bear hands and sweat (private owners and workers) should be allowed to exceed the Mac salary and lifetime earnings cap that should cap board member and VP/director pay.
True. I have seen Engineering teams run by MBAs or people who cannot undertand shit and switched to people management to print $$$