well yeah. the problem isn't that its easy and the execs are stupid. The problem is that its really hard, and they only have extremely fallible numbers to guide them (and the reports from various middle management layers which tend to be useless because the incentives for those guys are very far from anything that would allow ceo to make good decisions)

It's easy to see, from the outside, that a given cut stands a high chance of hurting a company. But cuts must sometimes be made regardless