>There's literally nothing I know that someone younger couldn't learn or figure out.

Learn, yes. Will they get the time and training for that, given that they are taking on 30+ year legacy code? I'm less confident.

I don't think most of the people they will inevitably layoff qualify for this package. age + num years work >= 70. They seem to be per-emptively shielding against age discrimination lawsuits.

And yes, but no. I think we all know what's happening. No one wants to say it out loud.

Yeah, agree. It's a clever way to cull the herd of the ones you would have difficulty laying off (due, as you say, to the appearance of age discrimination).

Next up, whole teams will be axed—not individuals.

They keep doing cuts but their employee count in 2025 is still higher than whenever we identify "overhiring" to have occured? Meanwhile, we know US hiring is on the downswing the past few years.

Doesn't sound like a company that actually cares about "overhiring". More that where they hire is shifting.

We're in a recession. We're not going to admit we're in a recession until it's over (or worse, until it goes on long enough to qualify as a depression), because that's how the powers that can call a recession work.

And no, we cannot handle it. Not without a major overhaul of policy, New Deal style. Will we get that? Who knows.

Sounds like an issue for the next CEO when the current one takes their current parachute.

About a few million less Americans than a few years ago, I guess.

Yes. There's a difference between walking a trail and maybe littering a a few pieces of trash, and walking a trail while actively setting branches on fire.

One scenario is manageable to leave be, or perhaps one or two volunteers clean it up. The fires have an entire trail closed down to everyone.

With some FOSS projects being bombarded by scraping traffic, redoing their PR system, considering ways to limit contributiors, and even going closed source, I don't think such a metaphor is an exaggeration.

We don't technically have "winner take all" capitalism. At least some people 90 ish years ago we had many mechanisms to regulate such situations.

Then more vampires creeped in and convinced people that the government they were voted into sucks. So began a campaign to ruin the regulations protecting them from the vampires as they slowly filled their blood banks.

As your parents about stability. It's not a foreign concept. We just let America throw its labor away.

Do most people in an organisation have that power?