AOL Lays Off 450 In California

bmarklein writes "AOL has laid off 450 in California. The former Netscape campus is going from 675 employees to 300. The San Francisco office, which they obtained when they acquired Spinner (now Radio@AOL), and which housed Nullsoft after their acquisition by AOL, is being closed along with an office in San Diego. 100 employees have been offered jobs in Virginia or New York. No word on how this affects products like WinAmp. Justin, are you out there?"

Comments

Re:America Online - Moving to India.. no F'n way

[los furtive]

You got it right on the nose! "Buy American" crap is just racist protectionism. When a job goes to India, it still goes to a human being, and one who currently doesn't get to live the bloated American lifestyle. If Americans (in general) didn't have the need to lead such bloated lifestyles, they could get by on a lower salary, which would allow the company to keep its employees in its own country.

Jobs going overseas allows other people a chance to own houses, computers, cars and televisions, but more importantly allows more tax money to go back into their own economy, which is then reinvested so that water can be treated and delivered to where it is needed, infrastructure put in place for better markets, better medical aid, better roads. "Buy American" is a great ideal, but it's far far from the trade deficite truth Americans live in. unless Americans are willing to do the same work for a lot less, it's not going to change, and that won't happen until Americans curb their appetites for just about everything. Mark my words, unless there is some incredible breakthrough in technology, the excess we currently live in wont last much longer, or will become available to fewer and fewer people, as the dichotomy of classes increase.

As a side note to my second paragraph, I wonder if its accidental that the US arms race, as well as its pressure on other countries to increase their military might, is not just to make sure that less money goes into infrastructure that would make those countries a better place. But thats a whole other ball of wax.