[cookiecaper]

>We're all adults in a capitalist economy; we know the score.

This is mostly false, and to the extent that it is true, it turns out that people much prefer to have the ability to retreat into ambiguity around management's thought process and incentives when it suits them, rather than for the executives to be explicit about it.

The most infamous example of an executive revealing something everyone already knew to be true is Gerald Ratner [0]. After jokingly stating that his company was able to sell things for such low prices because it was "total crap", they plummeted to the brink of collapse. The company was saved only after firing Ratner and changing its name.

Companies where ill-advised executive candor has turned fortunes downward are now said to be experiencing the "Ratner Effect".

Executives are, first and foremost, performers. Dropping the illusion is offensive to the audience. We like pretending.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Ratner