Thread by @doctorow

AT&T shareholders should be very, very grateful to Trump. Not only did he wave through their idiotic mergers with Time Warner and Directv, his FCC chair @Ajitpai killed Net Neutrality and then he gave them an *$80 BILLION* tax break.

vice.com/en/article/nep…

1/

At the time, AT&T execs promised that this would be good for America: they'd invest more in telcoms infrastructure, replacing their last-millennium copper wires AND they'd create jobs. You will not be surprised to learn that neither of these things happened.

2/

By 2019, AT&T had cut 23,000 jobs (they'd promised to CREATE 7,000 jobs) and had slashed capital expenditures by a billion dollars.

Don't worry, though: they increased executive compensation substantially over that same period.

arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20…

3/

Bonuses remain high, and AT&T is still cutting: another 3,400 jobs are being eliminated. These are largely unionized jobs - and it's a pretty safe bet that some will come back as precarious scab jobs at lower pay with no benefits.

theguardian.com/business/2021/…

eof/

ETA - If you'd like an unrolled version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2021/03/31/vac…