We have gone from investors to day traders. I watch markets and it is the most incredible thing. They go from one headline to another, up and down, complacency to panic in days. This is what they do. Want to see a stock price climb? Announce a bunch of layoffs. I live in California and we dodged the bullet of Meg Whitman. They put her in charge of HP which is having problems (much like California). She is laying off over 25K and is being praised for those bold actions. They don't care. If they had to pay a good progressive tax rate, they would at least keep employees as a way to reduce the tax rate.

They whine all the time about uncertainty, but they are the ones provide unending uncertainty for their employees. We are suppose to understand their apprehension at the loss of investment. What about people who lose the ability to put a roof over their head or feed their families. I never even hear them express regret about layoffs, it is more of a stock price announcement. To them people don't exist, only profits. Of course I don't mean all, just most.

Verizon sold its residential landline service in three New England states a few years back because it became just too damned expensive to service rural areas.

They sold to a second rate company, Fairpoint Communications, and, in NH at least, the public utilities commission obligated Fairpoint to commit to provide DSL services to 85% of the state by 2015 (or something along those lines). There is no such commitment for the expansion of FIOS or related high-speed services. As far as I can tell, FIOS services have been unchanged over the past few years, which is basically a large fuck-you to rural communications. And I don't think I'm the only one who thinks it's ludicrous and offensive to require the company to provide an antiquated service a full 20 years after the technology was introduced, and then not to the entire state. Well, that's fine, I suppose, as long as the executives are paid well.