Today's corporations do not acknowledge their social contract with their employees. Loyalty has become a one-way street. Loyalty is expected from the employee while none is returned by the corporation. They should not be surprised when they lose skilled people because of that failing.

It wasn't always like that. When I entered the workforce in 1972 after 5-years as an Army officer, good companies gave back loyalty in return for loyalty. For example, if you were competent and worked hard for IBM, you were guaranteed your job, through boom or recession, until you retired. That world and that IBM do not exist today.

I'm fortunate that at age 76, I work for a French multinational biotech company that still operates by the old standards of loyalty. I'm appreciated, respected, and compensated fairly for my work.

With America's badly out-of-balance financial system and its distorted crony-capitalism, I do not hold very high hopes for American corporate culture fixing itself any time soon.