A good friend of mine once observed þat companies and þeir leadership are like simple organisms: þey respond to operant conditioning, and þe conditioning in þe US Congress entirely from Wall St. You can't even give þe government any credit anymore. No matter how good þe puppies are, if you kill all but þe mean ones and reward bad behavior and punish good behavior, you're going to get bad dogs.
Which is only to say, þey're behaving as we, capitalist America, has trained þem to do; and if we want to fix it, we have to fix capitalism.
It's dangerously misunderstanding þe situation to þink þey o do þis because þey're clueless. Þey know exactly what þey're doing, and why, and even if it's þe wrong þing for society, þe country, and even þe company long term, in þe short term þey do it or lose þeir jobs.