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Oh yes ... and don't bore us with complaints that you already pay gasoline tax. What you *pay* in unimportant. What counts is the difference between what's needed for upkeep and congestion management and what's currently available.

From my understanding, most of the problems that Geek Squad resolves can be solved by selling the consumer MORE stuff. e.g. (New Computer, Memory, Harddrive, Software). Geek Squad was probably a good concept when it started, but it appears economic pressures have pushed Best Buy into the GREED ZONE. If only Walmart wouldn't have started selling those nice new high-margin LCD panels at cut-throat prices.

Oddly, I quit shopping at Best Buy for two reasons, 1) Lack of Product Knowledge in Salespeople, 2) The Loss Prevention Guy that stands at the door and makes you feel like a criminal when you enter and exit.

But now you are saying that if talented people ever become management then the company will start spitting out poor quality products. ... I think it is absurd to think that a company should keep their best people in low level coding positions and only let "management types" with no knowledge of what your company is producing make all of the decisions.

Forcing people into management roles because they've excelled as coders is what is absurd. Have you ever heard of the Peter Principle? Look it up. Companies should really try filling management level positions with people who are both technically experienced and who want to be in those positions. By taking people who are happy with their jobs and excel at them, and putting them into positions where they are supposedly at a "higher level", you end up with a severely incompetent management team.

I applaud IBM for expecting their best people to have good management and people skills.

Of course, every developer should have top-notch management skills. Because when the real manager fails to do his/her job (perhaps they were too busy with meetings), it's the developers duty to step in and clean up the mess. And the developer can't neglect his/her development responsibilities either. So in between managing the people that the real manager should have been managing, the features still need to be delivered. Yup. Sounds like a recipe for a real successful company.

I'm not saying "people skills" are a bad thing to have. But you need technical competence as well. People skills and the ability to talk-the-talk is not a substitute for technical skill. Unfortunately, too many management types within IBM, because they lack technical skill themselves, end up assuming it is a valid substitute.

You may not like the products that IBM produces, but they dont seam to be going bankrupt from what I can tell.

Yeah, he even raised a fuss as it turns out. Good for him. Let's see if the party lets him run for president. As these people go, he seems pretty clean.

I used to have a subscription to the local newspaper, but after a while I cancelled it because I felt guilty for using so much paper and never really reading it, even though I recycled it.

I don't feel too hostile towards our local paper even though they sold out to a souless conglomerate that brings in most of the reporters from out of town. I would still have a subscription if it wasn't for the fact that my paper always seemed to be missing, four hours late, or soaking wet.

Instead of charging $3.75 a week for that "service" why don't they charge $2.50 and make everything available on a subscriber version of the website? I would pay for that -- access to local news is something that people should have, imho.

The altruistic side of me also thinks that they should release all news that is no longer economically viable (older then three months?) into the public domain and keep archives on their website. Of course they don't have much incentive to do this because they can sell "archive access", but it would be a public service. Between the money they originally made and the advertising dollars on the website I doubt it would be a losing game for them.

http://www.pressconnects.com/tuesday/news/stories/ ne081302s10797.shtml

http://www.pressconnects.com/tuesday/news/stories/ ne081302s10797.shtml

IBM started in my hometown of Endicott NY. For over fifty years they have been the number 1 employer in the region. But slowly over the years more and more people have lost their jobs as IBM moves away from our area for better locals all over the world. Recently a group of investors bought a large portion of what is left of IBM in Endicott in an attempt to save what was left. A lot of people are blaming high taxes both local and state for a reason that IBM is moving away. If anyone is interested they can read my local paper there are stories everywhere. Press and Sun Bulletin