If a company is making $10 billion in annual profits, and they discover that they're spending $100 million on a useless project, are they morally obligated to continue that spending indefinitely?
There is no justification for "cost cutting" when it hurts the larger economy.
It is not good for the economy to have people doing work that doesn't produce value.
> It is not good for the economy to have people doing work that doesn't produce value.
This is a political statement, not an economic one. What is or isn't good for the economy is up to the goals of that economy. In Japan, for example, they've more or less adopted the opposite principle as an important plank in their political system. Or perhaps it would be better to say that they've adopted the idea that people having jobs is more important than those jobs having a direct connection to some measure of productivity.
There is no justification for "cost cutting" when it hurts the larger economy.
It is not good for the economy to have people doing work that doesn't produce value.