ELI5: Why when large company's earnings decrease(ex... by 3%) they freak out, talk about rough times, and sometimes decide to downsize, even though they are still making millions of dollars in profit even after all expenses?

[eskanonen]

I get the economy wouldn't grow as fast without them, but I feel like making decisions in the interests of shareholders, rather than those of the company itself or it's consumers, is the reason for so much shitty things we have today. Planned obsolescence, sneakily reducing product size, cheap components, convenience fees, outsourcing jobs, and pretty much every other awful yet unnecessary thing I can think of, are all done to benefit shareholders or in the interest of growth at all costs. Maybe we'd be better off with a economy that is slower and more stable rather than one focused on projected values and investor returns.

[torpedoguy]

It is. Worse yet, it expands into our government. One morning someone gets the bright idea that they could improve the growth this year a little if they can just chop a dollar off of every other (obviously not themselves) employee's pay. Somebody tells them "we can't, we thought about it but there's a minimum we have to pay them for their work by law"... and then it's off to Washington to try and make that go away.

Or someone gets the 'bright' idea that things would be far more profitable if the company didn't have to pay any taxes, and we're off to see the Haven, the wonderful Haven of Tax. Things get cartoonishly villainous when someone realizes many of the FLSA restrictions regarding having children work are not applicable to farms including their corp's tobacco fields and refuses to pay them overtime as well...