CEO to employees: If Obama is reelected I'll shut down the company

What a dick. Shut it down then mother fucker, your competitors will just grab your market share and hire your former employees. If there is a dollar out there to be made someone is going to go after it. If you deem the tax implications too high, someone else won't. Good for you for making yourself into a billionaire David Seigel. It must be hell trying to live with so much of your money going to the evil government.

Will they? Why should they hire those folks that were let go? There are a lot of other folks also out of work - who says that the new owners will hire those let go?
And can you guarantee that someone will in fact buy the company and continue on?

Your grasp on the big picture is as good as ever.

If Seigal wants to hand over his chance to make money to somebody else, so much the better. I'm curious which taxes are in question here, the corporate taxes Obama wants to decrease?

He operates a timeshare company? Fuck him anyway!

So you think someone will come along, grab the company and keep all those guys employed?
Last time I saw a take over, friendly or otherwise, a lot of the old staff was replaced by new staff from the takeover company.

So, essentially David Siegel is claiming that his company has no value and he is trying to buy and blackmail votes for Romney.

I think the proper response is for the government to arrest him for attempted vote fraud, exercise the power of eminent domain, take over his company, and use his public confession of his company's valuelessness to establish the appropriate level of compensation.

No, I don't think that. I'm smart.

And the employees will still be unemployed by the time it's all over.

Where does he talk about "shutting down the company," as the thread title suggests?

An investor looking to get in on the resort timeshare business will go for the skilled staff, not a bunch of yahoos off the street. But Liz, big picture, this isn't about the details of what happens to the individual employee. It's about a none too subtle attempt at voter coercion.

Or the government can simply hire half of the employees to dig a hole and the other half to fill it back up and keep things rolling anyway, right?

"You see, I can no longer support a system that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, so will your opportunities. If that happens, you can find me in the Caribbean sitting on the beach, under a palm tree, retired, and with no employees to worry about."

It's implied there. In other parts he suggests merely cutting back his workforce. What he is doing is attempting to influence the votes of his employees using fear of potential unemployment as his means. David Siegel is a giant douchebag.

Implied?

To me, it implies only that he'll retire and leave the company management to someone else.

And as the actual article title states, the condition of these changes is not that Obama is re-elected, but that taxes are raised as well. "CEO Threatens to Fire Employees If Obama Is Reelected and Raises Taxes."

You have grossly misrepresented this in your OP.

I disagree. But that's a matter of opinion.

And it does not change the fact that David Siegel is an asshole.

skip it, circle to the left.

I personally would like David Siegel, or other business owners choose to close up shop and remove some of the competition as a barrier to entry in some industries. I'm relatively young, I have the ambition, and some cash to start something up. There are plenty of guys like me waiting in the wings for the right opportunity to come along so we can steal the show. I will make my own opportunity if push comes to shove but I'd happily hop in the middle of a power vacuum if I spot one.

circle to the left.

Scumbag CEO, claims that if people lose their job it won't be due to the 1%, yet he is the 1% and is threatening to get rid of people's jobs.

To me, this reeks of voter intimidation.

Not in this climate of, "We'll overregulate and overtax the living shit out of you for being a 1%er", they won't. What fucking country do you think you're living in?

Government as a barrier to entry depends on the industry. Obviously I can't expect to start the next Exxon or Coal Mining conglomerate, but I've done some free lance stuff successfully in the past and have an idea I'm kicking around to take it to the next level. Even if I never get a startup off the ground I'll continue to succeed in the corporate world.

Weren't tax rates in the USA 40 years ago higher than they are now?

Tell me more about how business works. After all who is better to explain economics to me than a self proclaimed failure such as yourself.

Yes, income tax rates are at their lowest in decades, and so is tax revenue as a percentage of GDP.

Over-regulation I can buy, but the byzantine nature of the U.S. code isn't exactly new.

I don't think "self-proclaimed" means what you think it means. And I think that goes for about 98% of American English. Maybe you should shut the fuck up.

Regardless of whether you agree with Siegel or not, sending a letter like that to your employees is a dick move. He could still do everything he said he was going to do (later on) without saying a word about it with some 'LOOKITME! I'm Atlas and I'm gonna SHRUG!' bit of melodrama.

It's his company- he can do what he wants with it. But a letter like that to your workers is just ego-driven foolishness.

Is that worse than union bosses instructing union members to vote for Obama... "or else"?

And I've seen it go the other way too - where workers tell other workers that to vote a certain way is going to gut their 401Ks etc.

Yeah that's about the size of it. I'll add that the letter was probably intended for public consumption as well.


November 6th, can't come soon enough.

No.

But "not worse than a bunch of other useless, partisan idiots" is no justification. It's still a very sleezy move.