Replace-ability is actually a solid negotiation tactic, but that's not the same as intransigence regarding budget.
The characterization of management as incompetents backastabbers is as childish as the one that says employees are lazy bums who should be grateful of their salary.
A million times this. The insidious part is that if you come up in that kind of management culture, it destroys your motivation and ethics to where you actually become a bad employee. You will then be less hirable by good companies, and hence the vicious cycle. It's really a type of abusive relationship.
You're correct. But it has been cultivated from seeing too many good engineers laid off due to bad management. Bad management who get to keep their jobs.
The characterization of management as incompetents backastabbers is as childish as the one that says employees are lazy bums who should be grateful of their salary.