The top 2 to 5 people in a corporation of 10,000+ don't "make the system". If the captain of a ship ordered it to ram into a giant rock, because he had taken an insurance policy out on the ship, that's not the ship deciding to wreck itself. That's the captain being a corrupt virus destroying value for his own personal gain. That is the game being played: extracting value that is "locked up" in corporate assets and long-term shareholders into the pockets of the short-term C-suite and high-level shareholders who will move on to another company later. Pump up this year's stock price as high as you can by laying people off, squeezing your customers, eliminating employee benefits, whatever you can do. Get your payout, then sell out and move to the next company while employees, customers, long-term shareholders, and long-term corporate partners are fucked.