IBM to Lose 13,000 Jobs 516
KingDaveRa writes "The BBC is reporting that IBM is losing 13,000 jobs. This comes after disappointing financial results. Most jobs will be going in europe."
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IBM to Lose 13,000 Jobs
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If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
Re:veryhai (Score:4, Insightful)
Atleast if the jobs went to India, someone would gain, as Indians would get more jobs.
I dont know why this resentment over jobs going to India. India is a poor country and many people cant find jobs easily and there is no welfare system, so if you dont have a job your as good as on the streets. India can use all the jobs it can get!
Re:My uncle (Score:2, Insightful)
Do yourself a favor (Score:1, Insightful)
"Most jobs will be going in europe."
going in, not going to
Re:First Europe, then India, (Score:1, Insightful)
Uh, people? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:My uncle (Score:5, Insightful)
Advice to the corporate slave ... A Rant (Score:5, Insightful)
The stock holders must be paid first, the CE0, the board, everybody with VP in their title second, and --- if there is anything left --- you.
That doesn't mean they won't take your stapler and forget to pay you. It means that you are nothing to them, all those times you supported the Republician party because you believed in lower taxes and less government, lies. Your pay has decreased since they took (and I really mean took) office. Sure, the price of your home as gone up, but the bank still owns it and you pay even more in property taxes and insurance costs. Oh, and don't use that insurance. Too many claims (and by too many I mean one) and you are off looking to the state for help, because no one will insure your castle. And you now that government help is bad. You don't want to be a welfare queen do you?
So, follow my advice. When the corporation tells you to bend over and take it up the arse. Just do it. Then, head straight for the nearest pub. You will need a good pint and this may be the last time you can afford one.
Re:Losing your job is hard (Score:5, Insightful)
No it isn't. It's incredibly easy to lose your job. You hardly have to do anything. In fact that's the best way. Hardly do anything and I assure you that you will lose your job.
They're Not Lost.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Governments Should Tax Their Profits More (Score:2, Insightful)
Makes a corporation think twice about locating there in the first place. Better to have loved and lost...
I'm afraid I don't see any simple solutions to this trend.
Europe in a not so graceful decline (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:veryhai (Score:5, Insightful)
From a 1st world view, these jobs are horrible. From a 3rd world view, these jobs rock.
"Losing" is completely the wrong verb. (Score:5, Insightful)
IBM is not "losing" jobs; IBM is firing people.
The only way IBM could lose jobs is if it's Human Resources Department realized it could not locate the job descriptions for 13,000 people.
Worse still, can you "plan to lose" something? Of course not. Losses are unintentional.
Re:A quote to all the corporate Stalins out there (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, I am sure it is far from a "RANDOM-act-of-God" move. You don't fire your best employee. You fire the least-profitable one. And if you are the one who has been marked as the least-profitable, shame on you for not having foresight enough to view your own job in the context of the company and make alternative plans.
Re:My uncle (Score:5, Insightful)
A better system would be to provide a living wage (as opposed to the welfare dirty word) to those people whose jobs are increasingly replaced by automation and cheap labor. If you're one of the lucky few who still does USEFUL work in exchange for something, then you get extra incentive gravy for your WANTS, while those not so lucky/smart/quickly-adaptable get enough redistributed gravy to meet their NEEDS. Nobody should have to live in mortal fear of losing their job (unless you're one of those asshole sadists who believes that keeping the serfs suffering is a great motivator and makes it easier to keep control (and if so, fuck you)).
Robotics, IA/AI, nanotechnology, and other exponentially advancing technology [kurzweilai.net] will inevitably lead to this kind of world. "It's different this time". We can either choose a humane leisure society fed by intelligent automated production & fair redistribution, or we can choose to continue the greedy ratrace to the bottom as the wealth gap widens [blogspot.com].
(I'm sure a lot of people who worship at the alter of dog-eat-dog hyper-capitalism and "globalism" will just write me off as some kind of idealistic-socialist-commie-hippie or whatever. Oh, and I am one of the "lucky" ones, but I've also got a conscience.)
Re:Europe in a not so graceful decline (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:See the opportunity (Score:3, Insightful)
How does this work? (Score:3, Insightful)
"The news comes just weeks after IBM reported worse-than-expected earnings in the first quarter."
Why fire 13,000 workers for that? It's clear that it's the profit forcasters that are doing the crap job - fire them.
Re:Losing your job is hard (Score:5, Insightful)
not to mention police officers and firemen who put their life on the line every day for even less money than that.
all to have themselves lumped into the statement (and I can assure you common public sentiment) "Unless you're a public servant... in which case, doing nothing will result in a promotion."
guess what; getting a raise of any kind as a public servant is quite a thing. sometimes entire classes of public servant have to go on strike to be recognized with even a pittance of a raise after years of watching prices go up but not their wages.
many police forces and district attorney's offices are understaffed, underpaid, and overworked. we see a few ficticious examples on TV perhaps to the contrary, but those are really both few and for the most part ficticious. yes there are lazy podunk police precincts, there are abusive cops, etc.
but there are a hell of a lot of people working their asses off in dangerous conditions for little pay or chance of meaningful promotion (where promotion means more than a different placard for your cubicle).
and don't get me started on the National Guardsmen or Army Reservists, or even full-time military.
public service can bring an immense amount of meaning to one's life. it's simply too bad that so many want to demean all public servants because of the atrocities of a few or television's take on a few in some of the largest cities in the world.
maybe you mean the clerks at the DMV, or the post office, or garbage men, or the psychiatrists at the VA. guess what, not even all of them are lazy assholes who would prefer for you to wait as long as possible.
yes, there are lazy people in public service. there are lazy people every-damn-where in America. if you find it okay to call all public servants lazy, then perhaps you also find it okay to call all Americans lazy?
Re:"Losing" is completely the wrong verb. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dont forget about Poland (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:My uncle (Score:2, Insightful)
So do I, and that's exactly why I do not believe in robbing Peter to give to Paul. The fact that government is "giving" to Paul (and -- cough -- taking a cut for themselves) does not, by any rational means, make the act of robbing Peter moral and just.
And please spare me the lies about the people "choosing" to submit themselves to force. A person cannot voluntarily submit to force, any more than a person can force another person to volunteer.
Re:My uncle (Score:5, Insightful)
This in one of my pet peeves.
Yes it is called socialism but you can have a socialist democracy.
You are confusing economic systems with political systems.
China has less of a socialist economy than Sweden does. But Sweden is far more democratic than China.
I agree that giving people money for nothing is wrong. It is degrading and self defeating. What we need get back to is the idea that there is dignity in all work. It does not matter if it is picking up trash in a park what you earn is yours.
Re:My uncle (Score:3, Insightful)
Toshiba (the evil greedy capitalist corporation) is producing a new nano-battery in 2006 that has the potential to cut pollution dramatically as it'll be used in cars instead of gasoline. Greed leads to good things and cheaper products much faster and more efficiently than a gigantic, well meaning beuracracy, hence the fall of the Soviet Union and China's decision to free up their markets in the late 70s.
"IBM sets free a workforce" (Score:3, Insightful)
"IBM sets free a workforce of 14,000 skilled workers".
It's all about spin. After all, people thought it was cool when the Sovjet Union collapsed and set free millions of workers employed in the military complex.
Re:My uncle (Score:1, Insightful)
Tell you what. First, someone - maybe even you - builds the AI that invents the nanotech that makes the robots possible.
Then we'll try your utopia. Until then, I'll stick with capitalism. Without which, the tools required to build your AI wouldn't exist, remember?
*taps toes*
We're waiting...
"living wage" + no skills == unemployable (Score:1, Insightful)
And that's your proposal for a "better system"? And characterizing criticism as dog-eat-dog hyper capitalism or globalism? Nice either-or strawman, shit-for-brains. Or is that also a preemptive attempt at painting your critics with an ad hominem brush? (Note well I don't use subtlety in my ad hominem attacks, re: "shit-for-brains", so your brush was useless against me) And just who the hell determines what a "fair redistribution" is? Will some animals be more equal than others this time around, too?
If you mandate a high enough minimum wage, you price no-skilled and low-skilled persons right out of the labor market. Look at how inner-city unemployment rates in the US track minimum wage increases almost exactly. Here's just one [epionline.org] of many studies and other data [google.com] confirming this.
Because if an employee can't contribute more to the bottom line than he costs, no employer will hire him.
This is your proposed "better system"? Better for who? Government bureaucrats? Tax collectors? Self-styled and self-important "progressive intellectuals" who just "know" in their compassionate and concientious hearts it's a better system? (i.e., academics and limosine liberals...)
What a load of pie-in-the-sky shit.
Of course, by pricing no-skilled and low-skilled workers out of the job market you create a class of folks totally dependent on government handouts to survive and thus a "vote-for-me-and-get-a-bigger-welfare-check" voting block. (No wonder "progressives" are so adamantly opposed to W's ideas for Social Security accounts that individuals actually own....)
A "living wage" is a nice idea in the same way as "we'll give everyone a billion dollars so everyone can live like a billionaire" is a nice idea. They both utterly ignore the econics of supply and demand.
Having a conscience has nothing to do with it. And it's not idealism if an idea is based on forcing employers to act against their best interests just to advance what you think are the best interest of the employed.
It's quite telling that you used the term "redistributed gravy" when you define your "living wage". I've heard there's some document out there somehere that mentions we're entitled to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". I've yet to see one that mentions "redistributed gravy".
Re:moving to cheaper countries (Score:3, Insightful)
And yes, the point is valid that the UK is partcularly expensive right now. A "cheaper" country could well be the US. What's the pound worth in dollars now?
Re:My uncle (Score:2, Insightful)
You are typically paid what the market determines you are worth. If the market is flooded with people who do what you do, you are not worth as much - so why should a company have to pay you as much?
This gets to me as much as people who demand that minimum wage be increased, because "A family of four can't live on minimum wage". Well, who the hell lives on minimum wage? Very few people work full time and make minimum wage after more than a month or two. It's just a silly argument.
Re:My uncle (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Losing" is completely the wrong verb. (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes you have to make the decision of firing people now, so that others can keep their jobs later.
Re:My uncle (Score:3, Insightful)
The trick is in the choice of terms here: what if Peter is an oligopolistic Robber Baron who scammed billions of Peters until their livelhood became untennable? You would like to present it as a case of saintly, highly-talented, God's favourtie child Peter innocently and piously pursuing his "destiny" to great wealth and unlimited power over others and on the other hand a Satanic band of evil, underhanded, greedy wolf-like Pauls aided by a communist monster called "guvmnt" to rob our hapless hero. But perheaps Peter is a greedy asshole who abused every rule in the book to con, deceive, cajole and force other people to work for him, give to him far more then he compensates them for and who in the result ended up with 1/2 of the planet and a private army as his "property".
In which case I would be cheering for "robbing" him as violently as possible.
As to people "choosing" to submit themselves to force: they do it all the time because the power (and incidentally wealth) elites control education and keep their serfs ignorant enough to not understand what they are "choosing".
Re:My uncle (Score:2, Insightful)
Force applied by one person against another? Well, yes, sort-of. This is an ultra-simplistic and frankly naive position. Or more precisely, "force" can have so many forms that basically the only state in which people do not apply "force" against each other is when they are all dead. You eat, thus you need food, thus you put preasure on food production, which leads to raising price which reduces someone else's ability to buy food: ergo you are applying "force" (deadly one in some cases) and thus, to him, you are guilty of the greatest sin in your siplistic world view.
Force is not our common enemy (as force is merely a neutral concept) but injsutice is. Application of force is merely one of mechanisms to cause injustice.
Now, the actual definition of injustice is subject to debate, but there are some basic immutable assumptions here:
- every sentient being has some basic "rights" in regards to all others, i.e. there is a set of basic rules that govern interaction of beings, such as:
- one person's welfare is not more important then another's
- society's basic purpose is protection of all of its members from harm, as long as these members abide by societal rules
- the society's ultimate purpose is to provide means of fullfilment and happiness to its members
From these simple rules, one can try to devise a practical system which takes into account things like the scarcity of resources and the fact that significant portion of members of society are not cabable of understanding the rules and/or are actively trying to pervert them out of stupidity or malice.The democratic government/capitalist economy is our latest and arguably most successful concotion which approximates (remotely) the solution. But it is recently showing its inability to cope with vicious, perisistent and coordinated attack from various would-be feudal lordlings and also with technological change upsetting existing balances. In short, we need something better.
Unfortunately I see Libertatians (although some, like you, appear to be well meaning) in the same camp as Anarchists and Marxists. That is your proposed "solution" is so obviously vulnerable to takeover by a small group of unscrupulous individuals and has so little to stop them from their takeover being near absolute that it truly frightens me. What would come out of anarcho-libertarianism is very simlilar to what came out of Marxism: totalitarian, feudal-like power.