| You're correct that the state aid was intended for employees, yet it was given to booking.com and not on the people's personal bank accounts. They were more or less free to do with that as they saw fit; the only condition was that they couldn't fire people for 3 months (did did fire ~25% of the work force after those 3 months). In this case, they changed their own rules regarding bonuses on account of being an exceptional situation and that, apparently, these bonuses were desperately needed. How many of those 25% of people could they have retained if they didn't pay millions in "desperately needed" bonuses (not all were in shares btw)? The original reporting[1] was fairly detailed with specifics, subsequent reporting left out some that; you know how these things go... There is some nuance here, but it's still leaving a really bad taste in my mouth. But to be fair, I find it hard to blame just booking.com for this because it's the entire culture that's just rotten IMHO. It's all "free market" this and "no government interference" that but then also "plz government help us" when things go belly-up. When people point out the hypocrisy it's "for the employees, not the company!" True, but misses the larger picture IMO. "Running a business is no charity", well apparently it is because the tax payer will happily get you out of trouble with the "but think of the employees!" emotional blackmail argument only to have them turn around with "free market!!!" a few months later while swimming in their obscene and unnecessary stacks of money. And to be clear, I'm actually quite in favour of the free market and capitalism (moderated to some degree), but this doesn't strike me as either. [1]: In Dutch: https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2021/05/27/booking-paste-bonusrege... |