IBM to Lose 13,000 Jobs

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."

Comments

Losing your job is hard

[Aussie]

Must be really bad to lose 13,000.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[OpCode42]

Oh how appropriate/ironic (delete as misunderstood) that the parent post is marked as redundant!

Re:Losing your job is hard

[Anonymous Coward]

Redundant?!

He is making a joke...
Read the summary:
IBM is losing 13,000 jobs

Re:Losing your job is hard

[MartinG]

Losing your job is hard

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.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[Anonymous Coward]

Hardly do anything and I assure you that you will lose your job.

Wanna bet?
Where I work that sort of work ethic will only get you promoted...

Re:Losing your job is hard

[Associate]

I don't know. I'm quite good at the very little I do. As a matter of fact, I'm one of the few who have gotten a raise every year for the past three. Must being doing something right.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[Vario]

Hum?

NEW YORK (CNN)
"There was some damage to the front window but there are no reports of any injuries at this stage."

vs.

13000 people losing their source of income.

I don't know about your priorities but a bit of broken glass seems not so important to me compared to quite a lot of people who are laid off. Would you be more angry about your boss saying: "Well, we appreciate your work but we are outsourcing to..." or somebody smashing your front window?

Re:Losing your job is hard

[Sexy Bern]

Even more ironic is the previous story:

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/04/225 7229&tid=185&tid=218

Re:Losing your job is hard

[mboverload]

That "doing nothing to lose your job" thing doesn't seem to work for my boss.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[Anonymous Coward]

* <--- joke

__o__
| <--- you
/ \

Re:Losing your job is hard

[Destoo]

Especially on the 05-05-05 at 5:55...

5 was my lucky number.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[morgajel]

I don't know about that. there are plenty of people who don't do anything and end up getting promoted all the way up to the top. :)

Re:Losing your job is hard

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

sometimes I get tired of this "public servants are lazy leeches on the working stiffs" sentiment. actually my wife works as a district attorney (criminal prosecution). she makes $35K per year when others with her same degree earn hundreds of thousands in firms. she works her butt off, dealing with murderers and rapists on a daily basis, receiving threats on her life.

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 your job is hard

[syousef]

Hardly do anything and I assure you that you will lose your job.

You've never worked in a large company right? Do nothing and you'll be promoted out of the way or moved sideways.

Someone needs to educate you. Go read some Dilbert and watch the movie Office Space.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[hunterx11]

I think the point is that most people in the public sector have somewhat greater job security than those in the private sector, and are often less motivated by a "do or die" attitude. This is a lot less pertinent to the sorts of jobs you mention than it is for paper-pushers, though. Nowhere did the GP say anything about public servants being leeches--in fact he was commenting on public PHBs, whom I would expect to be incompetent.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[kpwoodr]

You should meet my systems requirements guy...I've been doing his job for 3 years. I tried to tell my boss so maybe we could cut away the dead weight, and I got reprimanded for not being a "team player".

Losing your job in large successful corporations by doing nothing is difficult. The radar principle says that if you stay off the radar, you will have a better chance to stay alive. I can speak for large DoD contractors in that the best way to lose your job is to screw up a large project to the point that someone other than your bosses boss gets yelled at.

Do nothing, and it won't affect many people and others will be there to take up the slack. Cause a buffer overflow in an onboard mission computer that causes a flight system reboot, and your well on the way out the door.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[4of12]

Hardly do anything and I assure you that you will lose your job.

Upper levels of government provide a counterexample to this thesis.

As do beneficiaries of inherited wealth whose job is "stockholder".

But, then, I'm overcounting some.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[jasonbowen]

Where do you live that the DA only gets $35K per year? I'm assuming she is an assitant DA, did you leave that of? After 4 years of servicet the police make $60K per year here.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[Jaywalk]

Hardly do anything and I assure you that you will lose your job.

Then how do you explain Palmisano?

Re:Losing your job is hard

[frankvl]

So if IBM is doing nothing * 13000... then how many jobs will Microsoft lose?

Re:Losing your job is hard

[Martin Blank]

It's generally accepted that most people are not referring to law enforcement (which includes the DA and PubDef offices as well as probation departments) or the fire departments when talking about public servants being slow and/or lazy. They're generally referring to the office workers and bureaucrats who move through arcane processes, playing politics with a viciousness akin to Washington, supported by a union that will fight tooth, nail, cudgel, mace, sword, gun, howitzer, and ICBM to keep from losing someone, even though there is plenty of justifiable cause.

I work for a county government. There are some good people, yes, but there are also a lot of people who play backstabbing games (particularly with those of us on contract to the county) or who can't bear to let a little bit of control leave their desks. I've had to go out to the various agencies and the amount of random chatter I see happening is far and away more than I ever saw when working in large corporations. Deadlines on simple projects are missed by months -- we're more than a year behind on rolling out one e-mail server because of politics involved with other agencies trying to shape our Active Directory implementation.

The highest quotients of good people are usually where the workers are most visible -- police, fire, DA/PubDef, probation, and healthcare and social services field personnel. Get back in the offices, though, and the signal to noise ratio can get extraordinarily bad.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[VAXcat]

While you often hear about cops "putting their lives on the line", the simple truth is, that there are occupations far more dangerous than being a policeman. Far more farmers are killed on the job than cops, yet they don't get any of this rhetoric dedicated to them.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[Opie812]

Of course the difference being that farmers die because they do stupid stuff that results in their own death. Cops die because other people kill them.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[Kphrak]

Sure, there are plenty of hard workers in government. However, the fact is that a huge percentage are lazy and do very little all day while looking busy to the outside worker. They are heavily protected by unions and it's almost impossible to get fired.

Before you come down too hard on lazy government workers, keep in mind that there's a lot of politics in government workplaces (ya think?). A lot of little people building little empires, then stepping on the wrong person and getting smacked down. And when a petty person comes to power, generally (due to the unions) he can't fire someone, so a common form of revenge is to deny all the person's projects. Take all his work away. Leave him twiddling his thumbs behind a desk all day. CBS News covered an instance of this at the NIH, of a doctor who hasn't done any work for six years for this very reason.

One other thing that must be understood. Often, a government agency exists to protect the status quo -- which in America is mostly a good thing. Before any armchair revolutionaries start posting about class wars, oppression, Iraq, Bush, or social justice, I understand that the status quo isn't perfect and is unlikely to be -- I said mostly. Lights stay on, clean water runs when a tap gets turned on, criminals are usually forced to pay for their crimes if they get caught, kids get reasonably educated year after year, people can't build a firetrap and call it a house, we don't get invaded and pwned by some other country, etc -- YMMV, but as a general rule this is what happens; and this is not necessarily what happens in certain other countries. The government does not exist to expand and make a profit; in most cases it exists to maintain something. Public order, dam operation, roads, forests, public health -- these are all maintainance jobs.

The downside of this is that a maintainance job attracts timeservers who only want to warm a seat until retirement. In many cases it also attracts anal-retentives who are terrified of change or anything outside strict procedure signed in triplicate -- droids, in other words. Plenty of brilliant people get into government -- it's just that it's easy to get worn down, to quit in disgust, or to excel and bubble out of the system, ending up in a managerial desk and never doing what you're good at again.

The other downside is that lack of growth produces stagnation, so a department has a dilemma; expand unecessarily, or continue doing the same old thing, usually getting forgotten by the politicians (who tend to give money to the sexiest things). Generally the former solution is picked, which is why that old saying in government of "spend all your money this year, or we won't get more next year" is 100% true.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[megarich]

not to mention police officers and firemen who put their life on the line every day for even less money than that.

while i agree with you on many many points you made, you do have to realize there are ALOT of corrupt cops, fireman, especiall my area, long island/nyc. It's tough for nyc to find cops so they take in the loser joe who has no direction in life and just looking for an easy way out.

and dont get me started on the fire department, all the kickbacks they take and i'm still bitter for them letting my friends house burn down. for the story, the house caught on fire, he called they call the fire dept of course. his town fire dept. is literally 4/5 blocks away from his house, they never showed til like 30 mins later. the fire dept from 2 towns over with at least a 15 minute ride with moderate traffic showed up first and the house couldn't be saved. now his town fire department is claiming they were there in time and that my friends family is pretty much lying

yes there are cops and fire people but there are also many corrupt ones who leaves a bad taste in the citizens mouth and the problem with that no one gives an f.....

Re:Losing your job is hard

[Kevin Stevens]

Unlike other respondents I will even challenge the idea that "popular" "hero" professions like policeman and firefighters are understaffed, underpaid and overworked. Police departments love to toss around that they are understaffed. Look at the amount of overtime that any sizable police force pays out. It is friggen ridiculous. The amount of time spent filling out paperwork is ridiculous- it is designed to be inefficient and keep more officers doing busy work. For example, I was in the central building where they process and test DWI arrests. There was about 20 terminals from 1997 in there each with a phone line hooked up to them using what appeared to be a 28.8 modem. They ran some kind of terminal application on those systems that was slow as molasses. The cost savings they could have achieved by scrapping all those phone lines, installing a local area network with ethernet and then sharing a broadband connection would be enough that the cost of the network would probably pay for itself in a month. This is not even including the reduced time spent by each officer just sitting there and waiting for the application to get the data over the line. Then lets also talk about the ungodly amount of paperwork, most of which is entirely repetitive. If they converted those forms to pdf, and then just created a simple web application that any php monkey could create to populate these forms with the common information and then allow you to print them all out, you would again be talking about huge gains in productivity. And these guys are not "underpaid" by any means. They are one of the highest paid forces in the nation (nassau county) and most will never pull a gun in their entire careers. Even a NYC police officer gets to retire with a full pension after 20 years. Their "salary" may be low, but the benefits certainly make up for it.

Underpaid? Understaffed. pfffft. You're drinking all the kool-aid they are giving you.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[jholtsnider]

Maybe the police CHIEF makes 60K/year. None of the normal police officers do. And many DA's make less than 40K/year unless they live in California or one of the other rich states.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[random_culchie]

Man I am glad they didn't offer me that job last month!

Re:Losing your job is hard

[CmdrGravy]

Not true, I am doing some work for the admin arm of the NHS and doing nothing, all day, is the norm.

Maybe if you did do something there is a chance it could go wrong and I'd be sacked but more likely me doing something would have the knock on effect of causing someone else to have to do something, a scenario which would no doubt be frowned on and could result in me getting the sack.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[CmdrGravy]

No, cops can die because other people kill them and they can also die because they "do stupid things".

Farmers can die because they "do stupid things" and they can also die because their job is inherently dangerous

Re:Losing your job is hard

[Aexia]

Before you come down too hard on lazy government workers, keep in mind that there's a lot of politics in government workplaces (ya think?). A lot of little people building little empires, then stepping on the wrong person and getting smacked down.

Whereas this *never* happens in the private sector. No, not at all.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[jasonbowen]

Look up the pay rates for the Denver PD. You are of course right, DA's that live in areas with poor paying jobs don't have much of a tax base to take their income from.

Hmm not a suprise

[Foo2rama]

Gee maybe becuase they sold the whole PC MFG dept?

Re:Hmm not a suprise

[Associate]

They still have servers.
And Lucifer Gerstner is still rich as hell. Satan Palmisano is on his way.
Not to mention, they are about to settle with the pensioners they screwed six years ago.
Hell, I got a $63 settlement from it. But I'm not bitter. Pffft!

Re:Hmm not a suprise

[Leonig Mig]

i can't see the sale of the PC business has anything to do with this.

Re:Hmm not a suprise

[n9891q]

Two points.
(1) the sale of PCD included selling the employees. PCD lay-offs will appear as Lenovo actions.
(2) PCs are manufactured outside Europe (Mexico, China, etc.).

The loss of however many jobs is still unfortunate.

Re:Hmm not a suprise

[chris_mahan]

Jobs losses are nothing more than an adjustment to actual level of need.

Let's say you buy 3 gallons of milk every week, and your brother is living with you. Your brother leaves (finally) and gets his own place. Now you just need to buy 2 gallons of milk. Would you keep buying 3 just because you feel sorry for that extra gallon? No way!

Likewise the staff: They don't need the staff. Pure econ. Buh Bye.

Re:Hmm not a suprise

[Lehk228]

they sold their PC department and not their server department, so of course they still have servers

My uncle

[MaestroSartori]

has just been laid off from the Greenock plant, where he was involved in manufacturing for 20 or so years. He's now working in a call centre handling mortgage applications... :(

The UK as a whole seems to be moving towards this kind of economy - jobs involving manufacturing, especially, are going, to be replaced by jobs where you can be sacked at the drop of a hat, and are generally pretty poorly treated. Sad.

Re:My uncle

[Marcion]

Yeah thats pretty sad. IBM eventually will not produce any hardware but instead subcontract everything to outside cheap labour. Whether people will be laid off from the software side too is an interesting question.

Re:My uncle

[Smerity]

While yes, your uncle being laid off is certainly not good, it's really not IBM's call at the moment.

My mum works at IBM and the IBM/Lenovo split is a very short time off now. This is the main transition point for the company. Your uncle losing his job most likely is that Lenovo is unwilling to hire him, not IBM 'firing' him.

IBM has been making hairline profits on their PCD section for years and years, under very heavy competition. They're changing their whole buisness setup. Losses are to be expected...

Re: My uncle

[Anonymous Coward]

My sympathies go with your uncle. I've been made redundant twice - it is not fun. What the the election in the UK today there is a LOT of talk about the UK economy (what with the collapse of Rover etc.). The problem is that we are becoming a service industry - which is no bad thing in itself (unless you are a manufacturer). This is the crux of the issue a lot of Brits have with jobs going to India - it is NOT based on racial prejudice as most would suggest - it is simply a matter of job competition. The reason we can get 'sacked at a drop of a hat' is because people are willing to do the job for a paycheque virtually worthless over here. Just a quick side note - all those hyper-patriotic halfwits shouting for Thatcher like she was the 2nd coming in the 80s now find their jobs sent to India and are sad. Why don't they research Thatchers attitude into shipping jobs abroad when it suited big businesses. Maybe a bit less flag waving and a bit more thought would've helped. No disrespect to the people of India - but its not a good situation for the British nation to be in, and could have been avoided.

Re:My uncle

[Monkelectric]

Welcome to the world economy Europe. Thats been going on in the US since the 80s. It SUCKS. We can't figure out a better system, why don't you guys work on it for awhile and get back to us with something. Whats your hourly fee again?

Re: My uncle

[Xoro]

"...and could have been avoided."

I'm curious about that -- how do you think it could have been avoided?

Re: My uncle

[jrumney]

Where in East London would that be? London does not have anywhere near the shortage of jobs that some places up North where the BNP has a real chance of getting in do, and most of East London is multicultural enough that the BNP's support will be negligible. BNP strongholds tend to be predominently white working class areas with high unemployment, and have an Asian enclave nearby. That just doesn't exist in London.

Re: My uncle

[gowen]

Its Barking - you are quite welcome to investigate into the stats and possibilities of a victory there

While a BNP victory is not completely impossible, I'll bet you a virtual £5 that they don't finish higher than fourth.

Re: My uncle

[gowen]

done

(It'll give me another result to look out for on the swingometer)

Re:My uncle

[Saeger]

We can't figure out a better system ...

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 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.

(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:My uncle

[Gordonjcp]

I work in another part of IBM at Greenock, which hasn't been sold to Lenovo. It's just crazy, there are people who have worked in the same area as me for years, who are getting moved to another part of the site simply because Lenovo staff just aren't allowed up our end. I need to badge through four security doors now!

Re:My uncle

[Kombat]

[Re: Transitioning manual labour jobs to mechanical automation]

Thats been going on in the US since the 80s. It SUCKS.

I respectfully disagree. That automation is what keeps the price of so many products affordable. The increased profits from said automation are what have driven stock price increases that have allowed millions of people to enjoy a comfortable retirement. This is capitalism at its finest. If you don't like it, there are plenty of (miserable, socialist/communist) countries who'd be willing to take you in.

Re: My uncle

[mikael]

I'm curious about that -- how do you think it could have been avoided?


Mrs T. was keen to cut away the dead wood (the declining shipbuilding industries) in order to give tax breaks to the South East. Not a bad thing by itself, but the money saved would have been better invested in retraining and education for the communities in the North of England. At the time of these cutbacks, the local people were crying out for financial assistance in regenerating their cities, but Mrs T. wouldn't help - She was only interested in tax-breaks for the City. As a result the Militant faction of Labour gained power. This led to Mrs T. imposing rate-capping on the various Labour city councils. Both sides (Militant Labour and the Conservatives) realized that this was going to be the class war of the decade and were determined to fight to the bitter end.

The collateral damage of this war, was that the middle classes left the inner cities a generation ago, moved down South and have never returned. It was only a decade later with financial aid from the EEC that the North of England is slowly regenerating. But the only new business that are setting up are service jobs: supermarkets, pubs, nightclubs and maybe the odd software company,.which usually gets bought out.

Instead, the communities in the North of England have continued emigration, with everyone who could, having moved down to the South of England, which itself is now becoming overcrowded and overpriced (So overcrowded, that they even building flats and houses on the communal piece of grass in the squares (three streets facing each other).

The current Labour government is trying to fix this "North-South divide" by dispersing asylum seekers and moving government jobs away from the South of England, but everyone wants to stay where the wealth is.

Re: My uncle

[Xoro]

But even if I grant you, without argument, your entire narrative, I still don't see what you're pointing to that would salvage the situation.

All the retraining in the world won't make a British manufacturing worker competitive with a $0.60/hour Chinese worker. And if it could, it would still be cheaper for the Chinese to train up their workers to a comparable level than for Britain to keep pace.

It still looks grim to me.

Re:My uncle

[Vince Mo'aluka]

I've also got a conscience

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

[eric2hill]

A better system would be to provide a living wage (as opposed to the welfare dirty word) to those people...

That's called socialism. This is a democracy. Be sure and understand that distinction as it leads to a government-controlled life.

Re: My uncle

[Malc]

So who's going to the pub and nightclubs? Drinking is an expensive habit. There must be enough money coming from somewhere to make these businesses viable.

Re:My uncle

[LWATCDR]

"That's called socialism. This is a democracy. Be sure and understand that distinction as it leads to a government-controlled life."

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

[hackstraw]

We can't figure out a better system

I have not heard a single complaint from any [mb]illionare CEO. Being that the range of wages between the lowest and the highest paid employees keeps getting larger, I would only expect this type of system to increase until it implodes on itself.

Fuck benevolence, that does not show up on profits.

Re: My uncle

[mikael]

At the time, there was a shortage of affordable housing in areas like Liverpool and Manchester. Other housing stock was in need of renovation.
The workers who were laid off could have been retrained as brickies, plumbers (who are more engineers as they have to repair/install electric showers), electricians, and joiners.

Ironically, a plumber in the UK can now earn over £100K/year, more than double that of a software architect.

Re:My uncle

[master_p]

You're right! one day techology will reach a point that nobody will have to work. Then we should either restructure society in foundamental ways or kill ourselves in a survival-of-the-fittest war.

Unfortunately, it is the latter that I see coming. I don't see people agreeing that 1+1=2, much less conforming to a global social/economic system like the one you describe.

Re: My uncle

[mikael]

So who's going to the pub and nightclubs? Drinking is an expensive habit. There must be enough money coming from somewhere to make these businesses viable.

Mainly students and casual workers (we refer to them neds, scallies, chavs) - the government wants 50% of all school-leavers to continue onto university. Asylum seekers work as bartenders for minimum wage (5 pounds/hour).

Re:My uncle

[Vince Mo'aluka]

If you choose to submit, then it's not force anymore, is it? Certainly, I can hire a man to hit me over the head with a bat, but then, I choose to enter that interaction voluntarily. If I give my explicit consent, then it's not force.

Government does not operate like this. When a citizen "chooses" to submit to government, he does so not out of free will, but in response to a threat of violence.

Re:My uncle

[kayak334]

What you say sounds great, in theory. However, that isn't how the real world or economics works. Robotics and automation lead to cheaper goods for everyone and free up a portion of the workforce to do other things. "Other things" meaning other jobs in the workforce that are in higher demand than the job that just got automated. If you think that we will one day just run out of jobs because everything will be automated, then you need to read a book on basic economics and a book on the human spirit.

Re:My uncle

[KrackHouse]

Your idea is exactly what Germany is trying right now. Their unemployment is approaching 15%. Would you rather have a living wage if it meant there were far fewer jobs available? In fact, the living wage increases the incentive for business to use robots.

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.

Re: My uncle

[mikael]

Lots of people in the UK really don't like the idea of living in the south east, especially London.

That's very true - what I really should have said was that newcomers to the country prefer to stay where there are established communities, and people who already have taken a government job and bought a house, don't want to lose their investment.

And so many people are now downshifting out of London.

Re:My uncle

[Anonymous Coward]

> Robotics, IA/AI, nanotechnology, and other exponentially advancing technology will inevitably lead to this kind of world. "It's different this time".

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...

Re: My uncle

[Malc]

When I was a student the government used to give me a grant to live off. Didn't Labour change the rules and abolish all that? Where do these people get the money from? A good night out (down south at least) costs at least £40/night, and that's if you just stick to the pub and pints of normal beer. I can't afford that on a regular basis and I have a well paid job. Something's not adding up here - there's obviously money floating around which means things aren't that bad.

Changing the subject, minimum wage of £5/hr sounds pretty goood! It's about £3/hr here in Canada (http://www.gov.on.ca/LAB/english/es/factsheets/fs _wage.html). Of course bar staff do make tips here.

Malc

Re:My uncle

[deadweight]

When you try and do something like this two things happen. A large and ever expanding group of people discover they can basically do nothing all day and still get by. At this point the best and the brightest decide to move to another city/state/country and not support them. See the UK in the 1970s for an example.

Re:My uncle

[manojar]

If Governments don't, private corporations will take it for themselves.

Re: My uncle

[benhaha]

Triple when you count the better tax schedule.

Quadruple if you count the opportunity to evade tax.

So do it and quit whining.

Re: My uncle

[cowbutt]

Asylum seekers work as bartenders for minimum wage (5 pounds/hour).

No, asylum workers can't work (legally, at least, which would imply they're earning sub-minimum wage rates if they are working illegally).

What you're seeing is probably students from the recently-acceded EU states, such as Poland. You're as free to work in Poland, if you wish.

Re: My uncle

[mikael]

The students have to take out loans now - most end up with debts of 10K pounds or more. Top-up fees of 3K per year are also being introduced. Although there were plans to scrap that and have a "pot" where everyone would be given a grant, and require to pay the money back once they found a job.

The student population of Liverpool is estimated to be 50,000 Manchester also has a student population of 65,000. So you can guess that the student population brings in millions of pounds to the area.

Changing the subject, minimum wage of £5/hr sounds pretty goood!

But you have to include the cost of living. I could rent a flat in Ontario for 750 Canadian dollars (property tax, electricity and water included).

In the UK, the monthly rent for a good two bedroom flat in Edinburgh is around 450 pounds, Liverpool is 650 pounds, and Brighton 850 pounds. Council tax is 1000 pounds/year, Electricity is 1000 pounds/year, and food is 40 pounds/week. And landlords typically require two months rent in advance. And a car will cost another 3000 pounds/year.

To rent your own place in the South, you would need at least 20K/year. If you were to share a flat with another person, you could just about break even. A minimum wage job, would only bring in 10K/year at 40 hours/week (most of which are part-time anyway).

There are many stories of people taking jobs in the London area, and leaving again once they find that they are actually loosing money by staying there.

Re:My uncle

[benjamindees]

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.

No. What we need to get "back" to is the idea of personal responsibility.

What we're getting to, slowly but surely, is the idea that all work is boring and unnecessesary.

In Bush & Co.'s "Ownership Society", you own your trash. If you throw it in a park, you get your ass kicked. You don't get somebody whose job was replaced by a machine to pick it up for you.

And the great thing is, the libertine liberals can't do a damn thing about it, because their candidate will lose badly against whomever follows Bush.

Re:My uncle

[GOD_ALMIGHTY]

Of course the living wage increases the incentive for business to use robots, that's the point. Automation is an increase in productivity, wage arbitration isn't. Someone will have to design, build and maintain those robots. Someone will think about how to use robots, and then people will start thinking of new efficiencies to be gained with that technology. That's how progress works.

The brain-dead argument that we need to limit wages in order to compete with other labor forces globally is stupid. It centralizes wealth at a time when it needs to be more distributed to so that more ideas will be attempted. Automation is the answer to competing globally. You here this same idiocy being repeated by the GOP with regard to illegal immigration. They say that businesses need cheap labor, that our economy needs cheap labor to grow. Never mind that this is entirely unsustainable. If a type of labor becomes too expensive due to rising wages, then we need to apply some good old American innovation and ingenuity (or steal it from someone else) to the problem and reduce the amount of labor needed.

Only with our current global telecom network, has work been this easy to ship overseas. Previously, natural barriers made this type of movement of production so expensive, Adam Smith even talked about this. Simply throwing everything to the fate of the markets, in their current form, is a faith-based program. Naturally Free Markets don't exist. Markets are a human construct and our markets are no where near perfect or free. This means there is bias in the markets that will work to concentrate power more quickly.

Institutional effectiveness, in government or private enterprise, is not measured by size. To use that as a central measurement is folly and shows institutional bigotry against public bodies over private bodies. Not to mention that a large corporation has just as much difficulty changing direction as a large government.

As for Greed, it only solves some problems, not all. The West doesn't have a problem with too little greed in it's markets. Your examples of China and the Soviet Union are bad as well. India would be a much better example, since it's economic changes have been as democratic as the US. But even that example shows that Greed only solves some problems.

You may be able to see a valid problem, but you don't understand it enough to propose a valid solution. There are far more factors at work here and many more tools needed to solve these problems than you have described.

Re:My uncle

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

That rhetoric wears thin. Maybe you didn't notice, but the parent poster is pointing out that the inevitable outcome of all this, is a robotic worldwide factory force, owned by just a few, with nothing left for the rest of us. If you can't see that, then you're daft. It might only be 30 years from now, maybe 300, hard to say yet. But it will happen.

I'm sure some of our grandchildren will be able to whore themselves out somehow for a pittance, personal servants to the wealthy, eking out an existence at the expense of any dignity.

Capitalism (corporatism?) isn't designed to prevent this. Even if it was, the movement is already underway to gut such protections, meager as they are, through bought legislation, propaganda campaigns and willing tools like yourself.

In the end, you can't even count on your magic "invisible hand" giving you a reach-around.

Re:My uncle

[Abcd1234]

Someone will have to design, build and maintain those robots.

"The battles of the future will not be fought on a battleground or at sea, they will be fought in space. Or at the top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forward today, your duty is clear, to build and maintain those robots. Thank you." -- The Military School Principal in The Simpsons

Re:My uncle

[Seumas]

And what, exactly, defines a "living wage"?

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

[Retric]

We are at a point where:

Most old manual jobs are done by machine. (Digging wells, farming, building cars ect.)
Computers are better at many "thinking" jobs than people are. (Early on Computers where people doing math by hand now days a pocket PC has more computing power than 100's of people doing basic math.)

If we where to get ok AI and slightly better machines I don't think there will be a lot of jobs for people to do.

Add to that fusion for almost unlimited energy and we may get to a point where we stuff like TV's are so cheep there basically free, With computers better at doing your taxes than people, layers are next to useless in court. Digital actors that look better and act better than real ones ect. Now what do you want people to do?

Or to put it another way, I don't care how cheep your labor costs are you don't' dig deep sea oil wells by hand and at some point most people will not have any useful skills so what life style should they live? ?

At this point the poor in the US live better than surfs did in the 1200's. Now at what point do you think the poor will live better than the middle class do today? I don't know what will society be like when automation / AI happens but I hope we don't force most people into poverty for no reason.

Re:My uncle

[Seumas]

I'm frustrated with how things are in this country - like a lot of other people - but I also don't like the "give everyone a decent wage to meet their needs" method, either.

I mean, if you're not adaptable, quick to learn, hard-working and so forth - why *should* you be granted a "living wage" or "enough to meet your NEEDS"? What gives you the right to demand from an employer (or a government) enough to meet your needs if you provide no worth to society?

I don't see that as a dog-eat-dog point of view. I just see it as a... well... a fair trade. If you provide something useful to someone, they pay you. The more useful and unique the service you provide, the more they pay you. Jobs, valuable as they are in this market, should be reserved for those who need, want and excel at them - not given out to every incompitant just because they "deserve a living wage too", regardless of skill.

If you do that, then how is it any different than giving jobs out to slave labor in china where they can compete for lower wages?

Re:My uncle

[Vince Mo'aluka]

Are you that blinded by the promises of centralized power that you deny that the initiation of force is immoral and unjust? Wow.

Let me ask you something. Do you support the war? Do you support the killing of thousands of innocents and the destruction of an entire country for the benefit of the powerful elite? Well, guess what? It's your support for big government and centralized power that gave them the ability to build the empire in the first place.

Power corrupts, by definition. That is why I advocate limited government -- not because I am selfish, inconsiderate, or uncaring. In fact, from my perspective, YOU are the selfish, inconsiderate, uncaring individual for advocating a government that grants your wishes at the expense of those who hold other beliefs.

Re: My uncle

[Malc]

I live in Toronto: good luck getting part of somebody's basement for $750/month! I pay almost twice that for the main floor and basement of somebody's house. I had a shock recently when I got asked more than $8 for a Guinness (plus tip of course). Yes, it's a little cheaper here, but not as much as people think if you want a lifestyle comparable to the one in the UK. If you want to pay a lot less you have to move to suburbia and sell your soul to the automobile lifestyle. Expect to pay more than $2000 year car insurance in the Toronto area if you don't commute and have the best rating, unless you're an immigrant with no rating, then it's $6000-7000/year. I avoided that by being on my Canadian wife's insurance. I often think of moving back to the UK, but the thing that puts me off is having to break in to the housing market... the rest of life I can deal with.

Re:My uncle

[SunFan]

The irony in the living wage/minimum wage arguments is that the economy adapts within a few years such that the new living wage is worth no more than the old one. There is simply no way that the government waving a magic wand in the law books can change the fundamental strength or weakness of the economy, unless it is the biggies like the federal interest rate or tax law (i.e., money to/from the government itself).

Re:My uncle

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Their unemployment is approaching 15%.

Note that being unemployeed in Germany is different then being unemployeed in the US.

In the US, if you can't find a job you end up homeless (or on someone's couch) with no health insurance for you and your family. If you manage to find part time or contract work, you may not be able to find insurance to cover your family (I couldn't get coverage for my family, and a typical package cost $3600 a year). Your unemployment benefits in 3 months (or 6 months if there is an extension). If you don't find work in a year, you are dropped from the Unemployment Rate statistics, which artifically lowers the so-called "Unemployment Rate".

In Germany, unemployment isn't so severe: You don't have a job, but you do get government pay for a long time, and you and your family always have health insurance, which makes it easier to take on part-time and contract work.

Re:My uncle

[SunFan]

On average, corporations redistribute that wealth much more efficiently than governments do. Just look at the social security debate, for example. The government can debate and debate and debate, but they won't be motivated to act until doing so matters in getting votes. Voters won't be prodded into caring until their checks start disappearing in 30 or 40 or 50 years. On the other hand, a corporation has to act within a few years, otherwise they are screwed.

Take Sun, for example. Could anyone have predicted what they are doing now five years ago? If they were the Congress with no competition, they's still be trying to sell the Sun 1.

Re:My uncle

[Saeger]

If you provide something useful to someone, they pay you.

Yes, but my point was that the percentage of (economically) "useless" people will only increase as automation efficiency increases, so there would be no reason to trade with them.

As fewer and fewer humans are necessary to do the REAL work that supplies most of mankinds "unlimited" needs & wants, there's a choice to be made: either you leave the less fortunate to starve, and eventually revolt, so you can enjoy your righteously deserved disproportionate wealth (dog-eat-dog), or you can spread the wealth in the form of a living wage. There's still an incentive, though, for the technologically unemployed "useless" people to find some way of providing unique value in order to get more than just sustenance.

Abundance changes everything... Capitalism doesn't work well with it (see: "intellectual property").

Re: My uncle

[mikael]

Ontario - Oakville - Attic apartment with aluminum roof tiling and sundeck with table. 35 degrees C indoors in Summer, 20 degrees in Winter.

I'm in the UK just now, and the property market is just over the top - even the traditional "professional couple" first-time buyer housing is 150k pounds (300K US dollars) for a two bedroom flat. Silicon Valley prices!

Reminds me of the poll tax protest car-stickers/badges: "Can't pay - Won't Pay!".
And the retirees are fed up of their property taxes constantly going up.

Re:My uncle

[KrackHouse]

Good point but the benefits common in Europe may only be possible in 50 years when robots do just about everything. That's not the case now. Now, it's cheaper to outsource to foreign labor markets, eventually robots will beat even cheap labor, freeing those workers from corporate tyranny (and a paycheck).

So are you really worried about wealth distribution to the poor? Because it's happening on a massive scale in China right now due to our outsourcing. Or ar you concerned about wealth distribution to you(a capitalist tendency)?

Re:My uncle

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush's "ownership society" is a joke. He fails to recognize that nearly everyone who opts into Personal Savings Accounts will need a professional money manager who gets commissions. He also fails to admit that "past performance is no guarantee of future results." For example, the US economy has been flat for over a year, now, after a brief recovery in 2002/2003. He also fails to admit that real estate costs are rising much faster than inflation (10%/year where I live, most people can't even afford down payments any more). He also fails to admit that wages are nearly stagnant (wage freezes are almost the rule in several big sectors--manufacturing, health care, universities, etc.).

His plans are so transparently unviable that I feel sorry for people gullible enough to fall for them.

For the Democrats, while a woman canidate would be wonderful, can she overcome the misogynistic attitude many people have towards leadership on top of all the other issues? What would be awesome is Condi vs. Hillary. Hillary's ego, then, would simply crush Condi into a pulp. No debating would be needed, just post big pictures of Hillary glaring down the opposition.

Re: My uncle

[Malc]

There's not much to be had for £130K housing-wise around here, unless you want to do the condo/high-rise lifestyle. I'm a bit too attached to the lifestyle I've become accustomed to on Queen Street W for that though. Having a bedroom that never gets above 18 degrees (additional heating required in winter) and mandates dehumidifier to avoid black mould just adds to the experience ;) Housing prices in the SE of the UK are really scary though - one doesn't pay for size, but lifestyle/location for sure, although there can be a lot of that.

Re:My uncle

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Actually, funny you should mention that. I don't support our government, and it is obvious to me that both the republican party and the democrat party have failed us in the most unforgivable of ways.

But your slashdot-styled libertarianism isn't a solution either, even if it could be implemented in whatever grandiose fashion you think fit. I doubt the libertarian revolution will redistribute the massive accumulation of wealth that has already occurred, and because of that, you're right back in the same pickle, aren't you?

No, power doesn't corrupt. It might look that way to ijits, but all your best examples are of assholes who gamed the system until they were at the top. They were corrupt already. But I'll tell you what, I'll make it easier for you. I neither want power (let alone absolute) nor do I want to hand it off to anyone else (sure as hell couldn't trust anyone else).

The world needs a better system. Capitalism won't deliver a libertarian paradise to us... it can make more profit selling us a lower quality product that we have to replace every 3 years.

Re:My uncle

[Don Negro]

If Hillary Clinton ends up as the Democratic nominee for President, it's going to do a very uncomfortable thing for the right-wing coalition. It's going to lay the fault-lines bare. Kerry's campaign was sufficiently muddled as to obscure a lot of them. Anyone named Clinton, however, is so polarizing that not knowing where you stand won't be possible. So far, that polarization has worked well for motivating the evalgelical vote, but with Clinton it'll motivate *all* the vote, and as history has shown time and time again, the higher the turnout across all segments of the population, the lower the Republicans' percentage of the vote is.

Re:My uncle

[Vince Mo'aluka]

I neither want power (let alone absolute) nor do I want to hand it off to anyone else (sure as hell couldn't trust anyone else).

Then by what logic can you advocate force (centralized government) as your solution?

Let me get this straight. You view wealth as a problem that needs solving. For whatever reason, you consider wealth (financial success) immoral, even when it is acquired through 100% voluntary means. Your solution to this problem is redistribution of wealth. But at the same time, you don't want the power to achieve that yourself (the right to initiate force as a means to an end), nor would you delegate that power to anyone else.

Without some elite group holding the right to initiate force, how exactly do you plan to redistribute wealth? Entirely voluntary and by free will? That's called anarcho-socialism. We're on the same team, buddy!

You see, I am not against helping the poor. I am not against charity. In fact I am very supportive of it. What I am against is the initiation of force. While I consider myself an anarcho-capitalist, I have absolutely nothing against anarcho-socialism. Why? Because it is founded on the principle of voluntary association.

Now, one more point. What we have in the US is not capitalism, not by a long shot. What we have is a highly bastardized mix of capitalism AND socialism. Our "capitalism" is corrupt, exploitable, and nowhere near 100% voluntary. Perhaps you should direct your anger at the root of the problem, which is the existence of power?

Re: My uncle

[mikael]

SE house prices are mind-boggling. Everyone is having to compete against city stockbrokers earning 100K/year, renovators (usually builders themselves) who buy up run-down houses, redecorate them and sell them on for a profit, and the buy-to-let market who buy a handful of properties, rent them out and live off the earnings.

Just for a regular three bedroom family home (concrete base, wooden frame, brick skin), is going to cost around 500K pounds), and that's not even with a decent sized backyard.

And in the North of England, you could buy a whole suburb for that money, as a single terraced two-up/two-down sells for 3K pounds each. But ther e isn't anyone who wants to live there.

The SE is so crowded now, that there are even laws banning people removing sticks and twigs from public parks, or even collecting pebbles from the beaches because the cumulative effect of having the local population doing these things was to strip away the entire ecosystem.

Re:My uncle

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

I never advocated force. I took exception with a stinky cliche that you used. You know, the kind people use when they have no words of their own?

But please, go on. I want to hear more about how our only problems stem from the fact that we don't have pure capitalism. Once we achieve that dream, these laidoff losers can start selling kidneys on ebay to make up for their lack of jobs.

Re:My uncle

[Vince Mo'aluka]

So you are just a troll? I had a feeling you were, considering that you don't advocate force, but at the same time, are apparently strongly opposed to voluntary association (capitalism).

A person who doesn't advocate force, but opposes voluntary association. How cute.

Re:My uncle

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Voluntary associations that result in companies having 3,000,000 shares (each potentialy owned by a different individual), run by a board of directors that can in theory do nearly anything without any liability? These artificial citizens can for instance, use their "free speech" and campaign contributions to influence elections from the local scale all the way up to the federal and international (think UN, WTO, etc). So, yeh, voluntary association does have its problems too. Should a corp. be allowed to have more influence than any single citizen, should citizens be forced to group together to combat it? Should we really be institutionalizing this lame-ass groupthink? (Those who can backstab their way to the leadership positions in these groups answer "yes", as do those who someday wish to do the same).

Does that mean we need a police force forcing everyone to not associate? Hell no. We just need the ijits who think they're cool libertarians to stop worshipping it like it's some nirvanna straight out of a Randist wet dream. Stop worshipping it. Start thinking, and never let the association grow so big that you don't know everyone involved personally and can't go bitchslap them if they start used the collective clout to do something illegal or immoral.

Do I get pissed when a small business lays someone off? No. It's regrettable, but they do the best they can. If a huge corporation is allowed to have billions in revenue and even more in the bank, the only reason that should be allowed is to provide more for their workers, when times are lean. Otherwise, we should dissolve all the special privileges that they get.

So, not cute. Just practical.

Re:My uncle

[LaCosaNostradamus]

time + no job security + poorly paid + service industy = no middle class

This isn't "sad", it's CRIMINAL.

Re:My uncle

[LaCosaNostradamus]

In America, we HAD the "better system" (regulated capitalism under a democratic Republic). We cashed that out in order to mint more millionaires at the expense of the middle class (in unregulated capitalism under a fascist Empire).

Stop worshipping wealth. Once that happens, everything else will follow. People will return to saving money (since once you remove the wealth-worship, they don't anticipate becoming another stock millionaire), living frugally (since once you remove the wealth-worship, they don't live beyond their means), and in general start living their own lives with the modest time and modest wealth that is THEIRS.

Re:My uncle

[Vince Mo'aluka]

The irony here is that you seem to be advocating a form of limited government, in order to lower the level of abuse, and that is the core principle of -- drum roll please -- libertarianism!

Back to what you were saying... You repeatedly claim that capitalism is bad because it's exploitable. But at the core, capitalism is nothing but voluntary trade for mutual benefit. When you're talking about corporate fraud, you're talking about force, not voluntary association. When you're talking about corporations buying out government, you're talking about force, not voluntary association. Please, at least realize that force is our common enemy, not free will.

Re:My uncle

[LaCosaNostradamus]

If I'm forced to choose, I prefer the private (in reality, public) corporations, since crossing them does not invoke the vengeance of the state in perpetuity (as is the case if you resist the government).

Succinctly, I anticipate that shooting a representative of Consolidated Megacorp would be less risky for me than shooting a representative of the state of Ohio.

Re:My uncle

[LaCosaNostradamus]

"the inevitable outcome [...] a robotic worldwide factory force, owned by just a few, with nothing left for the rest of us [...] But it will happen."

Welcome to a world of perpetual warfare and criminality, then. Such a future is highly unstable. As such, then, I don't expect it to happen ... since the mechanisms of production and distribution will be destroyed and change hands from all the warfare and "terrorist" attacks (in reality, disenfranchised natives trying to get their economic rights back).

Re:My uncle

[LaCosaNostradamus]

Soooo ... you want the distributed power of denying centralized power? Why, the next thing you'll demand is a democratic Republic governed by a body of law derived from a Constitution and common law. YOU RADICAL! He hee!

Re:My uncle

[LaCosaNostradamus]

I didn't realize socialism and democracy were mutually exclusive. Please explain how this is true, again? Thanks.

Re:My uncle

[LaCosaNostradamus]

Robotics and automation lead to cheaper goods for everyone and free up a portion of the workforce to do other things.

That's some fine parrotting. Too bad for you that many of the people "freed up" in such a fashion are not similarly "freed up" from their debt loads, current bills, and all the costs coming down the pipe from an increased price of energy.

Get real and stop participating in the Republican Echo Chamber. If all those people made "free" in the last 5 years really produced a benefit, we'd have seen one by now.

And about those cheap goods ... obviously they have drained America of her manufacturing base. There will always be regional changes for economic forces, but the entire 290-million-person nation of America is a wee bit large for a "regional" change, don't you think?

Manufacturing of capital equipment is the ONLY basis of wealth. If you don't make it, you are a slave to those who do ... and that is the entire point of America's scheduled degradation. (You DO know what capital equipment is, right? After all, you seem familiar with a "book on basic economics", right?)

Re:My uncle

[Monkelectric]

a "living wage" is easy to define. Its whatever ammoutn of money it takes you to not fear for your life if you loose your job. IE: you can afford, food, shelter, and medical care.

Re: My uncle

[drsquare]

£40/night, at £2 a pint, that's 20 pints. No-one drinks 20 pints a night. Say if you only have 10 pints, at £20. Someone with a well-paid job can surely afford that?

Re:My uncle

[LaCosaNostradamus]

Add to that fusion for almost unlimited energy ... why, this kind of brainless faith this reminds me of:

1. Create immense energy shortage by unrestrained growth.
2. ???
3. Profit!

How pathetic of us to have missed the obvious solution to #2, that being your "add fusion for almost unlimited energy"! What a keen insight you have! If only we had seen such a fulfilling answer with such ease!

Sarcasm aside, people who believe in fusion are like Catholics: they believe in something that not only is there no evidence for, but that there is a large body of evidence AGAINST it. Fusion research has had at least 4 solid decades to produce a net energy gain from any sustainable reaction. It has not. Hence, it is a boondoggle and the government should stop sinking public money into that fucking PhD welfare program (like the Superconducting Superexpensive Supercollider, which apparently accelerated investment-grade coins to relativistic speeds so that PhDs could read their "publish or perish" articles by the light of dying platinum and gold atoms).

The future of energy management (as more than suggested by ex-President Carter) is in conservation and exploration of a diverse range of energy alternatives, such as solar. Those who continue to bet on a massive-influx technology like fusion are still livin' the 1950s dream -- the heyday of Our God Oil (blessedbehisname). Conservation and distributed generation do not fit into this hyperkinetic, elite vision of the future (after all, remember those flying cars?).

Re:My uncle

[eric2hill]

They aren't mutually exclusive. The problem is that the USA is a capitalistic democracy. Introducing socalistic ideas into a capitalistic democracy will only lead to more beaurocracy, which is what the US needs less of, not more.

Re:My uncle

[LaCosaNostradamus]

Would you rather have a living wage if it meant there were far fewer jobs available?

Call me a nut, but YES, since it would also mean that while unemployed for long periods, I wouldn't have to face losing my home (as I did here in America) during the recent period of "personnel conservatism". A living wage is a concept that should go hand in hand with a responsible welfare state. (After all, if Boeing can get money out of the Export-Import Bank to promote its sales in Europe, then why can't I get money out of the state of Ohio when I'm unemployed? Does Boeing have more right to exist than I do?)

Capitalism is a great thing ... once you moderate its sheer viciousness with Socialism.

Re:My uncle

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Let me get this straight. You view wealth as a problem that needs solving. For whatever reason, you consider wealth (financial success) immoral, even when it is acquired through 100% voluntary means.

Let me butt into this: I do not consider wealth "immoral" (as money is simply an amoral tool) but I see a vast disparity in wealth between some tiny elite and majority of society leading to centralized power and control, followed by debasing serfdom of majortity to that tiny minority, and thus to be anti-social and for lack of a better word "evil". (I will skip for the momemnt discussion of crippling economical effects of such distribution of wealth). From your other posts I see that you see use of "force" against few anti-social people for the benefit of billions as the utimate failing of society. I would be curious for your explanation as to how to solve the problem of oligopoly being the inherent equilibrium of real-life capitalist system (as oposed to pure theory under ideal conditions) while not using any sort of centralized political power such as government. I am all ears.

Re:My uncle

[KrackHouse]

So, using the same logic, we should prevent the use of robots in manufacturing right? They're taking our jobs.

Changing the tax structure may help with the problem. But creating challenges for businesses will cause the loss of jobs in the country with the regulation. You can't buy a home to lose if you don't have a job in the first place.

Re:My uncle

[LaCosaNostradamus]

What gives you the right to demand from an employer (or a government) enough to meet your needs if you provide no worth to society?

That's an excellent question, fraught with assumptions taken from the Republican Echo Chamber that we will have to deal with here:

• As a voter, I control the government.
• As a citizen, I authorized the corporations through chartering by my government.
• Government already and outlandishly heaps favorable conditions upon corporations, in direct conflict with my modest needs for food, heat and shelter.
• Social worth has been skewed towards artificial high valuations placed upon the parasitical classes known as an investment bankers and brokers.
• It is morally better to tolerate the death of corporations over the death of people (assuming one has to choose such).
• There is no right to profits or losses, and the government has no legal mandate to act on either.

Re:My uncle

[Retric]

In the past 50 years the size of the largest stable reactions has grown over 100,000x. Calling that a failure is silly.

If we had been spending anywhere near the kind of money we spent on the manhattan project and things where not working that would be one thing. But, for the most part fusion research has been ignored. ITER was going to be a working reactor as in hooked up to the power grid and producing energy but after cutting it's budget in half and waiting 5 years to decide on a location for the fucking thing well it's not been living up to that.

PS: You can own and operate an aircraft for less than the cost of a high end car. The largest problem with using them is learning how to fly and finding someplace to land.

Re:My uncle

[IgnoramusMaximus]

So do I, and that's exactly why I do not believe in robbing Peter to give to Paul.

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

[LaCosaNostradamus]

The USA is a "capitalistic democracy" without "socalistic ideas"? DO TELL! I must have been reading Missus Tate's Book of Liberal American Myths for the last 20 years.

Please explain the existence of the following items in such a non-socalistic society:

• minimum wage laws
• labor laws in general
• unemployment insurance
• food stamps
• social security system
• medicare system
• wealth taxes (corporate income, inheritance, savings, dividend, excise (in certain areas), etc.)

Re:My uncle

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

The people who stand to gain from such a world can see this too. That's why the population control meme is so prevalent.

Re:My uncle

[LaCosaNostradamus]

In the past 50 years the size of the largest stable reactions has grown over 100,000x. Calling that a failure is silly.

In 50 fucking years, no power has been produced for consumers. Calling that NOT a failure is silly. I've already said this, but in typical brainless fashion, you continue to harp on hope with a hopeless investment.

Donate your own money towards fusion. Leave MY money out of it (i.e. taxes as expressed by government grants). The Rest Of Us should be free of that for energy technologies that are much more likely to produce ... like solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, etc. Even better, these technologies are not only distributed but will take significant investments of native labor to exploit.

I fully agree that if fusion does take off (hah, fat chance) then you as the investor are entitled to share in the profits thereby.

Re:My uncle

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

I'm not sure we disagree. Might be semantics. But I'm too tired to figure out what words we have common definitions of. If it makes you feel better, you've been crossed off my list of assholes.

Re:My uncle

[LaCosaNostradamus]

If labor wasn't so spineless and did understand that they have to enforce their involvement in the process of production, they'd see that yes, the introduction of robots should have been more restricted. Robots were inevitable. What was NOT inevitable was the wholesale replacement of so many workers that we've decimated the blue collars ... undermining America's middle class and creating a new class of "working poor".

With restrictions, robots could have been introduced at a sustainable rate that allowed displaced workers much more time to find new niches. Instead, we just tossed these saps out in the street. As you may note, we took the welfare hit, as if that was somehow a better investment.

As for creating challenges for businesses ... no, I can hardly call it a "challenge" if we stop the government from promoting and assisting native corporations from taking the commonwealth and moving it overseas. WE created that wealth for everyone to take advantage of, not just 10 thousand well-heeled stockholders and executives.

Re:My uncle

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Please, at least realize that force is our common enemy, not free will.

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.

Re:My uncle

[TheSync]

Well, better off in the UK than in Germany or France with 10% unemployment...

Sure, a Frenchman can get a job for life (that means retiring at age 55), but you might not get that job until you are 30...you like living with Mum & Dad right?

Re:My uncle

[smithmc]

A better system would be to provide a living wage (as opposed to the welfare dirty word)

If you wanna give away money to the non-working poor, just say so. No need for the doublespeak. "Wages" are paid for work.

Re:My uncle

[KrackHouse]

Why belive me? I'm no professor. So here's a quote from an Economist article

Yet it should be clear, even to the most socially minded in Germany, that the clock cannot be turned back without inflicting enormous damage on the country's prospects. Germany has signed up to EU treaties that prescribe the free flow of capital across national borders. Repudiating these is impossible without leaving the Union. The same applies to taxing foreign-exchange transactions or introducing a minimum holding period for an equity investment--both recent suggestions. Hedge funds and private-equity funds have open access for the long or short term.

Re:My uncle

[CmdrGravy]

This is a very good point, the reason we have governments is to stop random individuals who happen to have amassed a lot of money and/or weaponry and followers from forcing us to do as they say.

Re:My uncle

[CmdrGravy]

Efficiency is one thing ( the Nazis were certainly efficient ) but do they do it fairly ?

Re:My uncle

[kayak334]

Yes, everything you said is great. I apologize for not stating that I was speaking in the long term and purely from an economic point of view (i.e. not talking about personal loss of individuals). What you are talking about is the fact that America is moving towards a "service based" economy instead of a manufacturing based one. I wasn't talking about that in my post and agree with you that service based economies are a bad thing in general.

Re:My uncle

[poofyhairguy82]

No. What we need to get "back" to is the idea of personal responsibility.

Sure, but how do we do that?

What we're getting to, slowly but surely, is the idea that all work is boring and unnecessary.

No. What we've gotten to in the U.S. is a point where everyone wants to be a high paid manager and expects all of the really needed, tough jobs to be done by someone else. Americans refuse to work in a factory or dig holes or whatever menial labor job for $4 bucks an hour. And guess what- ME TOO! You too too I bet. We'd rather let the Chinese or illegal Mexicans do it. Even Bush admits this, that why he pushes for Amnesty for Illegal Immigrant.s

Part of it is the fact that you can go on welfare and earn more. But that isn't all of it. We live in a society where being poor is degrading. You are assumed to be lazy or stupid if you don't pull in the big bucks. The "big on" personal responsibility people like yourself make this worse by doing a lot of shouting and helping nothing. "If a person can't make enough to eat, he's lazy and its completely his fault." No, sometimes it has to do with the fact that real estate speculation in that person's area has created a high price bubble that made real wages decrease for the last 50 years. That the cost of living is the U.S. has gotten so high that we couldn't compete if we wanted to.

In Bush & Co.'s "Ownership Society", you own your trash. If you throw it in a park, you get your ass kicked. You don't get somebody whose job was replaced by a machine to pick it up for you.

Alright Bush fan, I've got a question for you. What happens in this "Ownership Society" tens years down the road when privatization of things like Social Security allow a HUGE percentage of Americans to blow their money on bad investments? The problem with Bush's utopia is the assumption that everyone has the same abilities to be good owners and investors but that is not the case. Casinos and Market Bubbles and record highs in personal debt wouldn't occur if most people were good with money but most people are not.

With Bush's plan, a large percent of American will blow their money on high risk stuff and be worse off before privatization. Bush's society says about this "too bad, you should have done better. its your fault, now deal with the consequences." But thats not how it going to happen. Instead all of these people will vote the Democrats back into power, and then taxes will increase (for the richest) in order to keep all of these people out of poverty.

And the great thing is, the libertine liberals can't do a damn thing about it, because their candidate will lose badly against whomever follows Bush.

You are correct, the Democrats are more messed up now then they have been in a long time. If Hillary runs, it will be like saying "we want to lose." But their disorganization isn't a blank check. You keep up this "its always the individual's fault" mess too much longer (without any moderation) because those who are at fault but don't care to suffer will amass enough political power to kick elephant out of Washington.

Re:My uncle

[poofyhairguy82]

What would come out of anarcho-libertarianism is very simlilar to what came out of Marxism: totalitarian, feudal-like power.

Ole modern Capitalism also seems to be sliding in this direction. Could it be that no government or economic system works well for a long amount of time?

Re:My uncle

[Retric]

If you think it's a bad idea feel then free to point out why it will not work. Fusion is well understood it's been demonstrated and has been used to create energy. At this point solar still cost's more than using say coal so it's just as much in the design stage as fusion. Hell it's got a much lower chace of ever making anywhere near the amount of energy we need right now let along in the 20+ years it would take to get such a system in place.

Wind is somewhat usefull in remote areas but produces so little energy it's funny. There is a tiny amount of untaped tide energy and don't get me started on BIO fuel. At this in the next 50 years it's eiter coal or fusion and that's about it.

Re:My uncle

[MarcoAtWork]

Americans refuse to work in a factory or dig holes or whatever menial labor job for $4 bucks an hour

if it was possible to live on a $4/hour salary I'm sure a lot of Americans would line up for those jobs. It was not that long ago that a vanilla assembly line factory worker was able to bring home enough $$$ to support a stay-at-home mom, children and a house in the suburbs, to do that now you'd need to gross anywhere from $60,000 to $120,000/year depending on where you live, and I don't know of many blue collar jobs that pay that much.

I am not one to advocate protectionism, but it's starting to get nuts with so many jobs disappearing due to somebody in China or India being able to do them for 1/10th the cost.

I'm not sure how things could be fixed, some starting points would be to make the minimum wage something more representative of what the cost of living is, which probably would mean tripling or quadrupling the current one in most areas of the USA/Canada.

Another good thing would be to make corporations pay equivalent salaries wherever their workforce is: say, if IBM is a US company, *and* in the US an average software developer should be paid $70,000/year, IBM should be made to pay that amount regardless if they hire a local or remote engineer thus rendering outsourcing totally pointless.

Will this ever happen? I totally doubt it, the way things are going now society will become more and more polarized between the haves and have nots, if credit cards did not exist and people had to actually pay for everything out of their own pockets I'm sure the bubble would burst quite quickly.

It would be nice if some economist did some study of the effect of personal debt availability vs recessions, IMHO as much as being able to increase your personal debt will enable you to keep things going for a while longer, it can't last forever.

Re:My uncle

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Ole modern Capitalism also seems to be sliding in this direction. Could it be that no government or economic system works well for a long amount of time?

I would not venture as far as to say "no" system. I think none of the systems that are being talked about were actually designed to withstand all of the preassures that are being placed on them while adhering to basic requirements of society. Also it is very difficult to future-proof a political system, changes in technology can render old equations moot and create completely new problems.

Having said that, I am optimistic that an extremely robust system could be devised because the number of fundamental rules is very small. Once everyone acknowledges these basic axioms, the rest flows out of there through logic. So even if the fine level details could be variable, the core would essentially have to be static. But what is required is that very acknowledment of basic rules which have to be defined in the terms of interaction of sentient beings so that if (or rather when) AI or other forms (genetic engineering? aliens? what not?) are encountered the system would accomodate them by definition.

Re: My uncle

[mikael]

The hotel I stayed at in Liverpool, had quite a few workers from Eastern Europe.

When I was in the South of England, the guy working at the 24 hour drug store was from Afghanistan and didn't speak much English.

Re:My uncle

[manojar]

A liberal and a conservative were sitting in a bar. Then Bill Gates walked in. "Hey, we're rich!" shouted the conservative. "The average person in this bar is now worth more than a billion!" "That's silly," replied the liberal. "Bill Gates raises the average, but that doesn't make you or me any richer." "Hah!" said the conservative, "I see you're still practicing the discredited politics of class warfare."

Re:My uncle

[Lehk228]

fusion is reliable and works very well, it's just that you have to be willing and able to accept all the energy at once in the form of heat and radiation

Re: My uncle

[gowen]

Third, and nearly second.

You win, 5 virtual pounds.

Don't spend it all at once.

Re:My uncle

[LaCosaNostradamus]

If you think it's a bad idea feel then free to point out why it will not work.

What part of 50 YEARS WITHOUT A RESULT don't you fucking understand? Are you really this dense?

I'm not saying "it won't work". I'm CLEARLY saying:

"You PhD pukes have had 50 fucking years to produce even ONE joule of consumer power from fusion, and you've so obviously failed in that task that to even dare ask for more money for YOUR research is a world's record in chutzpah. Spend your OWN money on fusion from now on, you welfare queens!"

If you don't believe in RESULTS, then nothing I say on this topic will make sense. Fusion is supposed to be producing consumer power ... not PhD theses. Nothing else sufficies.

Fusion is well understood it's been demonstrated and has been used to create energy.

Sure, you can always spend a couple of megawatts to generate a couple of kilowatts. What's your point? IT'S NOT PRODUCTIVE.

(blah-de-blah about solar power)

If you really think that placing a panel out in the sun is a loser, then you truly ARE a retard. The only point about solar is that the price of the panels is ARTIFICIALLY HIGH. It is HIGH since the "smart money" (often guided by chumps like yourself) is chasing BOONDOGGLES like fusion, DECLINING SOURCES like oil, and of course the old Western-civilization systemic failure: too much investment money is chasing FIDUCIARY SCHEMES and not REAL ENERGY DEVELOPMENT WORK.

It's been well said before that America needs to enact an "Apollo Program" for alternative energy sources. Yes, even YOU would like that, since there would also be funding for fusion. But the point is that the massive investment would finally push society over the edge of marginal technologies like freakin' solar panels. These technologies are ONLY marginal since the investment in them is so pathetic.

If we would have thrown fusion's investment dollars into solar, we'd have panels covering millions of homes by now.

(blah-de-blah about wind power)

Utilities are finding out that your sentiments are full of shit. The ONLY thing keeping wind off the shelf now is the NIMBYs. In fact, the NIMBYs are the major problem here for the idea of distributed generation ... we have to in fact DESTROY the NIMBYs since they have no right whatsoever to deny the positive public benefits of the placement of a distributed energy network.

(Even worse than the NIMBYs are the BANANAs - Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Nor Anytime (or something like that). These people are on a mission to deny the basic energy infrastructure that Western civilization requires to operate.)

I'll think warmly of your stupid-assed comments the next time I pass the wind-powered generators about 30 miles south of where I am now. There's wind most everywhere, twit. Just put up a generator in the way and collect free power. Of course, it helps to NOT run the electric utility as some sort of dotcom investment engine. Distributed energy networks are the strongest arguments for breaking up the electric utilities and making them NPOs, co-ops, and in general PUBLIC assets. So, having a generator on a tower take 20 years to amortize will be more palatable than have the thing being under pressure to amortize in 3 years under a fucking for-profit system.

Power is the right of the Western civilization. Power makes our civilization work on so many levels that it's impossible to remove it. And the funny thing is, the West is so wealthy that it can afford to make the investment in distributed generation to prepare for the coming oil shock. SO LET'S INVEST.

(But not fusion. Fusion has had 50 years to prove itself. It's failed. Fuck it. Let's pour the vast majority of those billions into solar now.)

Re:My uncle

[LaCosaNostradamus]

It's funny that you mention professors. Aren't those the tens of thousands of people who have the LEAST in common with the tens of millions of blue collar workers displaced by their philosophies and so-called arguments?

Fuck them.

It's funny you quote an article about "turning back the clock", because we're busy turning back the century on the American worker. Current socio-economic policy does NOT represent the American worker. Such policy intends to use the capital gains of the 20th Century to return the workforce to the 19th Century, while using the margin saved to push the elite into the 21st Century. It's feudalism all over again.

Of course, we'll see a whole lot more warfare and civil unrest before that sick little process finishes. It's the logical consequence.

Re:My uncle

[Retric]

The idea of using wind as a significant portion of US power consumption works as well as using hydropower as a significant portion of US power. Yes it is useful but there is not enough of it to do all that much. Once again this is total power that includes things like cars that are not part of the electric grid.

There are fully functional plans for a working fusion power plant. They are not being used. Saying we are spending money on this is silly because we are not. Fusion is well out of the R&D stage and into the demonstration stage.

Solar has had significant investments which are larger than fusion yet there are 0 profitable solar power plants. By your argument we have been working on it for 50 years and it does not work so we should give up.

In the next 50 years we are going to move to a hydrogen economy powered by coal and nether wind nor solar is going to provide significant sources of power.

Distributed power generation is a misnomer there is economy of scale that is lost when you decentralize.

PS: If you generate power the electric companies are FORCED BY LAW TO BUY IT FROM YOU if you want to invest your money is solar or wind feel free there is NOTING STOPING YOU.

Re:My uncle

[Seumas]

But if I provide no worth or motivation or return to the world, why should I be simply given food, shelter, medical care, etc?

What you're essentially saying is - if you work hard, have foresight, educate yourself, bust your ass, all so you can progress in the world - you can pay for your own shit. If you're lazy, worthless, would rather spread your legs or play xbox all day than do something with your life and can't be motivated to do anything more than sweep the parking lot of your local GoodWill store for a living, and that doesn't pay your way through life, the world somehow OWES you?

Screw that.

Re:My uncle

[Monkelectric]

You are A: very young, or B: Haven't seen hard times in your life. Someday you are going to loose your job, or get sick, and you're going to loose your house, and possibly your family, and then you'll understand the foolishness of what you have just said.

Re:My uncle

[Seumas]

You are A: very young

Almost 30.

or B: Haven't seen hard times in your life.
Yeah, because hard times don't make you tough, responsible and self-reliant the way that having everything handled to you and granted by entitlement to you, right?

Someday you are going to loose your job, or get sick

I lost my job eight months ago. Guess what, I was re-hired - with a substantial raise by the end of the year. Guess what? I had the foresight to save money for such a situation. Guess what? Just because I might lose my job doesn't give me the right to expect to be given work just because I exist - nor to demand any specific type of pay or compensation that is not directly related to my value and productive capability.

and you're going to loose your house, and possibly your family, and then you'll understand the foolishness of what you have just said.

Someday, you'll grow up and get your head out of that utopian cloud and realize that just because you're on hard times doesn't give you the right to demand anything. Sick, healthy, educated, uneducated, young, old, employed or not - none of it matters. What matters is whether someone has a job they need performed and how valuable I am to that position in establishing compensation.

Just by virtue of being alive, I am not deserving of someone else's money (derived from their own hard work and value). And neither are you.

Re:My uncle

[Monkelectric]

I lost my job eight months ago. Guess what, I was re-hired - with a substantial raise by the end of the year. Guess what? I had the foresight to save money for such a situation. Guess what? Just because I might lose my job doesn't give me the right to expect to be given work just because I exist - nor to demand any specific type of pay or compensation that is not directly related to my value and productive capability.

And do you have any idea what would have happened to you if you had gotten in a car wreck in those 8 months you didnt have health insurance? Can you pay a 300k hospital bill?

Re:My uncle

[fingerfucker]

Too bad for you that many of the people "freed up" in such a fashion are not similarly "freed up" from their debt loads, current bills, and all the costs coming down the pipe from an increased price of energy.

You fucking moron. Who asked them to get into debt in the first place instead of saving? Who asked them to get on a "all you can talk" cell phone plan and a "premium" cable TV package? And who asked them to buy an SUV instead of a hybrid? Just think with your head, you dumbfuck, for example demanding a hybrid as opposed to an SUV would have created a consumer market to which car manufacturers would HAVE to appropriately respond if they want to stay in business (why do you think S&P lowered Ford and GM's credit rating?).

You should stop whining like a little bitch and realize that fiscal responsibility is not just a made-up term applying only to the government.

It is YOU who needs to get real and realize that responsibility for one's welfare lies in the individual's hands. It is in your best interest to improve productivity so that you or anyone else doesn't have to spend their time constantly overcoming the same obstacles over and over and over like a slave, just to keep themselves alive (example: baking bread, WTF would you want to keep doing it if you have mastered it once and built tools to make it happen automatically).

Robotics and automation leads to cheaper goods and frees up the workforce to do other things, things in which human contribution is still needed to make them better.

If you want to keep doing a job that a machine already can do for you, you end up staying a piece of dumb wood and if you don't have means to stay alive, then you deserve to rot. You didn't bring anything useful to the table anyway, so no one will miss you.

That's good!

[Anonymous Coward]

13.000 new OSS developers.

Re:That's good!

[Chris Kamel]

Australia is not in Europe you know ;)

Re:That's good!

[Goat(---o---)See]

That's significant!

Re:That's good!

[Shisha]

More to the point, the jobs going won't be R&D jobs. Not that there is anything supporting this claim in the article, but I can't imagine IBM firing 13000 coders.

Re:That's good!

[Goat(---o---)See]

The French gave us fries, kisses, ticklers, liberty, and some sort of connection. Why oh why do they keep playing that accordian music though?

Re:That's good!

[Wieland]

No we wouldn't. During his second term, Thomas Jefferson spend most of his time keeping the US out of the Napoleontic wars.

If it weren't for the US, most of Europe (including the French!) would probably be speaking either German or Russian, though.

Re:That's good!

[Marcion]

On some parts of continental Europe the benefits would be even higher than Australia. I think in Britain you might be able to get away with writing code as job development but the "Job Seekers Allowance" is actually only £30 a week or something (although you would get housing and council tax benefit which would pay your rent etc). There is already a benefit called "New Deal for Musicians" where they basically accept that the music industry would collapse without the doll (even more reason for a creative commons type music world where local musicans could make money from local live shows). Could you really code on £30 a week plus rent? Once you include the broadband and beer required to make software, you would not have much left. Although the IBM people might get a redundancy check and if they have paid enough National Insurance then they might get more unemployment benefits.

Re:That's good!

[Anonymous Coward]

And 13,000 new 0.1 version desktop managers or graphics engines on SourceForge...

Wheel? Never heard of it before!

Re:That's good!

[generalpf]

13.000 new OSS developers.

How many new X11 clocks is that?

Re:That's good!

[bynary]

Coders are quite a bit cheaper in places like India, Singapore, and China, and are arguably just as good as those in the EU and US. I can readily see not just IBM but any major corporation laying off an entire division of developers. As has been mentioned previously, you just can't compete when your salary is $80,000/year and someone in SE Asia will work for $15,000.

Re:That's good!

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

That would be quite par for the course on Source Forge.

They need to merge a lot of those projects and move the developers around.

Heck, can we get GNOME to merge into KDE? :)

See the opportunity

[dublinclontarf]

This is an opportunity for all those who lose thier job to go and start thier own company, I think that there is a need in the European market for more small I.T shops. But are we Europeans up to it? At least the Irish are.

Re:See the opportunity

[niks42]

I for one will be grasping the opportunity to leave and set up in business for myself. Interestingly enough, part of the separation package that IBM is offering volunteers includes a generous amount of time with an outplacement consultancy. Part of their remit is to support people and give guidance if they wish to leave to start up on their own.

Re:See the opportunity

[Dogtanian]

This is an opportunity for all those who lose thier job to go and start thier own company, I think that there is a need in the European market for more small I.T shops.

If any UK readers think this is a good idea, bear in mind how the danger of software patents would make life disproportinately harder for small businesses, and vote accordingly in today's general election.

Yeah, I know it's not a European election; the question is, do you want to support those that will make your life harder because their leaders are in thrall to corporate America?

Re:See the opportunity

[Peter Cooper]

Yes, because they've provided a stable, though not rapidly growing, economy since 1997. Furthermore, we avoided a recession in 2001-2002, unlike nearly every other major world economy.

Re:See the opportunity

[MartinG]

I'm more likely to start up in India than Europe becuase it's looking likely we are going to have software patents over here and that will kill off all the small IT shops more than anything else.

Re:See the opportunity

[hackstraw]

This is an opportunity for all those who lose thier job to go and start thier own company

Lets weight this out.

Get laid off from your OK 40 hr per week job with benefits, etc to start a company where your insane to expect to work anything near 40/week plus the responsibilities of managing employees, getting startup loans or capitol, with no guarantee that you will make anything like you were making at your old 40hr/week job. Oh, and all of this is assuming that you are a risk taker and have the minimum knowledge, skills and abilities to run a business (not all people are born this way you know).

I _could_ start my own company. I've got many ideas for multiple companies, but I'll be the first to admit that I'm lazy. I don't want to work that hard, nor do I want all of that responsibility. I'm completely content at my middle class income with low stress and the freedom to pretty much do what I want. I've been laid off before, and in all honesty it was much more of an opportunity vs a problem, but I was very fortunate at the time that I had a good amount of saved up money and eventually ended up with my dream job. But I would guess my situation is very much in the minority.

Re:veryhai

[shyampandit]

Heh, you have a very weird logic there.

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!

RSS of this story

[tokyopimpdaddy]

I only noticed this story via the BBC RSS feed as it had some extensive strikethroughs - nothing massively interesting, but it shows that they do indeed have editors! Shameless plug of my blog here with pics:

http://www.nanikore.net/?p=364

Re:RSS of this story

[Marcion]

It is actually really cool that you noticed that. I will be keeping an eye on those feeds now; they have potential for finding lots of interesting slips and changes. Maybe someone really smart knows a way to make a cron automatically compare the differences with the HTML page and give me a list?

Re:Pray for forgiveness sinners!

[Marcion]

Er what? Trolls for Christ, You are a bit weird I have to say. You also are a bit tasteless; this being a thread about people losing their jobs. What would Jesus do? He wouldn't troll Slashdot thats for sure, he would sell his domain names and computers and give the money to the poor. RTFB! You weirdo.

erm

[Turn-X Alphonse]

The blerb is misleading. This was reported earlier on BBC news 24 (about 5 hours ago) and they said IBM hasn't said where they will be cutting the jobs back. It could be in several places not just Europe.

Wilde

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm. "To loose one job can be seen as a misfotune, to loose 13,000 looks like carelessness." To misquote Oscar Wilde.

Re:Wilde

[Dr. Evil]

Reuters: London, May 5 2005: A robot army of Jobs has descended upon the city. When asked for comment, bystanders could only say "truely, to loose 13,000 looks like carelessness"

Do yourself a favor

[Anonymous Coward]

and read the /. article again:

"Most jobs will be going in europe."

going in, not going to

Dont forget about Poland

[AdamPiotrZochowski]

IBM is expanding in Poland, hiring almost 200 people in Cracow alone, and so are
many other big name companies like Motorolla, KPMG, Lufthansa, 3M, Phillips:

http://miasta.gazeta.pl/krakow/1,35798,2689839.htm l

everyone in europe is moving to Poland, its as nice as Ireland, just as many drunks
but much cheaper, people are educated, and lots of beautifull clean land.

--
/apz, Don't kid yourself. Little is relevant, and nothing lasts forever.

Re:Dont forget about Poland

[KiloByte]

just as many drunks but much cheaper
Having drunks drink cheaper booze is not a good thing.

lots of beautifull clean land
Didn't you mention Cracow in your post?

The only benefit Poland has is being pretty cheap, but nowhere as cheap as India is. On the other hand, we are world leaders where it comes to bureaucracy, stupid laws and corruption.

Like every major company that moved its manufacturing into Poland has either already left or is contemplating leaving. Low labor costs are not everything.

I'm speaking mostly about automobile industry here -- but when it comes to assembling PCs, we got a case when a company had to export their wares to the Czech republic, "buy" them from itself and import them back -- all to avoid a certain law idiocy.

Re:Dont forget about Poland

[Splab]

I know from good sources that the reason why Motorola is moving to Poland is the people there have good education - but unlike India and China they have been raised to make decisions and follow through.

Re:Dont forget about Poland

[dublinclontarf]

dont forget the women (compared to Irish wonem)

Re:Dont forget about Poland

[mboverload]

What does that mean? I'm sure Indians are probably just as capable of deciding something as you.

Re:Dont forget about Poland

[delete]

IBM are also currently hiring in Ireland, and apparently the IBM job losses won't have a major impact on existing staff here.

From today's Irish Times (pay subscription):

Global job cuts at IBM will not significantly affect Irish operations, the IDA confirmed today. The development authority said most of the 3,700 Irish employees at the computer giant will be unaffected despite the expected 13,000 job cuts.

An IDA spokesman said: "We are in close contact with IBM as we are with all our client companies. We don't expect the downsizing to significantly affect the Irish operations."

The world's largest computer company earlier said most of the job losses would hit the group's European operations.

It seems like continental Europe will be more severly affected.

Re:Dont forget about Poland

[t_allardyce]

Yeees, excellent! with rumours and opinions like this spreading it won't be long before we scare companies from out-sourcing completely! Bwah ha ha ha ha haa!

I'll tell you what I heard - I heard that companies are actually starting to give up on out-sourcing and are re-hiring original employees because they found the work/pay ratio of outside workers is far worse than estimated and bugs per 1000 lines is through the roof!

Now fly my pretty rumour... fly fly fly!

Re:Dont forget about Poland

[Rakishi]

*shrugs* Someone please post studies as both views have merit. I've heard some down right scary stories of how some Japanese adults can't do anything because their mother did everything for them until way into adulthood. Now these may be isolated incident or rumors, which is why I am wondering if anyone knows of any studies.

However, disregarding culture (and upbringing in general) as a large factor in how a person acts is plain stupid as studies have shown. For example a person from an individualistic society (like say Poland) WILL on average react quite differently than a person from a collective society (like say India, China, Japan, etc.) to the same situation. It makes a lot of sense since one society stresses you over society while the other stresses society over you. Nonetheless, I haven't read anything yet on the effects of culture on creative ability and so would be quite interested.

Re:Dont forget about Poland

[manojar]

Atleast the jobs will be retained 'within Europe', won't they be?

Re:Dont forget about Poland

[AdamPiotrZochowski]

Splab (574204) on 2005-05-05 06:29
\ \ I know from good sources that the reason why Motorola is moving to Poland is
\ \ the people there have good education - but unlike India and China they have
\ \ been raised to make decisions and follow through.

I dont know what are your 'good sources' but this whole things sounds overtly wierd

mboverload (657893) on 2005-05-05 07:05
\ What does that mean? I'm sure Indians are probably just as capable of deciding
\ something as you.

I can think of one myth he might have meant:
in asia everyone learns by memorization, they remember all known sollutions, but get
stuck trying to find a new one to a new problem. In Asia people are automatons.

but it makes no sence with the 'follow through'. And if he were to imply the lack of
work ethics in asia then he is badly mistaken. I have nothing but admirations to the
Chinese and Indian, and would wish people elsewhere would be just as determined.

--
/apz, Life is a game. Money is how we keep score. -- Ted Turner

Re:Dont forget about Poland

[lachlan76]

I'm not trying to spread FUD, I'm just trying to give one idea of what the GP could have meant if it's true.

Unless there's been actual evidence one way or the other I wouldn't consider either opinion FUD.

Re:Dont forget about Poland

[Rakishi]

While that is somewhat true from a historical perceptive, it doesn't exclude it being a collectivist society (which is the term I should have used, my apologizes). India asfaik is listed as one due to its society, in simple terms, putting the group in front of the individual. It's not a clear cut term and every society has parts of both however India seems to be more collectivist.

Re:Dont forget about Poland

[vdo2000]

There's actually a website just to remind you not to forget Poland.

Did you RTFA before commenting?

[MarkEst1973]

It doesn't say that the jobs lost are going to Europe, which I presume prompted your "it's better than sending them to India" comment.

Or is your statement more broadly ignorant than that altogether where it's better to fire people outright than outsource?

Re:First Europe, then India,

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot. Jobs are going from Europe.

Uh, people?

[mr_snarf]

Am I the only one who thinks the article title is odd. I mean 'IBM to Lose 13,000 Jobs'. I would have expected '13,000 IBM workers to lose their jobs'. *shrug*

Re:Uh, people?

[KingDaveRa]

Just FYI, I wrote that post at about 10pm, by which time I'd been awake for about 15/16 hours, having only had about 6 hours sleep the night before. Looking back at it, the grammar isn't good, and I wish I'd written it slightly better. As for my code, yes, it sucks, but the comments are good.

Re:Uh, people?

[Malc]

It sounds very careless, doesn't it? It's almost like the author was trying to use some euphemism to soften the image of IBM. Who knows why? They had to re-word what the Beeb said in the original story. They used the word "axe", not "lose".

Re:Uh, people?

[YouHaveSnail]

Odd, yes, and inappropriate. Seems to equate 13,000 people with car keys. IBM decided to terminate 13,000 people. I expect it probably had some sort of reason for that... IBM has layed off or terminated large batches of employees before, and I'm sure it's not something that the company takes lightly. Nevertheless, it's the (ex-)employees who are losing something.

Multi-national corps do not outsource

[Senor_Programmer]

they just reallocate.

(to the future laid-off IBM personnel)

[Anonymous Coward]

Quit reading Slashdot while working, slackass ! ;)

(*) Remember to tick the Post Anonymously button.

Advice to the corporate slave ... A Rant

[Ice Station Zebra]

If you work in the corporate environment you should remember that you don't matter. What you do doesn't matter. You should be ready and willing to do anything...anything for the corporate bottom line.

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:Advice to the corporate slave ... A Rant

[bigtallmofo]

You are a liar. My pay as a developer has gone significantly up since Republicans took office.

Keep doomsaying and maybe you'll be back in power. That's a lot easier than coming up with your own ideas and presenting them in a way that brings people to your side.

Re:Advice to the corporate slave ... A Rant

[indifferent children]

Not having a solution to the world's problems does not mean that it is intelligent to hand the reins to the stupidest most hateful bastard who volunteers.

Re:Advice to the corporate slave ... A Rant

[august sun]

Pro-tip for mods: Any post that speaks in generalities about an indeterminate nation and not only diagnoses but draws conclusions from this (possibly hypothetical) nation's economic and political climate in ~50 words, can not possibly be informative or insightful.

~AS

Re:Advice to the corporate slave ... A Rant

[skubeedooo]

Insightful? Surely you moderators have got to be joking. How can rehashing the well known fact that "businesses are there primarily to make money" be considered insightful? When you get rid of the hyperbole and rabble-rousing that is all you are left with, so I assume the insightful bit (in the eyes of moderators) is all the inaccurate and biased fluff round the edges.

For example, how has the price of your house got anything to do with your employer, let alone IBM? How does your employer affect how insurance companies operate? Basically it has nothing to do with it at all, and yet somehow this is to be considered insightful rather than off-topic/redundant/flaimbait.

Simply amazing.

Re:Advice to the corporate slave ... A Rant

[SunFan]

I recieved a college degree and met my wife when Clinton was in office. All I got when Bush 1 was in office was an RC car, and I had to put it together myself!

Re:Advice to the corporate slave ... A Rant

[Lehk228]

so clinton caused you to get an education which was insufficient to obtain long term gainful employment?.... The Bastard

Re:Unix admin jobs in Ireland?

[Colm Buckley]

Yes. Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! all have large operations in Ireland, with a nearly insatiable appetite for engineers and administrators. There are also many second-tier IT companies, and a booming small business sector. If your skills are good and current, Dublin's a good place for IT work.

hmmm...

[fender_rock]

Interestingly enough, AMD seems to be hiring in the UK: http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/Careers/0,,51_8 2,00.html

Re:Pray for forgiveness sinners!

[Anonymous Coward]

Satan has more power as he gets members by default, and it pays to be on the winning team.

HAIL SATAN!

Wasn't that expected?

[Venkata Prasad]

"In a widely expected move, International Business Machines Corp. said it is restructuring its operations to make them leaner and nimbler, slashing between 10,000 and 13,000 jobs, mostly in Europe, and taking a second quarter charge in the process." says the yahoo-technology article about the same. Apart from that IBM did start laying off its workforce even before announcing the finantial results... right? Yahoo Technology articles is at http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/200505 05/ap_on_bi_ge/ibm_cuts

Re:Wasn't that expected?

[Bigthecat]

Well shit, it was 'expected', I suppose we should all pretend that it didn't happen then. Somehow I doubt that many people losing their jobs will take comfort on what analysts 'expected'.

How times have changed

[btarval]

For almost all of the last century, when you worked at IBM, you were guaranteed a job for life. I don't know if people realize this, but IBM reportedly didn't have layoffs even during the Great Depression (which made the dot-com bust look like peanuts).

How times have changed. I'm sorry to hear about how this will impact the lives of all those people affected, directly and indirectly.

Re:How times have changed

[ebooher]

I think what you meant was:

The Great Depression was bad. Really bad. You couldn't believe how vastly, hugely mind-boggingly bad it was. I mean, you may think the Dot.Com era was a horrible circumstance, but that's just peanuts to the Great Depression.

Re:How times have changed

[Ubergrendle]

You apparently don't remember the restructuring that occured in the late 1980s/early 1990s when IBM had their lunch handed to them by Microsoft (Windows), Compaq (PCs), and Sun (Unix).

IBM cut their global workforce by tens of thousands. Not that I'm speaking from personal experience, but the one thing I've admirred IBM for in the past was the way they treat their employees...even when they have to take drastic measure, they try to be transparent in their decision making process and their severance packages are extremely generous. I've spoken to people that were bridged ~4~ years to retirement.

Just a sign that IBM is in it for the long haul...no point in burning this generation of workers as it will hurt your ability to recruit 5 years down the line. (note: someone should have explained this to Fiorina)

Re:How times have changed

[TheGratefulNet]

I worked at DEC at corp (maynard) back in the late 80's. that was the first real RIFF blow-out. DEC had a culture of not laying off, either. there was so much room inside to move around in, you could stay in the company for 20 yrs and still find new things to do and work on.

of course, DEC went belly-up - but it sure had its share of layoffs before that. when I was there, the employee base was about 120,000 people! and we bragged that we had the largest private network in the world (EASYnet). by the time I left DEC, in the early 90's, they were down to less than 20k people. where DID 100k people go? wow..

at that time, there was talk of even ibm getting rid of their 'no layoffs' policy.

all the giants have tumbled. there aren't any ones left that give you a job for life. ...and the times, they are a-change'in.

Re:How times have changed

[btarval]

No, I remember it well. That's why I said "for most" of the last century. Before the late 80's, their recruiters were bragging about how they didn't have layoffs, even during the Great Depression.

This is something which isn't mentioned in the original article. Those people who signed up with IBM 20 years ago probably went into it thinking they were set for life.

Re:How times have changed

[megarich]

For almost all of the last century, when you worked at IBM, you were guaranteed a job for life. I don't know if people realize this, but IBM reportedly didn't have layoffs even during the Great Depression (which made the dot-com bust look like peanuts).

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think IBM existed yet when the great depression happenned......

Re:How times have changed

[Bent Mind]

You are wrong...

From IBM:

Although IBM was incorporated in the state of New York on June 15, 1911 as the Computing- Tabulating- Recording Company (C-T-R), its origins can be traced back to developments at the close of the 19th century. For example, the first dial recorder was invented by Dr. Alexander Dey in 1888, and Dey's business became one of the building blocks of C-T-R. Similarly, the Bundy Manufacturing Company was incorporated in 1889 as the first time recording company in the world, and it, too, later became a key component of C-T-R.

Re:How times have changed

[Anitra]

The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company was renamed to "International Business Machines Corporation" in 1924.

The roots of the company go back to the 1880s - see IBM's website.

Re:How times have changed

[btarval]

That's a valid point; and there certainly were a lot of slackers from what I heard.

I submit though that it sounds a lot better than the sweatshops which have emerged and become so common since the dotcom crash.

I heard HP was a great place to work at too, before Fiorina, if you were (heaven forbit) actually raising a family.

It's a different world now, as one already mentioned. I think not for the better.

Most jobs will be going in europe

[krunk4ever]

Just for a clarification, what the OP meant to say was that most of the job losses will occur in Europe. When I initially read it, it was ambiguous if the jobs would be moving to Europe or would be leaving Europe.

Re:Most jobs will be going in europe

[ducttapekz]

Europe? Is that part of the axis of evil? I can never remember?

Re:veryhai

[asadsalm]

"Outsourcing" to Asia

is nature's balance for

"Brain-Drain" from Asia

moving to cheaper countries

[paulatz]

When such a big corporation as IBM say they have to fire lots of employes because of bad financial outcomes you can bet that they are going to move or to outsorce the job to a cheaper country.

In fact it is far too difficult to check if the crisis really occured or if it is a fake. Here, in Europe, a large corporation, or an industry, cannot, in normal conditions, fire so many people.

The solution is both simple and old: a crisis is faked and the people are fired. Then they will hire people somewhere in India or in China. It's easy, you can try this at home!

Re:moving to cheaper countries

[JohnnyKlunk]

It's already happening. I don't know why the media hasn't picked up on it. I've got friends at a major UK corporation. Some time back they were all outsourced to IBM. Now they're being flown to Bangalore to show people there how to do their jobs.
Once they've handed their own jobs to these people they then get moved to 'project teams'.

Will be interesting to see how many redunancies are made without ever suggesting that the jobs have been moved to India.

Re:moving to cheaper countries

[stevesliva]

In fact it is far too difficult to check if the crisis really occured or if it is a fake.

If you think it's fake, I'll sell you my IBM shares for what they were worth in January. It's real enough for me. It's pretty naive to think that something like this would be a facade given the huge amount of press and criminal prosecution has gone into condemning fiscal tricks here in the US.

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?

They're Not Lost....

[bobdobbs3]

IBM didn't "lose" 13,000 jobs - that sounds as if they misplaced them, or had this happen to them. Not so. IBM *cut* 13,000 jobs. Or *slashed* 13,000 jobs. In a related news item: 13,000 IBM *workers* lost their jobs.

Re:They're Not Lost....

[Vince Mo'aluka]

You sound like you're trying to imply that something is morally wrong with a company eliminating jobs. Let me explain something to you. The employer-employee relationship is voluntary. Both parties enter the relationship with the understanding that either party may terminate the relationship at any time. Therefore, there is nothing morally wrong with either the employee or the employer terminating the relationship. It may be unfortunate, but it is not morally wrong by any rational means.

What is morally wrong is for a third party (government) to interfere in the relationship by force, robbing the employee and employer of their natural human right to voluntary association. What's also morally wrong is for either party to abandon the voluntary relationship and resort to force.

You see, it's not your "intentions" that define morality. It's your mode of interaction: force vs. voluntary association. Who says so? Mother nature. If you want to interact with me voluntarily, I'm all for it. But if you want to interact with me by force, then I'll be damned if I ever respect you, let alone accept your implication that what you're doing is moral and just.

Re:They're Not Lost....

[bobdobbs3]

Actually I was ponting out a semantic slant to the headline. You seem to be inferring, a moral arguement here, where one was not implicitly stated.

But let me explain something to you, Sport: You're right - the ultimate moral failure in employer-employee relations comes with the introduction of force. Guess who usually is the party to do that, and to who's advantage? I'll give you a hint: The Ludlow Massacre

A quote to all the corporate Stalins out there

[Elamaton]

One lost job is a tragedy, 13 000 lost jobs are a statistic.

This is exactly why I *never* want to work for a large corporation. Smaller shops are hardly immune to going under, but at least they don't suffer from these sorts of near-cataclysmic random-act-of-God-like massive workforce cuts. I know I feel safer in a small firm (or I did, until I quit and started earning a living by entrepreneurial means). At least in them downsizing is not "like printing money", as it was well put in an old Dilbert strip.

Re:A quote to all the corporate Stalins out there

[bengoerz]

If you RTFA, you'll notice that 13,000 jobs constitutes only 4% of IBM's workforce. While this is by no means a small reduction, it is far from "near-cataclysmic random-act-of-God-like massive". If you apply this percentage cut to a small shop of 20 people, you've just fired 1.

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:A quote to all the corporate Stalins out there

[sapped]

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.

Actually you close down your least profitable divisions. Sometimes within those divisions you have brilliant hardworking people who just lost their jobs through no fault of their own. That is as close to a random act of God as you can get.

Re:A quote to all the corporate Stalins out there

[Lehk228]

That is as close to a random act of God as you can get.

not really, you can tell when your boss/co-irkers are fucktards, you know when the department is fucked

Re:Unix admin jobs in Ireland?

[ubera]

Just be aware that you might feel the cost of living in Dublin in your Irish Wallet!

Governments Should Tax Their Profits More

[pandrijeczko]

Okay, so I'm a techie geek but here's my solution to the whole issue.

If a corporation makes profits in your country then it takes money out of your country. By employing people in your country a corporation puts money back into your country.

Therefore, you subtract what it brings in from what it takes out and heavily tax the remainder.

Makes the corporation think twice about outsourcing and messing up local economies when thousands of job losses occur when a major facility in an area gets closed down...

Re:Governments Should Tax Their Profits More

[Xoro]

"Makes the corporation think twice about outsourcing and messing up local economies when thousands of job losses occur when a major facility in an area gets closed down..."

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.

Re:Governments Should Tax Their Profits More

[MoralHazard]

If a corporation makes profits in your country then it takes money out of your country. By employing people in your country a corporation puts money back into your country.

You're ignoring the gains to a country's economy when (since they're moved operations to a cheaper country) that company can lower its prices and be more competitive. What about all the money that domestic customers save as a result of outsourcing? How do you propose to factor that into the equation?

Sure, the benefit may not start to appear until the next price war between competing companies, but it always comes, eventually. And if you're trying to over-incentivize firms to look solely at the short- and medium-term effects of their policies, everyone is potentially losing more in the long run.

It's exactly your kind of thinking that got us into this global-warming mess: don't bother to consider that your near-term gains are screwing the future.

Re:Governments Should Tax Their Profits More

[pandrijeczko]

What about all the money that domestic customers save as a result of outsourcing?

You can only save money if you earn money. If you don't have a job, as a result of outsourcing, you can't buy anything anyway.

It's exactly your kind of thinking that got us into this global-warming mess.

Erm, want to explain the logic behind this statement? I'd love to hear how you got "2+2" to equal "13,000,000"...

Correct me if I'm wrong here but Third World countries contribute to global warming through issues like high-pollution power stations, older technology high-exhaust emission vehicles, etc. Put more jobs in those countries, you need more power & more older cars...

don't bother to consider that your near-term gains are screwing the future.

You've contradicted yourself, sorry, you lose the argument.

Outsourcing is for short-term gain - low wages --> better standard of living --> higher wage demands --> cheaper to oursource elsewhere.

Next time "engage brain" first, then type...

Re:Governments Should Tax Their Profits More

[MoralHazard]

You can only save money if you earn money. If you don't have a job, as a result of outsourcing, you can't buy anything anyway.

Being fired isn't a permanent condition. Yes, you usually have to spend a little while looking for work, but it's almost always a finite time period. Depending on the person, the economy, and a lot of other factors, the amount of time can vary a lot--but it's finite! Consider also that most people have savings, or can rely on other sources of income temporarily (friends/family helping out), or can go into debt (credit cards, etc) in order to make up the lost income.

Therefore, your statement that "If you don't have a job... you can't buy anything, anway" is patently false. Almost all people who don't have jobs continue to buy things while they're unemployed. Then, they find a new job, and pick up where they left off. The unemployed person might curtail their spending a bit, but they're still spending.

Plus, many countries have wonderful things like welfare systems and unemployment assistance. Not all of them, sure, but the bulk of the countries losing jobs to outsourcing are 1st-world nations that DO have social welfare for the recently unemployed.

Erm, want to explain the logic behind this statement? I'd love to hear how you got "2+2" to equal "13,000,000"...
Correct me if I'm wrong here but Third World countries contribute to global warming

Now you're just missing the point. I'm not blaming global warming on outsourcing--I don't think that the one has anything in particular to do with the other. Okay? Are we clear on that?

What I AM saying that global warming is a problem because we've tried to maximize short term profit but failed to take the long-term costs of our policites into account. Trying to stop outsourcing is a similar problem--in the short term, you will lose jobs. In the long term, though, everyone's costs will be lower, and everybody will be effectively richer for it.

It's exactly your kind of thinking that got us into this global-warming mess.

The problem with policies that try to stop outsourcing and other movements of labor and capital is that they sacrifice the long-term for the short-term. Even though your current job will be safe right now, your children and your grandchildren (and you in retirement, probably!) will pay a greater price.

The long-term costs emerge in terms of lost efficiency. Capitalist economies have an efficiency tendency: produce the most with the fewest possible resources, because you'll make more profits that way. Outsourcing is an example of this phenomenon. If you accept a short-term cost, you get a long-term gain... if you take a short-term profit, you get a long-term loss.

don't bother to consider that your near-term gains are screwing the future.
You've contradicted yourself, sorry, you lose the argument.

No, you just misuderstood the argument, stern to stem. It's your own fault, being as you felt the need to spout off on a topic you obviosuly know so little about. Get a clue.

Next time "engage brain" first, then type...

This was funny, about 20 years ago on Usenet. You might have more success being witty if you try to be creative first. I'd forget about being "funny" for the moment, it seems like it's a little out of your league.

Seriously, you sound like you're about 15 years old.

I love it

[Bigthecat]

13000, a full thirteen thousand lose their jobs and some guy on Slashdot says that it isn't a problem, they'll find work elsewhere. I'm glad that you're in a position to easily make such predictions without experiencing what is happening for yourself.

Re:veryhai

[Bigthecat]

No, a poor country doesn't require a shit-load of low-paying jobs. The citizens of a poor country require good-paying jobs with good conditions and workplace protection laws. Moving well-paying jobs to a poor country as you put it isn't 'helping them out', it's exploiting them.

Re:veryhai

[shyampandit]

Well, some job is better than no job right?

Also as time goes on, the pay will automatically go up, as there will be eventually more jobs than people.

Hmmmm...

[Bad to the Ben]

Bill Gates can't find enough IT workers, so he wants to change visa regs to get more in. IBM has too many IT workers, wants to fire them.

Perhaps Microsoft (European division perhaps) could hire the retrenched IBM staff?

Re:Hmmmm...

[dapyx]

The guys fired were obviously not among the best people IBM has, but people that they didn't need: telephone sanitizers, beaurocrats etc.

I don't know whether Microsoft needs them.

Re:Hmmmm...

[hyfe]

Microsoft Europe is a pure salesmachine afaik. They don't do anything usefull ever.

Re:Hmmmm...

[YouHaveSnail]

Bill Gates can't find enough IT workers, so he wants to change visa regs to get more in. IBM has too many IT workers, wants to fire them.

Uh, no.

1) IBM is laying off people in Europe, where AFAIK, Bill Gates would be very happy to simply avoid paying enormous fines.

2) Bill Gates and much of the rest of the IT sector in the US want to change the quotas on certain types of visas to allow more foreign workers. They want this not because they can't find enough skilled workers in the US, but because they can't find enough skilled workers in the US who are willing to work at the wage that Bill & friends want to pay. Adding more H1B visas and (particularly) moving to offshore development firms are ways to exert downward pressure on salaries.

Just where tehy do not need to lose them

[the_2nd_coming]

Europe has enough economic problems... this is just adding insult to injury.

Re:Just where tehy do not need to lose them

[qbzzt]

Europe has enough economic problems... this is just adding insult to injury.

Quite the reverse. It's because Europe has economic problems, probably, that IBM isn't selling enough in Europe to justify those 13,000 jobs.

The kind of services IGS provides typically requires physical proximity to the customer. If the customers aren't there then the service jobs aren't there either.

It sucks to lose your job. At the same time, I'm sure it sucked for K-Mart when people started going to WalMart because it was cheaper. You can't have guaranteed jobs without guaranteed customers.

Re:veryhai

[Bigthecat]

And what about the countries losing jobs? Workers will work for less and less and the scale will tip the other way. The problem needs to be fixed at the source, not merely rearranged for something that looks like a short-term fix for someone who doesn't understand history.

Europe in a not so graceful decline

[jamej]

The world is happy to sell in Europe but nobody wants to produce in Europe. The unions have strangle hold on the economy and labor/business laws are hostile to corporations. Much of their young talent moves to the US. I firmly believe they might consider changing shortly after hitting rock bottom.

Re:Europe in a not so graceful decline

[b5turbo]

The labor laws are there for a reason, due to corporate abuse and dangerous work conditions, if we didn't have the labor laws, there would be 10 year olds still shoveling coal instead of in school or working tech support for some corporation in a little 3 x 5 cubicle (cell).

Re:Europe in a not so graceful decline

[onash]

Yeah? Is that why Poland is on the rise? and all eastern Europe after adopting EU laws. Finland and Ireland are doing better and better in IT related businesses and most European countries are doing just fine?

EU laws are not to blame for e.g. Germanys economic troubles, they have their own labor laws that are too strict, as does the UK. EU just sets the law frame, the countries can play within them as they want. EU is just an easy target that many like to blame for what their country is doing wrong..

Re:Europe in a not so graceful decline

[upside]

The reason the talented move to the US are higher wages. For the same reasons the employers want out. I know a certain transnational is cutting back operations in the US due to higher labour costs vis-a-vis European labour costs. A US engineer costs several times what a European does, even with the cheap dollar. It's happy to sell pho^k^k^kproducts there nevertheless.

Also, for every labour law in Europe you have patents and law suits in the USA. Perhaps our American friends aren't aware how different it is elsewhere and how large a factor this is.

I have the impression most European countries have more stable economies than the US right now. The US has a huge debt but the country keeps spending more than it earns. Its populist, money-grabbing leaders are unwilling to do what's needed for long term stability. See you at the rock bottom.

Re:Europe in a not so graceful decline

[MemoryDragon]

To be accepted in the EU you have to make a clean case regarding your war criminals (sorry heroes)

Re:Europe in a not so graceful decline

[TheSync]

Which Europe are you talking about? "Old Europe" countries such as Germany, France, Spain, and Italy have around 10% unemployment, much higher unemployment for young adults, and are lucky to have 1% real GDP growth. These countries also face amazing public pension crises that make the underfunding of the US Social Security seem mild in comparison.

"Old Europe" is particularly beset with problems due to high marginal tax rates and labor regulation.

Meanwhile, ex-Communist Europe is growing like gangbusters (Poland for example).

The US, on the other hand, for an OECD country has a low unemployment rate and a high GDP growth rate.

The US federal deficit is high (6% of GDP), but "Old Europe" countries are now mostly slated to miss the EU deficit rules of no more than 3% of GDP, and judging from the lack of economic growth combined with the need for pensions, I expect this will grow over time.

Re:Europe in a not so graceful decline

[riversky]

I do business in Europe and the conditions or horrible. Stable in what way. France and Germany have 10+% unemployment (there would be a revolution in the US if this was the case here) all benefits are being cut in Germany to both the unemployed and old folk. A banker told me Benz will produce more cars in the US and South America than Germany in three years and that production may be totally gone there in 10 years. What the hell do you mean stable. Italy's government was brought down because their economy is falling fast. Finally European woman aren't having kids. How do you have workers to pay taxes to support the elderly if not only you have less jobs but even if you did had no young people to fill them. At least immigration solves that in the US Get your facts straight.

Re:veryhai

[ErikZ]

Notice how all those countries who were "exploited" back in the 80s now are much better off and are headed to 1st world status.

From a 1st world view, these jobs are horrible. From a 3rd world view, these jobs rock.

OK...so are they cutting jobs, or outsourcing them

[PenguinBoyDave]

That is what I really want to know. If they are cutting back to save $$ then that is one thing. However, if they send those jobs to India or the Philippines, that is another. IBM has these cuts every single year. I'm wondering when they will stop cutting?

I've been in that position.

[Colin Smith]

Lets get some perspective.

13,000 is a tiny, miniscule number out of the workforce of a single country never mind 25 countries.

If you're willing and able to move to where the work is it's easy to get a new job. If you are unwilling or unable then you may well be in for a long wait.

"Losing" is completely the wrong verb.

[Anonymous Coward]

This article's headline is completely wrong.

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:"Losing" is completely the wrong verb.

[CastrTroy]

Thank god someone said it. They always try to put such a nice spin on things. They aren't losing jobs. They are firing people because they only made x Billion in profits instead of yx Billion in profits, where y is a number greater than 1.

Re:"Losing" is completely the wrong verb.

[drsquare]

Actually, they're not firing them, they're laying them off. Please stop learning vocabulary from the TV.

Re:"Losing" is completely the wrong verb.

[ari_j]

How, exactly, is firing someone for economic reasons as opposed to personal reasons an excuse for being politically correct about what you call it?

Re:"Losing" is completely the wrong verb.

[Emperor Cezar]

In business, just because you have money now, doesn't mean having money later. There are costs that don't show up on this quarter's report, but that need to be paid later none the less. You also have to return money to the stock holders, many of them middle class people who have invested money into your company and need to support thier life.

Sometimes you have to make the decision of firing people now, so that others can keep their jobs later.

Re:"Losing" is completely the wrong verb.

[big tex]

Easy. It has to do with the fault of the employee.

I work in construction, which has a very high turnover in the craft. That is, when the job is done, we usually get rid of the workers, since there's no more work.
When we're done with a piece of work, and there's nothing else for that person to do, he gets laid off.
When someone fails a drug test / EEO problem / Safety incident / other problem that's the employee's fault, he gets fired.

Re:"Losing" is completely the wrong verb.

[ari_j]

It's a distinction without a difference, if you ask me. I understand the political correctness ramifications of choosing one term over the other, but I don't see how it is wrong to say you got fired because the economy sucks or laid off because you were lazy. Companies will twist the words however it works best for their own ends, I think. But maybe I'm just cynical. ;-D

Re:"Losing" is completely the wrong verb.

[Lehk228]

it's now bowing to political correctness to use the right terms for something?

Re:"Losing" is completely the wrong verb.

[Lehk228]

very big difference especially for the person losing their job, if you are layed off you are at the very least eligable for unemployment and possibly severance and other benifits, because you lost your job due to the company not needing you any more, while getting fired means you fucked up (or someone thinks you did) that the company does not want you personally, around anymore

Re:"Losing" is completely the wrong verb.

[CastrTroy]

Looks like they didn't make the right decision. If you do it right, you lose a few jobs here and there. Not 13000 jobs all at once. 50 people losing their jobs is nothing big. Even if it happens every month. 13000 jobs lost is big news, no matter how seldom it happens.

Re:"Losing" is completely the wrong verb.

[drsquare]

THEY'RE NOT BEING FIRED. Being fired is when someone is kicked out of a job because the employer doesn't want them in it. Being laid off is when the position disappears, i.e. there's no job for them anymore. It's not political correctness, no more than it's politically incorrect to call an apple a banana.

You know this whole issue has come about because people watch too much TV where characters get 'fired' all the time, so they think that being fired means any instance of someone not being in a job anymore. TV isn't a good place to learn about the world, especially if you start mistaking it for reality. If they were firing 13,000 employees, it would mean they would be taking applications for 13,000 people to replace them.

Also if you get fired you don't get dole. And you could sue for unfair dismissal.

Re:First Europe, then India,

[manojar]

True, true. India, 20 years later than the 'West'. I expect tonnes of Indians getting sacked 20 years from now and we won't even have social security or dole.

Australia

[ari_j]

I think they have to commit a pretty egregious misdemeanor to be sent to the island prison before they can benefit from that program.

...but then I was rehired by IBM's PR department

[godzillion]

> 13,000 jobs lost aren't a problem, they'll easily find work elsewhere
> I've been in that position.

Boy did you drink the kool-aid! Times are tough, and looking for work sucks ass, especially if you are unable to relocate to a less-desirable location for less pay at a job you don't care for but need to pay the bills. But I'm not bitter.

IBM and Linux

[tnhtnh]

From my experience, in Australia anyway, the linux expertise at IBM is low - if it wasnt for Ozlabs, I doubt many people would know how to admin a linux box. Maybe its a good thing for IBM to shred their dead weight?

Re:IBM and Linux

[Detritus]

We wouldn't want to retrain them, that would cost money. Better for the company to just dump them on the street.

Life's a bitch, then you die.

[Colin Smith]

I have no idea what kool-aid is but I do know that for the last 20 years people have had to learn to be flexible, not to expect a job to last any more than a few years and to show exactly the loyalty to an employer that they would show to their employees.

Welcome to the free market.

Re:Life's a bitch, then you die.

[Lehk228]

the university system is fucked and it's only getting more fucked, tuition is going through the roof for education that won't get you a good job, i predict massive growth in community colleges and technical schools

Re:Job losses voluntary in Europe - facts

[geoffrobinson]

You may have a point. Their jobs may be more expensive just b/c they are in Europe than in a more economically free area.

Re:Unix admin jobs in Ireland?

[robin_j]

What is the job situation in Ireland?

If you want to have a look take a look at the following two sites: http://www.irishjobs.ie/ http://www.monster.ie/

Re:veryhai

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

I dont know why this resentment over jobs going to India.

We resent jobs going to India because we can't compete with Indians. If jobs were moving because there aren't enough skill workers available here, or because the cities are dirty, crime ridden shit holes or because the taxes are too high that would be one thing - we could work with that. But none of that's the case. These jobs are going to India because they have skilled workers working for a fraction of a western minimum wage. Nothing we can posisbly do about that. You just can't live in a western country with that income.

These jobs aren'g going to India because these companies like India... they're only going there becaues Indians are cheap. And as the Indian economy grows and improves, they won't be cheap forever. At that point these companies will just pack up and move to the next second world source of cheap labor. They'll be resentful too when that day comes.

IBM...mommy?

[unknownideal]

The same petulant children who whine about the nanny state and our ever-diminishing freedoms, scream and cry that corporations are the exact opposite. The company you work for is not your mother, but a group of people with whom you mutually agreed to be employed. The terms of your employment are your choice; you are not forced to accept any. It would seem some here would like not to have this choice at all. A few even seem to be outraged by the simple fact of reality that there are physical necessities in life and that no monolithic entity will swoop down from the heavens to provide them automatically.

How does this work?

[gregoryl]

From the article:
"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:How does this work?

[thpr]

Funny? Try Insightful.

The plain fact in business is that changes in management and changes in staff make it VERY difficult to hold people accountable for forecasts. If the forecast from a year ago is wrong, but I joined the team 6 months ago, am I responsible for it? I hope not. Am I responsible for improving the forecast? Sure. Will I be around in 3 years to hold me accountable for the latest strategic forecast (once you can measure whether it was more accurate than the one produced by my predecessor)? Probably not... reorganizations, promotions, and job changes probably get in the way.

Regardless of whether you're talking internal to IBM or the analysts, it's a very difficult proposition to have accountability and thus drive measurable (and statistically significant) improvement in the forecasting system(s).

Instead of blaming India...

[artifex2004]

people should "blame" consumers. We demand cheaper prices for our goods, and labor is overall the most flexible cost area in the world market. Right now, many western nations have above-average wages for manufacturing positions, so it is only natural for those jobs to go elsewhere, assuming the transportation of imported goods is not cost-prohibitive, and these are not industries that are crucial to national survival.

Forget all the claims about productivity of workers in the US or Western Europe, too: stark reality is, if you produce twice as many goods as a worker in another country, but he works for less than half as much money, he's the better deal in the market, period, because the company can get two of him for less than it costs to keep you. Not only is he cheaper at the outset, but if he gets sick, the productivity that is lost while he recovers or a replacement is sought is half yours - and again, he costs less than half what you do.

And for those who think "it's not fair": it wouldn't be fair to demand that stockholders continue to lose profits or even capital by forcing a business to keep paying an artificially inflated price for any other resource, why should it be fair to force them to prop up the local labor market?

Re:Instead of blaming India...

[arth1]

And for those who think "it's not fair": it wouldn't be fair to demand that stockholders continue to lose profits or even capital by forcing a business to keep paying an artificially inflated price for any other resource, why should it be fair to force them to prop up the local labor market?

Is it fair that a stockholder who does *nothing* except wait gets much more money than someone who toils for the company 40 hours a week?

My proposed solution: Put a cap on stock profits. It wouldn't stop people from investing, but it would decrease the amount of short-term speculation and the desire of directors to maximize the stockholder's returns at the expense of everything else. Then, perhaps, a company would be more interested in ensuring that the company would be viable 20 years down the road -- today, they don't look further ahead than the date of their own stock options.

--
*Art

Re:Instead of blaming India...

[artifex2004]

Is it fair that a stockholder who does *nothing* except wait gets much more money than someone who toils for the company 40 hours a week?

Well, that depends on the value of the holdings, of course :)

Remember, though, that there's opportunity costs involved in investing in a company, as well as risks. For an example of the risks, if the company goes bankrupt, the employee just loses his job, while the stockholder can lose everything he invested in the venture, which might be hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars.

On the opportunity costs side of things, people in aggregate invest where they think they will get the greatest return. People invest in a company here and not elsewhere because they think it will make them more money. If you try to cap profits here, investors will decide the investments here are less attractive than elsewhere, and go elsewhere. And elsewhere these days often means to other countries. Guess what happens, then? Businesses find it harder and more costly to expand as they have to turn to more expensive sources of funding, like bank loans, so job growth slows, and people may even lose their jobs.

You're asking the right questions, though. Keep thinking, and ask some more, of me or someone you might trust more. You're making me get some use out of my economics degree, finally. :)

Funny

[imr]

I have seen lately many news like this one where big backers for software patents in europe say they might be obliged to do the same, and always in europe.

So how many of them were attorneys?

[ubiquitin]

IBM is a notoriously lawer-centric corporation.

If their press release said "IBM laid off 13000 attorneys to hire 13000 engineers" I'd be buying their stock. As it is, I hope the hedge fund managers ride this bitch ALL the way down.

oil industry still cutting jobs

[peter303]

IBM is not alone. The US oil industry is still cutting jobs , even though profits have been at record highs along with gasoline prices. The oil industry has been continuing a 25-year job-reduction trend mainly caused by compuer-aided productivity and the migration of oil prodution outside the US. A rational person might think that companies & investors would get even more profit if they employed more people to obtain more oil.

Re:oil industry still cutting jobs

[Lehk228]

somehow i think the CEO's getting paid millions for their expertise in management and the petroleum industy know more about maximizing profits in an oil company than you do.

Whats the net change?

[taj]

Last August IBM said it was adding 19000 jobs. Now they are cutting 10-13k.

They are 10k employees from their record high in 1991 when most considered IBM the most evil tech company on the planet.

Are the growing or shrinking? Strange to switch so fast.

Re:Whats the net change?

[bitkari]

Feudal Lords used to do this with farmhands - just hire them for the harvest, then fire most of them and only keep a handful to tend the fields for next year.

With IBM it's the same thing, but with AS400s instead of Ploughs.

"IBM sets free a workforce"

[RedLaggedTeut]

"IBM loses 14,000 jobs" - how pessimistic - why not phrase it:
"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:"IBM sets free a workforce"

[onash]

shouldnt it be: "IBM sets free a workforce of their 14,000 least skilled workers".

Re:"IBM sets free a workforce"

[doom]

"IBM loses 14,000 jobs" - how pessimistic - why not phrase it: "IBM sets free a workforce of 14,000 skilled workers".

You know, you're right. It's silly, but I was thinking there was something funny about that headline -- like, IBM fires thousands of people, and they don't "lose" their jobs, IBM loses them.

Transforming for Growth

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM is not "losing" jobs; IBM is firing people.

No no no, we had an email about it from the EMEA general manager this morning. Apparently we are "Transforming for Growth"!

Re:Transforming for Growth

[EnronHaliburton2004]

You should spend the rest of your time at IBM running down the halls screaming "Transformers: MORE THEN MEETS THE EYE" and playing Gobots like I did on the playground.

Re:Not "lose" actually.

[bosz]

IBM: I've Been Moved

The UK is not europe

[rve]

Other than its geographic proximity the UK has nothing to do with europe

Re:The UK is not europe

[Jack Taylor]

Other than its geographic proximity the UK has nothing to do with europe

Well, there is the small matter of the UK being a member of the European Union and of the European Economic Area, with the acceptance of the laws and trade agreements that they control. Or maybe you meant Switzerland?

"living wage" + no skills == unemployable

[Anonymous Coward]

"redistributed gravy"!?!?!

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 of many studies and other data 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:veryhai

[manojar]

I can't argue against that :(

A Recipe For Lemon Aid?

[LifesABeach]

As I recall, the villagers of redmond were looking for thousands of H1B "types"; Maybe IBM can ignore Windows 3.1, and talk business with the fearful of google.

Re:Unix admin jobs in Ireland?

[robin_j]

Also cost of living in Dublin is extremly high as is accomadation.

I won't say that Dublin is very cheap to live in (or for that much very expensive) as I can't really compare to any other European capital having never lived outside the country, but I know that rent has started to come down. You can get very nice two bed to bathroom duplexes for a little under a 1,000/month. I can't comment on the jobs either as I haven't been looking as I'm currently happy enough in IBM (hmm... maybe I should start looking!).

IBM to Hire 13,000 Jobs

[TheKubrix]

How come we never see headlines like that?

Re:IBM to Hire 13,000 Jobs

[idiot_child]

You mean like this?
IBM Adding Almost 19,000 Jobs
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/12/220244 &tid=136&tid=98&tid=1

Wal-Mart to Hire 600,000

[thelizman]

So who do you love?

Dead weight?

[TheLink]

BTW did you see the recent slashdot story about an IBM article.

Funny.

Weak dollar fallout

[theonetruekeebler]

With Euros going for $1.29 each, IBM---or any other American company---can't afford to pay someone in the EEC if the work can be done elsewhere.

And when it's time for job cuts, the MBAs say to go for the costliest employees first. What can I say? Welcome to outsourcing.

At least...

[ari_j]

Hey, at least the article didn't say "IBM looses 13,000 jobs."

Re:Your passionate defense of the public sector

[eventDriven]

I really should not do this, but I must address your passionate defense of the public sector. A nation state is, figuratively speaking, chartered as an operating company. It's primary goal being to create a stable environment for it's members to thrive. Two steps to accomplish this goal were taken by the Unitesd States early in our history with the establishment of a standing army and court system to regulate interstate disputes. Later we added things like inter-state highways to help. At times, we have protected resources, subsidized industry and researched sciences. We decided that an educated workforce was important and created departments for things like commerce. The costs of all these projects should be thought of as infrastructure costs (i.e the cost of doing business). THe United States' infrastructure costs have been ehh, roughly about 20% of our Gross Domestic Product. Twenty cents out of each dollar of product we create goes to maintaining this infrastructure. I am, of course, excluding the cost of state and municipal infrastructure in these calculations.

As often happens in this world, second movers get to leverage the trails you blaze. An upstart nation state with little in the way of infrastructure except knowledge and a hunger, can compete with you, and not only are they more agile, they don't have the 20% expense. Naturally, this would scare people into questioning whether they are getting good Return On their infrastructure Investment. IBM sold the Machines! Now they're just IB.

The two political parties constrain the conversation to whether to increase funding for this organization by this percentage or that percentage. The question of whether that organzation should still be centralized is never even asked. When you hear about federal funding for police, EMTs and teachers, remind yourself of the process. It's probably something like: tax money leaves state for federal government -> state employee writes grant proposals to federal government -> federal employee reviews proposals -> commitee decides which proposals to fund --> money returns to state.

You say these underpaid overworked public sector employees have their life on the line for me. Tell, me what percentage of your wife's time is spent prosecuting murderers and rapists and what percentage is spent prosecuting young men selling drugs to people who want them in poor neighborhoods? Prosecuting women contracting for consensual sex?

Your wife is lucky.

[glrotate]

As I'm sure you realize, getting a job as a government attorney isn't easy. Whenever a city / county / state / fed agency has an opening they are overwhelmed with resumes. Why? Because life is so much easier as a government attorney than as a real attorney.

How many thousands of hours did your wife bill last year? Most decent firms will can you if you only bill 2000, ie 40 hours a week 50 weeks a year with no breaks or goofing off.

Let your wife get a job with a firm that expects 2700 hours, ie 10 hour days plus weekends, and then tell us how hard being a government employee is.

Uncomforable Irony

[Jukashi]

John: Hi Bob!
Bob: Yeeeah, Hi Bob. We had a problem over the weekend..
John: Geez Bob, sounds bad, what happened?
Bob: Well, its embarrassing, but we seem to have lost your job
John: You lost it ?!?
Bob: Like I said, its embarrassing. And it wasnt just yours. Looks like we misplaced a good 13,000 of them
John: So I'm fired ?!?
Bob: Oh no not at all. You're a great employee John we'd never fire you. Lose you job yes, fire no.
John: I'm going to look for a new job..
Bob: Well if you find your old one let me know!

Re:Uncomforable Irony

[Jukashi]

er edit:1st Bob/John sry.

Three issues showing up here

[that_xmas]

First, Europes main economies are in the dumper. France and Germany have high unemployment rates and their economies are stagnant. Second, the Brits are worried because in mainland Europe it is much harder to drop workers off of the payroll. Third, removing Brits, who work harder and longer, and keeping Germans and French, who have mandatory under 40 hour work weeks, will just cause continuing losses for IBM.

...unless

[tbischel]

...unless you work for the government. Then once again, it takes effort. Try sleeping with the boss's secretary, that might do the trick.

Masons Are Getting Fired!

[geomon]

Did you see the symbol on the guy's baseball cap?

It looks amazingly like this one.

This firing is clearly anti-Masonic in nature.

Re:Masons Are Getting Fired!

[geomon]

..and that's a bad thing...how?

Just feeding the conspiracy hounds.

They love a good 'secret society' tale.

IBM Business Plan

[sunderland56]

1. Sell your best known business unit to China. 2. Fire 13,000 people. 3. Profit!!! What is really sad is... it just might work.

And if they lived in Australia

[eieken]

We would have reams of new OSS developers!

Re:veryhai

[mutterc]

I dont know why this resentment over jobs going to India.

It's not India particularly; it's where this is all leading.

Today, jobs go to India. This causes Indian wages to rise. Then jobs leave India for somewhere even cheaper.

Repeat this enough times. Now the entire world is living at the same standard of living - the lowest standard of living that exists today.

It's impossible to rise above it - as soon as wages go up in some area, whoosh go the jobs to the cheaper areas. An equilibrium is established at the bottom.

Execs will probably still live in fortified BurbClaves here and there, while the rest of us get to starve out there with the biomass.

This isn't really good for the execs either, long-term, but because of Prisoner's Dilemma, it doesn't matter.

Yeah, that's how it normally happens.

[Chris Burke]

The most critical information that I as an employee would want to know about my company -- i.e. massive layoffs, moving across town, spinning off part of the business, etc -- has been discovered by reading the paper.

The truly hilarious part is that once something appears in the paper and the suits are forced to admit it to us, they will then tell us to "disregard any rumors that appear in the paper". Why? Because we might find out other things that are true that you didn't want to tell us? I'll be sure to follow that advice, oh straightforward and honest executive, sir!

IBM is Hiring (In India)

[lozinski1]

And they have apparently hired a recruiting firm to help them locate people. Netra A. (netra@econsindia.com) who works at Enterprise Consulting just posted a job on our job board explicitely looking for people for IBM.

I would prefer that they would just hire some of the laid off Americans and Europeans and move them to India.

Regards
Christopher Lozinski

Two choices: Equality or Collapse

[Valdrax]

Yeesh. A little hot under the collar?

One of the major things that he brought up was the fact that increases in automation will inevitably destroy the labor market. AI and better plant design will eventually replace not all but enough jobs to have serious effects on society. What he noted is that we have two choices:

1) Allow wealth to continue to be concentrated into the hands of those who got in early and got ownership of the machines at the expense of the laborers that their property obsoletes.

2) Redistribute wealth to keep those who are not captains of industry out of poverty.

The first option leads to mass poverty which leads to misery, crime, inflation, depression, and social instability. Seriously. Imagine an America were 20% of the workforce cannot find a good job because there are none that they can quality for. What part of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" do you see for these people or their kids (especially considering the quality of education in poor areas)? This is a recipe for disaster, and as long as the poor can vote, such a society will not last long. For this very reason, societies with an imbalance of wealth either don't tend to stay free very long or change.

Think of any society other than Britain and America that had large imbalances of wealth that didn't topple. Even in those countries, severe imbalances of wealth lead straight into powerful socialist movements. (See the Progressive Era and the New Deal in American history and 1890s and 1930s England.) Otherwise, such countries collapse into fascism or are toppled by communist and socialist movements. The only stable democracy is one where there is no aristocracy (formal or informal). We have begun a return to the Social Darwinism of the late 19th century that accompanied the last major wave of advances in automation. We will have to see if America will swing to Neo-Feudalism and collapse or moderate Socialism and continuation.

Re:veryhai

[Valdrax]

There's skills and then there's (if you'll pardon my language) "m4d 5k1llz!!!1!"

If you only have the former, then it might be better for the company to hire 5 people who can each do only 80% of what you can do for same amount that they paid you. Outsourcing and the H1B visa program have the same thing in common. The skill that many employers most look for is the willingness to work for peanuts.

Only a handful of jobs in the labor market require you to have really good skills. I'd say that 60% of programming jobs that I've seen require no specialized training that you can't get from anywhere, 30% require experience with the company's products or some popular toolkit that anyone can be trained given time, and less than 10% actually require advanced degrees and solid expertise that can't be bought overseas. If you're in the 90% that makes up the first two groups, then too bad. If you're skilled enough to work one of the special jobs, too bad -- there's only a tenth as many of them available as regular jobs.

Of course, from a far enough removed POV, this outsourcing is good for the world. It's just not good from a selfish POV for us Americans. That's why people complain.

net profit for the three months $1.4bn...

[dalesmatrix]

Is anyone else disturbed by the fact that their " net profit for the three months to 31 March were $1.4bn" and yet still somehow this equates to we should axe 13000 workers...I guess IBM will be the first with their backs to the wall in the revolution eh? ;)

Re: net profit for the three months $1.4bn...

[Lehk228]

so a successful business should not work to eliminate wasteful allocations of resources, somehow i don't think the management at IBM just decided on a whim to make 13k layoffs.

Re: net profit for the three months $1.4bn...

[dalesmatrix]

unfortunately you've just summarised capatalism. Reduce your labour costs through "more efficient" tech and the reduction of labour numbers...gain short term benfit...look for next way to extract more surplus value from the workforce. repeat until workforce = 0? Unfortunately slowly but surely the workers are getting the raw end of the deal.

Re: net profit for the three months $1.4bn...

[dalesmatrix]

oh an no they didn't do it on a whim...they did it to maximize shareholder stock values. Evil? Nope. Sad state of affairs for society as a whole? Yep

Exclusivity in consulting on GPL software

[Donny Smith]

I'm not surprised at all - being IBMers, Global Services charge for their services far more than other regular and "small-time" vendors.

Now, big enterprises may have bought some services out of fear when they initially introduced Linux, but it's definitively impossible to continue paying Global Services for work that isn't even neccessary on the Windows platform and/or that can be done equally well by anyone with Linux skills.

Re:Pray for forgiveness sinners!

[Lehk228]

HAIL ERIS!
all hail Discordia

Eh

[lorcha]

Nobody should have to live in mortal fear of losing their job

If you live in mortal fear of losing your job, you need to chill out a bit.

Anyhow, if you think that ANYBODY lives in poverty in the US, then you need to visit a third world country. Not being able to afford satellite TV on the latest flat-screen HDTV is not poverty.

People living in "poverty" in the US have clean drinking water, access to at least some health care, a roof over their heads, some food to put in their bellies, etc. Their most basic of human needs are met.

I don't think anyone should be allowed to bitch about poverty in the US who hasn't visited a third world country. That is poverty.

Excellent!

[lorcha]

As a voter, I control the government.

Excellent! Then you have nothing to bitch about, then! You control the government, after all!

As a citizen, I authorized the corporations through chartering by my government.

Not likely! Unless you happen to live in Delaware!

Government already and outlandishly heaps favorable conditions upon corporations, in direct conflict with my modest needs for food, heat and shelter.

As I'm sure you know, the overwhelming majority of Americans derive their livelihood from corporations! Your government is looking out for your interests by making conditions favorable for business!

Social worth has been skewed towards artificial high valuations placed upon the parasitical classes known as an investment bankers and brokers.

They're the folks who keep our economy moving, and they are undervalued!

It is morally better to tolerate the death of corporations over the death of people (assuming one has to choose such).

As the owner of three corporations, I can tell you that all three of them are quite dead! A corporation is a piece of paper, and the tree that the paper came from was killed long ago! But a dead corporation can keep several people employed and put food on their tables!

There is no right to profits or losses, and the government has no legal mandate to act on either.

As the owner of three corporations, I can tell you that there is only one person on the planet ensuring their profitability, and that person is me! No governmental agency or representative has ensured their profitability! But it would be nice if they did, because then I could take a breather!