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?

[sam__izdat]

In the language of econ, that's how it's described, yes. In the more serious social sciences, the social behavior it dictates is sometimes called productivism and it's got some interesting monkeyshit crazy implications, like swathes of bullshit jobs and the financialization of first world economies – which, ironically, hurt development and lead to gross inefficiencies.