What is your interpretation Paul? What did he say? Do you think Tim did anything wrong or do you advice that Tim sticks to his guns on this one & shouldn't have caved in with that second memo?
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2014/02/8539961/...
He shouldn't have mentioned specific cases. If he felt the company had to cut elsewhere to compensate for high medical costs, he should have left it at that level of detail. But I don't see how you get from what he actually said to
I'm utterly appalled at Tim Armstrong's attitudes towards
the lives of his employee's children. Apparently it's possible
to pay a programmer $100K/year, but spending ten times that to
save the life of one of his employee's children is absolutely
unacceptable.
And people should certainly be allowed to react when those in positions of power say appalling things. Whether he thinks that is absolutely unacceptable is doubtful, but he clearly thinks that the $7.1M in healthcare spending is something that should have to come out of the workers' 401k. The OP wasn't quoting Armstrong, but what Armstrong actually said/did clearly mirrors OP's paraphrasing -- that health spending shouldn't be the duty of AOL, because it should be passed on to the employees through the form of a 401k cut.
[1] http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230454950...
Getting universally criticized for a statement is not a qualification for assuming "lynch mob" victim status.
> I meant the forces that drive lynch mobs are driving people here.
This particular statement can be interpreted in so many different ways that it remains meaningless as it stands.
> Did he say that?
Did anyone lynch him?
Which is utterly reasonable. AOL has allocated $X for employee compensation. The law mandates health care go up by $7.1M, so something else must be cut by $7.1M.
This is certainly bad for workers who prefer the 401k benefits to whatever Obamacare benefits are costing $7.1M (and it seems like this is many workers). But that's a problem with the ACA - blaming TA for that is silly.
Have you been reading the comments on the many political articles that now cross the front page of this site? The quoted comment is fairly tame stuff compared to some of the opinions expressed in those threads.
We don't like to think about the reality that life or death situations we have no control over are being weighed on a balance sheet by people who's primary goal is making profits for shareholders.
Posting a photograph of a victim of a lynch mob http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Lynching2...
I think Armstrong might be discomfited by the well deserved online education in social etiquette and the priority of life (of poorer people) over money. He sorely needs it and he will be the better for it, though a complete cure for him seems impossible.
> Did he say that?
Did I call you an ignorant money peddler, who thinks he is very smart because he can micro analyze statements and completely ignore the context in which the statement was made, as per his convenience?
Of course, I did not!
I call you no such thing.