The article on MSN about Starbucks closing 300 stores and laying off 6700 employees really burns me.

Why? Because they are adding to the recession by firing employees and closing stores solely because their Net Income has dropped… not because they had a loss… and just because it wasn’t as big as Wall Street wanted it to be.

They still paid all their bills and made a profit! There is no need to close the stores and fire the employees unless the individual store is no longer generating a profit. Starbucks isn’t the only one… lots of companies are doing the same thing. Disney, Microsoft, to name two of them.

All this does is make the recession worse!

Business is cyclical. You have good years and you have bad years. We’re in a bad year. If you want to end the cycles quicker you don’t go firing your help unless you are actually losing money. You keep them employed so they can keep buying lunch at McDonalds so that McDonalds can make money to buy your widget.

The idea that you must always show as much profit in bad years as you do in the good years is just plain stupid. As long as you can pay your bills and not lose money you are ahead.

My father used to look at the annual financials of a business and if it showed even $1 more than last year it was a good year.

All they keep doing is feeding the beast…

Photo credit: stock.xchng.