My wife’s a Dir. of HR for one of the world largest engineering firms (responsible for ORD, LAX, ALT and PHX’s expansions as well as 1000’s of infrastructure contracts worldwide) and over the last 6 months her company has started bringing the hatchet. She's had a rough go of it lately but one thing I will say is that she tells the truth, her company doesn't try to hide anything and the severance packages are more than fair. The most amazing part is that her firm actually does a sort of recall based upon time with the company and skill sets when they need positions filled. Those who were let go and posses the proper skills for the open position are called first and the job only hits the boards after they've worked completely through the list. Kind if impressive if you ask me.

As to the FedEx pilot, my wife and I paid 36K in federal taxes. We paid over 8K to GA and in my mind the only state more messed up that GA is IL (LOL!). In the end I’d rather make more and pay more than make less to pay less. It’s just nice to see our government, both Federal and State, **** our hard earned money away.