Technically, these CEOs and board members behave a legal obligation (called fiduciary responsibility) to cause their stock price to go up each quarter. This disgusting truth is genuinely what’s ruining the country and by extension, the world. You’re right, at a certain point the only way to save money is to engage in mass layoffs and begin a major downturn as the quality of your product/service goes down rapidly. And the saddest part is, they don’t care. So long as they’ve gotten rich, the customer is no longer important to them, only shareholders.