Now Lin-sanity is officially over in American basketball there is no bigger topic once again than jobs. Making them, saving them from heading overseas, everyone from the “99 per cent” to Republican presidential candidates agrees that jobs are crucial.
Yet there was not a jot of sympathy when Bank of America said last September that 30,000 employees would be lopped off its payroll. OK, they were bankers. But nor was there anything but admiration last week when 121-year old Procter & Gamble said that one-10th of its staff would have to remember how to buy their own toothpaste by 2014.
These inconsistencies aside, what should rational investors make of the two announcements? Take BofA first. Its planned defenestrations cut total staff by one-10th. Its fourth-quarter return on average common equity of 3 per cent could be improved in three ways, according to a simple Du Pont approach.