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Another Round of HP Layoffs
geekroot's dad writes "AP News is reporting that Palo Alto, California-based Hewlett-Packard is 'fighting to stay competitive with formidable rivals like IBM and Dell' and is announcing 5,900 European job cuts "to safeguard the future" of the company. From the article: 'Michel Destot, the Socialist deputy mayor of the southern France city of Grenoble - where HP has one of its French plants - said the layoffs were "unacceptable" and demanded that HP managers also meet local politicians to discuss scaling back the job cuts.'" This round following the first cut back in July.
Since local body is so interested in a company's staffing decision, couldn't HP threaten to lay off more employees unless it gets more tax relief?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
I'll spare folks a lot of work.
"Oh, those evil French socialists! First they won't help us invade Iraq and now they are interfering with our right to lay off their lazy asses! I'm going to run down to McDonald's right now and loudly order some FREEDOM FRIES so if there's any French people eating there they will know how ANGRY I am!"
are STUPID.
HP will likely save as much in trimming those ~6k jobs as they did in getting rid of the 15k previous.
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
From the article: 'Michel Destot, the Socialist deputy mayor of the southern France city of Grenoble - where HP has one of its French plants - said the layoffs were "unacceptable" and demanded that HP managers also meet local politicians to discuss scaling back the job cuts.'"
Good luck pal. HP is a big multinational and doing business in France with French employees is a royal pain in the butt (yes, I speak from experience, having spent 14 weeks at my company's French subsidiary last year).
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Carly has only been gone all of maybe five or six months and you are complaining already? Please, give the new CEO a bit more time to undo the mess...
Jeepers... that seems high.
On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be much reliable data available for most of the globe if this image is any guide.
The Army reading list
Or to safeguard the top management body bonuses? =D To the guys complaining of the 'red' french... well, you should study their economic and political model. It is different, it has drawbacks, it has advantages. It is not perfect, just as the US' system is not perfect either.
Disclosure: I'm stupid
I don't really see what companies like HP can do apart from streamline their business as much as possible, if they want to go down the same 'box-pushing' route as Dell. Even their printer business is being pushed hard by manufacturers such as Epson, who are willing to give up Linux and Mac compatibility just to lower prices even further.
Get a free iPod Nano 4GB!
Bad Earnings for Quarter -> ...
CEO Saves Money by Cutting Sales & Engineering ->
Better Earnings ->
Bonus for CEO ->
No New Products in Queue + Reduced Sales ->
Bad Earnings for Quarter ->
CEO Saves Money by Cutting Sales & Engineering ->
rinse, lather, repeat
As a person who was a contractor at HP, I am glad to see these HP employee's get laid off. Never in my life have I dealt with such a group of arrogant and hostile to contractors group of people in my whole life. It was a company of "we're better than you, you God Damn contractors". We ran just about every support division, but those fuckers never said thank you or even acted nice toward us. It was a company of Us vs Those Contractors. They were always busting our balls and threating to have us fired or laid off. I never had a vacation because we did not have the same benefits as them but did the same work.
I would like to say to all you HP employees, karma is a bitch.
Linux O Muerte!
Wow, even Jerry Lewis never said anything that funny...
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I doubt they care much about the job loss and more about winning their next term.
I know, I know, flamebait/offtopic/troll
*DrugCheese rants*
In every company in trouble, everytime a change in the management happens, it seems to be customary for the new CEO/Chairman to layoff bunch of people.
Ofcourse, you need to lay off a bunch of hardworking people who had nothing do with mismanagement which led to the company's present status.
Why is it done? They have to come up with cash to pay the previous moron who drowned the company & also the overpriced present CEO & other management minions.
Idiotic, you say? You've much to learn about business, silly!
If it's the employees who make a company great, how can you safeguard the company's future by firing them? How do you then achieve greatness?
I think this is more about anorectic corporate theory (i.e. keep firing people to become leaner because you never no how grim the future might be! And shareholders like it, too!) than HP having too many employees. How sad.
Oh no! The Socialist Deputy Mayor of a French city is making demands! What will we do now???
Seriously, HP sucks, we all know HP sucks, and this is yet another round of cuts in the death spiral. That said, if it were, say, Chirac ranting about HP that would be one thing. The folks at the top in a country can make things pretty difficult for you if they want - it's generally good to keep them appeased at least to some degree. But who on earth cares what some obscure Deputy Mayor thinks about anything other than the Mayor's lunch order? Why does every minor insignificant politician have to weigh in on this crap? Do they really think that their constituents believe they have influence over giant multinational corporations?
Even if this Destot fellow had some clout, HP's response would likely be "fine - how about we take all the jobs away, then... And move them to another country!"
I actually mean this - I hate pointless layoffs (and was the victim of one at a previous company), but I hate grandstanding local political hacks even more.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
LOL FRENCH SOCIALIST
The also have a real one along the southern border of the country that's the rival of many in the world. It's named after a Buick or something...
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
"to safeguard the future" of the company
They misspelled executives, offshoring operations(aka jobstealing), and stockholders.
They have a beach named "Park Avenue"?
check back in 2010... by then, with some luck, the new guy might have un-borkd HP
HP executives will not be taking any paycuts or reductions (despite poor company performance) even though many of them make many times the annual salary of any of the people being laid off.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
Pah... I think it's already much too late. HP will never regain the status it had before Carly screwed it up. To talk of this is like talking about rebuilding a car that's been run into a brick wall at 50 mph. It's easier to just salvage some parts and scrap everything else.
HP still has a halfway-decent business printer division, and maybe some salvageable business units dealing with enterprise computing. Everything else needs to go.
carly trimmed lots of fat.
they gotta be cutting muscle by now, just to survive.
... hi bingo
Gone is a quality product from a company which cares about making quality products. Gone is the HP that cared more about hiring good engineering people than about quarterly projections.
Everone welcome in the HP that cares about shipping commodity product (read: crap) to customers whose success only matters in so much as they buy next season's overpriced plastic crap.
Welcome in the HP which lies to long term corporate customer about product lines (not online: pick up Sept. 5th ComputerWorld and read Don Tennant's column and the reader reaction).
Since the merger it's like HP sucked all the Suck out of Compaq's sucky products and injected it into HP products. Everyone thought the merger was a question of customer bases but clearly HP bought Compaq for the Suck alone.
HP: now with extra suckiness!
Me, what, rant? never,
-- RLJ
Then we'll forgo the whole deal. What were we thinking?
as wrongly captioned.
Should be "Countries with unemployment lying between 5 and 10%" The UK for example would be around the 4% mark, I feel that Norway *might* be in a similar position. Hence their anomalous colouration.
As for the rest, the former Soviet states are probably running under the old pretence of 100% employment and for the semi-industrialised Third World, the definition of employment is probably meaningless.
Full employment is a conceit of the G8 and their wannabee hangers on.
As for the article, French labour laws mean that Local Government DOES have a say in how a company (even HP) treats its employees. Seeing as HP probably took "Development Grants" to set up there, they're probably pulling out because the grants ran out. If HP management have the same blinkered attitude and limited knowledge of Europe as most Slashdotters do, they probably failed to notify the right organisations enough in advance before making their announcement. This would explain why the Frogs are huffing and puffing.
The mayor will likely have 1,000 plus angry anti-American puppets ready to channel into whatever political endeavor he desires. Its rather brilliant, if not classic, socialist move. Class warfare is apparently still viable in France!
Deputy Mayor: "Could we at least come in and have a look at the jobs?"
HP exec: "No. Your father was a hamster and your mother smelled of elderberries. Now go away or I shall downsize you a second time."
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
You probably dont know of the recent history of the company from which he left. Search for "NCR Corp" "Healthcare" "cuts". That should give you a starting point on what they've recently become, and what you might see from Hurd.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Yep. A fan without shit is like cookies without milk.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
We may gripe about having less job security in the US, but at least we don't have the unemployment rate that France does. Just imagine how lazy many Americans would be if they had the job security that their European counterparts have. Part of the problem with security is that it breeds complacency which keeps a country from taking the risks it needs to grow its economy.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
as long as they're not cutting american jobs...we don't care
Oh yeah, that renowned "French muscle" ROFL!!!
That does it!! I'm boycotting HP from now on! My future PC purchases will be from Compaq! That will show them!
I will also be boycotting Mercury in favor of Ford, Tru-Green in favor of Chemlawn, and finally I will only drink Budweizer! Busch will no longer get my business.
If everyone would follow, corporate America would see who they are dealing with!
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
If the US economy is tanking, why are they laying off their employees in France? Maybe the French economy has something to do with it?
-- Support a free market in the field of government
Your comment makes not much sense. For example: the region Bavaria in Germany has longest holiday time of whole germany, but still is the most thriving part. Maybe just increasing working time for employees is does not directly lead to economic success?
You can count on your fingers that stressful working environments, and the absense of being able to take rest from work, will do a lot worse on total productivity, than you would get by giving a few days more off.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
If I were you I would dump stocks, bonds, and dollars like it's doomsday (because it is) and start buying gold and silver (or maybe select gold, silver, and oil stocks)
Huh. I keep looking at your comment, and I can't find the affiliate marketing link to the as-seen-on-TV gold coin selling web site.
Watch out, all hell is about to break loose.
And you're recommending purchasing "select" gold, silver, and oil stocks?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
a) I work in Canada. b) I'm doing my work on a 3-pint buzz. c) We're getting more, better work than you can shake a stick at. w00t.
DataSquid.net, a little about me.
For the Americans who complain of the french 35 hour work week, and use it to explain the demise of the french economy and a host of associated profanities, I'd like to point out that Americans only do about 35 hours of work a week anyway.
Job surveys are pretty consistent: Americans waste at least an hour a day at work consciously fucking around on the internet, paying bills, etc.
So. Really, 5 hours is not that much time. The bigger problem is that all of Europe has high unemployment. It's a trade-off: less employment, lower inflation, higher benefits for their old, their sick, their poor. You're telling me you wouldn't pass up a bit of job security for full and free health care? It's not like us americans have job security anyway.
Besides, the ECB is committed to a wicked-low inflation target and that only means 1 thing: higher unemployment.
Maybe just increasing working time for employees is does not directly lead to economic success?
No it doesn't directly corrilate... But when you mobilize a significant portion of your working population to protest "doing more with less", you're not exactly casting yourself in a favourable light. It's not the problem solving, responsds well to a challenge attitude most employers are looking for nowdays. At the personal level or the national level.
DataSquid.net, a little about me.
Well, enjoy your Snow Palace then. :)
KFG
Wrong... the 35 hour work week is derided because it represents government meddling in business affairs.
Its not that 35 hours is so unreasonable, its that it is symbolic of the rigid nature of the French people and their unwillingness to confront change and evolutionary forces.
A system that has 5% unemployment vs. 10% or higher is more compassionate, is it not? How can you be compassionate if you can't compete? You end up with less ability to help the poor.
Yeah, I pay taxes that are pretty high, but I don't have to pay for health care at all
I've found that nothing in this life is truly free. A friend of mine has a mother that lives in Norway. She's on a 6-month waiting list for a necessary operation.
Sure, she doesn't have to pay for it. She just has to suffer with traumatic pain while she waits her turn.
"What do you get for YOUR taxes in the states?" I had to agree
Do you not use roads? Do you not use public transportation (which is subsidized by taxes)? Do you not use public water, public sewer, etc? Have you never called the police? I could go on forever. Your taxes are lower than the Europeans' taxes, and just because you don't get "free" healthcare doesn't mean you don't use governmental services. You use them every day.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Considering overall unemployment rates and economic performance as a whole, it sounds like the U.S. system wins out. Companies are very reluctant to hire people if it is overly difficult to fire them.
Part of the problem with security is that it breeds complacency which keeps a country from taking the risks it needs to grow its economy.
Why do we need to grow our economy? Is our entire economy a giant Ponzi scheme that will collapse if it stops growing? Does it have something to do with Americans' need to breed like rabbits? Maybe the French are perfectly fine with a non-growing economy. Maybe that's a better lifestyle than one in which we're running like rats in a wheel all of the time.
I don't respond to AC's.
Oh man, it's so nice out today... And as soon as I can drive myself home safely, I'm going to go out and enjoy it :)
DataSquid.net, a little about me.
French unions will strike over anything, really, don't mind that too much, it's part of the local folklore ;)
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
You speak power to truth brother!
We are battling a generation of people in our own country who feel they are entitled to everything. And even as we give more than we have ever given before in entitlements, it only increases the demand.
You give some unemployed guy an extra 12 weeks of unemployment benefits and a $2000 debit card... it sounds very compassionate and progressive. But then, they end up being even less self-sufficient, and all their friends and the other people see the handouts and it attracts the wolves, like a limping gazelle.
Believe me... I work in a multinational Fortune-100 company. Jobs are resources. Which is exactly why resource managers decide which countries get the jobs.
You are correct up to a point, but once you go big/mutinational, it's a different game.
DataSquid.net, a little about me.
Huh. I keep looking at your comment, and I can't find the affiliate marketing link to the as-seen-on-TV gold coin selling web site.
I'm not selling anything, or getting a commission. That's the whole point, there is a reason why I said that. Why in the hell did you say respond like that instead of countring like "you don't know what you're talking about .... the US economy is doing well because ....". WTF, are you over leveraged in housing? stocks? debt? Don't shoot me, I'm just the messanger.
And that's exactly why HP goes running :) Strikes are costly; not for businesses, but for French workers instead.
DataSquid.net, a little about me.
And the French are models of industry when they're on the job?
I got news for ya. I was sent to France to deal w their engineers.
A typical day - 9:15 they swan in and kiss each other. Turn on the email and send porn back and forth. Off to the coffee machine for cigarettes coffee and talking about ze match ze yesterday. Back to work maybe by 10:15. Work til 11:30 - go to lunch til 1:30 followed by more coffee machine socialising. Back to work at 2. Break at 3:15, back at work at 3:45, leaving time 4:55.
I had to PLEAD with them to start working as I was only gonna be there two weeks.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
Face it, most US corporations treat employees and stockholders like serfs. Everything for upper management and to hell with everyone else. The sale of a couple of GulfStreams could keep thousands on the payroll.
see
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11542
And before people start yelling about Europe's high unemployment I would like to point out:
1) US unemployment rates only count actively registered unemployed. Once the unemployment runs out most people don't bother showing up to register anymore. In Europe they have 'the dole' for which you get paid to show up and so they record larger numbers of unemployed. In the US the official numbers are skewed.
2) Oh, and while on the dole you still get some minimum of health care.
3) Oh, and there are 1.9 million US citizens in prison in the US who are not counted as unemployed. Contrast that to China with about 1.4 million in prison (see this pdf for an eye opener http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/r188.pdf a report developed by the UK government no less!). Did I mention China has about 3 times the US populations AND is a Communist regiem?
What they need to do is get rid of some overpriced C*Os and sell a couple of airplanes.
I hope the French stick it to them.
(no, no rant here, move along, nothing to see... )
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
The American system has higher "performance", but which system has the greater compassion? You make the call.
Today, or 100 years from today? America's system has allowed 4% growth in real purchasing power per year since WWII. Europe's has allowed 2% growth. This means the the part of "standard of living" that's determined by what stuff you can afford in America doubles relavite to Europe every 35 years or so. Let's say the extra job security in Europe doubles your standard of living. OK, your ahead for 35 years and behind forever after.
Productivity and technology together make more difference in your standard of living than you might imagine, because it accumulates over the generations. It is more compassionate to be secure in your job, if it means you don't have the medical technology to save your child's life, as your system delayed the technology for most vaccines by 100 years?
It's not as cut-and-dry as you make it out to be. Higher productivity really does drive useful technology faster.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
You should consider emmigrating to France... I'm sure it would be an excellent career move.
Also, you should warn all of these misguided immigrants to the USA that they are going to a worse country! Maybe some of them will wake up and realize that risking their life to come to America is pointless when France is available!
This article http://biz.yahoo.com/bizj/050912/1163171.html?.v=1 clarifies that these 5900 European job cuts are part of the 14,500 worldwide job cuts announced in July.
WARNING: it is because the US economy is tanking!
More than a bit of an overstatement. The IT industry is the strongest it's been since the dot-com bubble. Its really because HP isn't as good as Dell and IBM, and that European labor laws are outrageous. Its really an indication that the European economy is tanking - the continent is densley populated with few natural resources, the manufacturing is gone, and their high-tech output no better (and arguably worse) than the Americans/Japanese.
While I share your concern about the American debt, it is largely a result of military spending. If the rest of the world spent the time, money and effort to clean up hotspots, it wouldn't be an issue (not that I approve of the handling of Iraq, but the rest of the world does NOTHING). I'm not just refering to the Mideast - the Europeans and Japanese can't even clean up their own back yards (Yougoslavia and North Korea, respectivley) - they wait for the Americans to do it. As long as so many nations are dependent on the US Military and the US Economy, they won't LET America tank and keep lending money.
This is why prospective politicians should not be allowed to run until they have passed a basic course on economics.
And science. Maybe a little history. Art appreciation doesn't hurt.
Denis Potvin STILL sucks
Dude, you basically have to be Bobby Orr to have that as your sig.
Denis Potvin
1972-1988 N.Y. Islanders 1,060 GP, 310 Goals, 742 Assists, 1,052 Points
Stanley Cup: 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983
Really, I don't like france and their socialist attitude as much as the next guy. But I don't think it's offtopic to say that HP is going to hell because the US economy is tanking like I said here (5 412215 41377
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=161969&cid=13
) and here (
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=161969&cid=13
). I'm sorry, these were not offtopic and the fact that they were marked so shows some people are very bitter, but it doesn't doesn't show they are offtopic at all.
Whatever. I'm sure the French don't "fuck around on the internet, paying bills, etc.". Just Americans. Nice logic dude.
I, for one, welcome our new HP overlords.
America has held amazingly low inflation with relatively low unemployment for the past 4 years or so (of course much of this has to do with our federal budget which may be a time bomb in the making). Anyway, France just isn't a consumption society like America is.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
One day, you must attend a NY Rangers game at the Garden. Then you'll understand my sig.
.. and my heart warms for HP. I can't help it, it's limbic.
And you're recommending purchasing "select" gold, silver, and oil stocks?
No, I'd recommend canned foods, bottle water, and a shotgun...
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I think you're right about Europe's economy, and about them not wanting to take military responsibility for protecting their own freedoms. The problem is that the US economy is proping up the rest of the world economy, and now the rest of the world is loaning to the US economy because when it goes they go. Well IMHO, the US now has more debt than it can absorb which means it's the beginning of the end.
An other cause of anger in this little *socialist* country is this control of fat-greedy-old-american's pension funds over our economy that force companies to cut jobs even when they make HUGE profits... Could you Etats-Uniens and Anglais make YOUR people pay for YOUR retirement pension instead of making the wordl pay for YOU ?
... so you don't like having to pay interest on the investments those retirement plans made in your economy? Okay, fine. So how about you Europeans repay some of the war debt we forgave you after the Big One. In properly-adjusted U.S. dollars, of course. And while we're at it, how about you send a few billion of the trillions in foreign aid we've spent on you, back back our way. We could use it right about now.
I see
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
And you think that corps in the US went to 40 out of the goodness of their hearts?
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
I'm not selling anything, or getting a commission.
But you can understand why someone reading your comment might think that. There was a certain tone to it that recalls the late-night-TV "in these unpredictable times, only gold will protect your assets" even as gold (for example) is turning out to be a lousy performer. Doesn't mean it will always be that way, only that it is now, and the people pushing are resorting to hokey looking 3:00AM advertising to get your attention.
There will certainly be a lot of people who will lose their shirts when their interest-only mortgages come home to roost and they can't keep up. Those people will be forced to buy a house more in keeping with their income, and people who did not over extend themselves will reap the rewards of their prudence.
Actually, the economy is doing well, considering the pressures that are weighing on it. You mentioned Katrina, but I really don't think that's going to be a big one for the economy as a whole. Something like 9/11, that impacts something huge like air travel across the entire world - that's more of an issue. Gas prices are something like that, but not in scope.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
for a long long time.
Yeah I know, put in your 40 hours and go home with your check is how it is supposed to be. Guess what, that will work provided you want to forever be one who bitches about how life is so unfair.
Most successful people aren't doing 40 hours a week, they are doing 55-70 hours per week. This way they can be the "lazy" rich when they reach their 50s while you continue to toil away at your "40" err 35 hour a week job. You'll continue to do so and wonder why John down the street now lives over there with his big house and car.
Yes some executives make silly amounts of money but guess what, they are a small percentage of people who work in companies who employ less than the majority of people who do work. Big businesses grab the headlines simply because of their size but they do not drive the overall economy.
So yeah HP is laying off X-thousand jobs. Some of those may actually end up getting the kick in the pants that they needed to realize their potential. A great many, conditioned by society, will bitch and move on to the next 40 hour job repeating the cycle.
You don't have to bust your butt to be rich but your damn well going find out it is the faster way of getting there.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Yes, I tend to agree with you, however, France has been the thorn in the side of the U.S. for quiet some time now. It does seem (whether true or not) that they are going out of their way to annoy/block/hinder the U.S. on a number of issues. When you poke someone in the eye you cannot expect that person to be sympathetic when someone else kicks you in the butt. I feel sorry for the folks at HP, but then again I do have a small voice at the back of my mind that says "yeah ! stick it to them !"
I agree the employment numbers are cooked. But your figure is worse. Your figure assumes everyone wants to work. In other words, it includes stay at home mothers as a "deficit" in working people, when they are not.
Heck, it probably also includes the independently wealthy who definitely don't wish to work, don't need to, and are supported by their own income.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
That beatch really screwed things up, eh? That's what happens when you sell your soul. Or maybe this is just part of the binging. It's hard to tell.
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
Mmmm.... listen, a good troll is never that silly. It's got to be remotely believable.
If you can't manage yourself, there are sites dedicated to coming up with trolls that people like you can insert your own text into. I think you'd be better doing that until you gain some experience.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Well IMHO, the US now has more debt than it can absorb
Not really. The debt to GDP ratio, isn't that bad, and it's well under the European average. Still, that doesn't excuse the irresponsible spending spree that we've gotten from alleged "fiscal conservatives" in Congress and the White House.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Yes, it's low... unless you happen to buy food, or a house, or you get sick, or you go to college, or you heat/cool your house, or you drive a car, or take the bus, or...
Or did you mean 'wage inflation'. True, there isn't much of that, unless you happen to be a CEO or one of his friends.
Shut it, that really did happen. It was AMAZING to see these people. It was like life revolved around coffee in the morning, lunch and the mid morning and mid afternoon lunches. No wonder we never got products finished when we asked for em.
I did forget to mention this was NOT at HP
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
evil leftist just show how dumb slashdoters are. Geeks like technology.
See what I mean? :)
feh. stuff.
Once HP's layoff are finally finished, then only the very best forard-looking, productive, gung-ho employees will remain.
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
It will be even more unacceptable when HP tells that mayor where he can stick it and pulls the rest of the jobs from the city (which given hp's current state of affairs was bound to happen anyway).
...grab yer torches and pitchforks !
And how about America makes good on its promise to give land and a mule to the blacks who were slaves?
My neighbor, on the other hand, came here from Mexico 15 years ago on a green card. Didn't have anything except the willingness to bust his butt and a good head on his shoulders. Worked scut work for 5 years in a bakery saving every cent he earned all the while learning how to be a baker. After 5 years, he started out on his own and opened a bakery. He's got seven of them now, and he works one day at each one each day of the week. Public schools around here aren't worth much so he's sent his two kids to a Catholic private high school. Each of them has their own car.
About once a month, I eat at a Chinese hole in the wall. Food is outstanding and there's always a line for takeout as there are barely any seats in the restaurant as most of the floorspace is kitchen. There are 6 people working in a space the size of two cubicles exchanging instructions in Chinese. Haute cuisine it ain't but the food is damn good. They open at 10 am and are there until 10 pm. They're making a go of what you would take to be slim prospects.
My gardener wasn't quite as successful. He still rents, but he's provided for his family which he said there was no way he could of done in Guatamala.
My best friend is a plumber. No college but is a partner in a plumbing business. He's smart, worked his tail off, and got to the point that he is billing quarter million dollar jobs in Pebble Beach. He plumbed Clint Eastwood's house and used a tie down he invented to keep floor heating pipes in place. The tie-down saved him 7 cents/tiedown over a commercial product, and is faster to install to boot. It may not sound like much of a savings but it's enabled him to shave his cost on each floor heating job he's bid. He never knew his dad and is mother was an alcholic who didn't provide much for him and yet he's thrived. All that on a high school education.
One of my top student's father was pulled out of middle school during the cultural revolution. Wasted years of his life on a farm just staying alive. When he got the chance, he left China and came here. His wife works in a local hospital and he's holding down a day job while taking care of some pre-reqs before going to med school. He gets about 5 hours of sleep each night even though he's in his mid 40's. Even still, he's happy to be here.
I don't think any of these folk would agree with your assessment of economic prospects in this country.
The problem is one of adverse selection.
If an individual is buying insurance, then he falls into two categories, "risk adverse" or "expecting a positive return." In other words, as most people don't use anywhere NEAR the $3000 (young single individual) to $15,000 (older family) in medical costs that insurance costs, people that are sicker are more likely to purchase insurance.
By having insurance available for the entire group (with some minimum enrollment percentage), people are not more likely to choose the insurance because they EXPECT high medical costs.
That's the economic theory.
The problem is, our health insurance market is COMPLETELY messed up.
For example, I have insurance on my car, it covers unexpected events (accidents), not expected events (routine oil changes). However, our health insurance covers expected events (normal doctor's visits), which makes the market REALLY screwy.
But it gets worse, if I am paying to insure my life, then if I die, my insurance company pays out. If I pay to insure my health, it makes ZERO sense that if I get some serious disease, I can be dropped from the insurance and screwed. I don't understand why pre-existing conditions are paid for by your insurance, it SHOULD be paid for by your previous insurance.
I mean, if I develop some permanent blood disease, and I paid Blue Cross to insure me, then shouldn't they take their lumps and pay for that situation permanently? If I later contract with Aetna to take on my health risk, why are they pricing in my preexisting condition, or forced to take it with a group program, or able to exclude me.
Ideally, insurance should go forward, not backward.
The problem is routine maintenance. It is cheaper, in general, to have an annual check-up and catch things early then wait for problems. However, routine health maintenance isn't really an insurable event (I mean, if it costs $100/yr for an annual physical, and everyone has one, it is really silly to make that part of insurance, it just means that the costs go up by $100). The problem is, if you don't do it through insurance, people won't get them, because it is cheaper to pay the co-pay then to get the physical to avoid getting sick.
I believe in a market based solution, but current health care isn't one. Small co-pays for somewhat elective procedures (most therapy, some minor operations) is insane. Sure it makes peoples lives better, but then it is an individual choice.
I really like the new Consumer-Driven Healthcare Programs (I think that acronym is CDHP). The idea is a HIGH deductible, and possibly high co-pay, but a lower premium. It makes health insurance into insurance, which makes MUCH more sense. The HSA option that was added to the Medicare fiasco bill is a nice incentive. Since employer contributions to health care AND the employee side with a Section 125 plan is tax deductible, you can pay for your deductible with pre-tax money, in an HSA. It makes the CDHP option tax-neutral with traditional insurance.
The idea is to get people to pay for routine options, so they make decisions with the cost in mind, while still being insured if something major happens. It is an attempt to bring market forces to bare.
This still doesn't deal with the absurdity that you come down with a permanent condition, and your employer has an economic incentive to fire you to bring down the group rates. That requires a fundamental realignment of the insurance market.
Alex
To "be more productive", one must trim the fat.
Well, Carly certainly trimmed the fat profit margins by buying Compaq and getting into the no-margin commodity PC business. HP is in disarray. They have ticked off a lot of formerly loyal business users. They apparently have no control over their inventory any longer. I've been told three times in two weeks that a part has shipped, and it still hasn't. Even at the supervisor level, there isn't anyone who can call up the warehouse and ask what the heck is going on. After the third time and a flamed supervisor, my "ticket" got "escalated". Woohoo, I'm a happy HP customer now. Not.
America's level of borrowing is running at a higher level than of some countries it has forced to restructure their own economies (Argentina), the economy overall is seeing a reduction in employment, people have less disposable income and the jobs being created within the economy are of a lower standard than those being lost.
Japan can't sort out problems in its backyard: they had the size of their military capped for 50 years. Terms of their surrender after the second world war.
The American economies strength is largely dependent on exporting items, and I do remember an article in which American economists blamed Europe for their economic woes as we were unwilling to get ourselves into enough personal debt buying American goods.
You are aware that the occupation of Iraq and the preceeding war were in violation of international law, aren't you?
And, despite this, you still had a coalition of allies helping you there and still do.
American interests are not the world's best interests and, increasingly, tend to run contrary to them.
I think you need a more realistic perspective before you rant like that.
For a start, I challenge your assumption about "most successful people". It's well-documented that working long hours for extended periods provides rapidly diminishing returns, and ultimately becomes counter-productive as the damage caused by mistakes made while tired takes longer to undo later on.
About 35-40 hours is the most productive sustained hourly rate, and it's remarkably consistent across different industries and workers. You can get additional returns up to about 60 hours in short bursts, though they become less the higher the hours get. By about 80 hours, you're back to being only as productive as you were in the first 40 again as they additional 40 have cancelled out.
Go ahead and Google for this, or just try this article for a fairly representative comment. There are plenty of scientifically conducted studies, right back to Ford's observations about the guys building cars in his factory. The five-day working week came about in much the same way, BTW.
Next up, perhaps Mr Seventy Hours will be lazy rich in his 50s and living over there with a big house and car. The difference between us is that I will have lived for 50 years already when I get to my 50th birthday, and I won't die young from burn out.
Perhaps, but I'll take working smarter over working harder any day, and I bet I get there as fast as the butt-buster.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
So how about you Europeans repay some of the war debt we forgave you after the Big One.
In my part of Europe Stalin told us that we don't need your dirty capitalist money.
Man, imagine that, a world with only CEOs and nobody to lay off, what would they EVER do with themselves?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Jobs are not resources that are "taken" or "sent" to other countries. Rather, jobs are created (and destroyed) by entrepreneurs--people who have acquired capital--capitalists, if you [will]. There is an infinite amount of work to be done, and thus an infinite number of potential jobs that could be created. One does not need to fear the loss of a job, because another one can easily be created...so long as entrepreneurs have the freedom to acquire capital and to use it.
I fully agree here.
How can business restructure itself when it can't even fire or lay off its employees?
How does the ability to lay off employees lead to less unemployment? I can't say I understand that one.
How can new businesses be started when people are so heavily taxed that they have trouble building up a pool of capital?
Charge more? Make less of a profit?
Socialists must learn that employers and employees have a common goal: to make the most productive use out of the scarce resources.
If you're truly a socialist, then this statement doesn't even make sense, because it presumes that employers and employees exist in the first place. Of course, you're probably referring to liberal capitalists here, not socialists. In that case, there's agreement that common goals exist. Then again, making *the most* productive use out of scarce resources isn't necessarily one of those goals. Most people don't care in 100% efficiency, if that means not having the safety of a stable income.
Stealing the employer's capital and taking away his freedoms will never help anyone.
Depends what you do with that "stolen" capital.
The government does not count people if they are past the time for receiving unemployment checks. they become non persons and are not counted
The government counts as employed anyone who has even a minimal few hours per week job
The real numbers are probably close to equitable between the US and France right now, once you filter out the econo numbers juggling BS
About ten years ago I got a contract 'temp' position at HP (Vancouver, WA, USA) to disassemble printers. My job was to open brand-new printers in packages and take them apart down to the metal chassis. The chassis was used to make prototypes for new models.
There was no chance of my being hired, but I had to go to three interviews and take a drug test. And the 'job' was at the factory where the printers were assembled from the metal chassis in the first place. But there was no way that they could get the metal chassis from the assembly line before it was assembled, so the printers had to be completely disassembled after being completely assembled and packaged for sale.
I'm assigned to a storage room with a million dollars worth of printers and truck loading port. I'm getting $9 an hour and was given the key to the warehouse with a lot of resellable product. But I passed the marijuana piss test, so according to H-P I'm 100% reliable and trustworthy.
There's another temp working there also, way in the back. He'd been a temp for three years already as noone ever gets hired at H-P. No one who actually works there, at least. I saw the 'boss' once for 10 minutes on the first day. He welcomed me to the 'team', gave me the key to warehouse, pointed to the stack of brand-new printers to be torn apart, and showed me where the dumpster was. All of the brand-new parts except the metal chassis were to be just tossed into the garbage.
Two months later, the day before Christmas, I get fired for:
(1) 'stealing the brand-new floppy disks.' I took them home and reused them instead of throwing them away.
(2) 'allowing the disemination of confidential H-P information.' This referred to the text files of the printer manual found on the floppy disks. The files that went with every printer sold. Any floppy in an H-P dumpster was assumed by H-P to be holding confidential information. Then why is in the dumpster, guys?
(3) 'contributing to the creation of an environment conductive to sexual harassment.' I was lonely spending all day all alone in the warehouse tearing apart printers. I put a GIF file of Claudia Schiffer (a head shot of Ms. Schiffer in a evening dress, no porn) on the PC as Windows wallpaper. It was ten years ago and at that time having photos acting as Windows wallpaper was considered very unusual and special.
Now I'm sure your corporate lawyer would give you what passes for good reasons as to why I had to be fired. But in the real world, it was all bullshit. I've never trusted H-P since then. I've never again believed any press release or 'independent' article in the press about how advanced of a company that they are.
And I was certainly not surprised when Hurricane Carly came through and wiped out the place and then left with many millions of dollars in go-away money. Hewlett-Packard was FUBAR long before Carly.
... 35 hours is not imposed by the government, its demanded by the people. you're seriously telling me that we should hate the french cause they have more control over their government then others?
i guess you didn't read the trade-off between job security and real life security?
or inflation and employment?
nice logical completeness, dude.
That's just the federal debt, which is a real issue, but when you count all debt like credit cards, housing, other bonds, etc
leave it to the French to settle in a swamp below sea level, anyway.
I save my mod points for situations just like this one. They expired 8 hours ago. I am sad.
Synergy is your friend
4 years is too small a sample.
what's been going on with inflation is that the dollar has devalued by a large margin in the middle of world-wide recession. europe and japan aren't in good shape either, so they devalued their currencies as well. to do this, they bought U.S. Treasury Bills/Bonds/etc from the Fed.
you can get a good idea of inflation by how much money the Fed has to print. when foreigners buy so many Treasury Bonds, the Fed doesn't have to print much money, so inflation is contained.
it is a temporary phenomenon that has been on the decline since February.
there is also a few more things: the books are cooked. inflation measure (the 'main' CPI) doesn't include energy or food. also, it's not a level of inflation (prices). the Fed takes the prices and 'normalizes' the prices by converting them to some mystical representation of what those prices are 'worth' compared so some arbitrary point in the past. this means that you should not trust the CPI. what this means is very significant:
say you want a Ford, Circia 1960. A good car, right? as good gas miles as a current car. dependable. and you don't have to bring it to the dealer and pay $1k everytime it hiccups.
the car cost say $2k back in the day. can you buy it now for $2k? no. maybe $5k or $10k or $20k. furthermore, everything you do with it costs more---there just aren't that many people around who could maintain and sell you a Ford '60 because you can't buy a "new" '60 Ford. you have to buy a brand new 2005 Nissan. which, as you know, doesn't decline in price. when was the last time you bought a new car for $5k? you can't.
but the Fed says "ok, well whatever the Nissan is better, so really you've saved money" even though you haven't. you can find this on Wikipedia. i forget the term though. so CPI is ALWAYS higher than it is posted. there are reasons to back this up: think how many things in law are tied to the CPI. what if the CPI goes up? then social security payments go up. labour unions get more benefits. etc. etc. we're talking billions of dollars here for a minor uptick in the CPI.
anyway, if you look at the charts of prices since the gold standard was finally completely demolished, you'll see an exponential increase. an exponential increase in a few decades? yeah.
do NOT trust the inflation numbers. the costs of inflation are absorded in many ways that are not accounted for in the mythical, abstract, CPI.
need more proof? look at who's rich? it ain't your union boy. it's Wall Street, who makes tons of money not on trading smartly and better, but by duping your average person out of their money. it was true in the 1700s, and its true today.
and i'm being honest here. i know, because i'm completely drunk, and i make my living in finance and that's just the way it is. the books are cooked my friend.
I wonder if that was DEC's old facile... I mean facility (sorry about that slip of the pen) which got transferred to Compaq and then HP.
;-)
Anyhow, my recollection of the culture (and especially France, was that, they have an expectation of a job for life regardless of the product delivered (or not) for their efforts.
Sorry to be snooty, but it was my observation.
mdw
Please try again.
Les Etats-Unis. It really is not difficult. I learned that in our "free" public education system in French I.
Also, free beer is not paid for by your taxes. Free college is. Saying college is free is like saying public education in the U.S. is free, and we pay less taxes.
Your number only has meaning if you assume everyone wants to work. Thus it is less useful than the other figure.
Yes, you could make another figure that factors out all the stuff that doesn't seem intelligent about your figure. But that would be basically admitting your figure isn't terribly useful on its own to compare job markets, especially between countries. Which is how this conversation started.
For example, if I wanted to use your figure to measure the job market in Saudi Arabia, how would it be? Relatively few women work at all, and many many people who could work get money from the government and so don't. So your figure would be very low. So how can I compare this figure to one from another country, like the US, to compare their job markets?
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
The bigger problem is that all of Europe has high unemployment. ,br>
It's not that high if you do an apples-to-apples comparison instead of using the obviously skewed data the US policticians like to use.
Life is too short to proofread.
Or can't they build a wall high enough to keep them in?
If you go way to the bottom, it says they are not counted for the official figures. So you are correct, but so am I, because they are not counted. They are (mostly) classed as long term "discouraged workers", and are thrown directly out of the calculations. You have to both have actively sought employment within the past 4 weeks, as per your link, and also be in the survey, as per your link, to be counted as unemployed. Skip either of those two things, not counted. Long term off the unemployment compensation folks are heavy into the "discouraged workers" class of non persons, so I guess this is where that "myth" got started.
Of course, this is further skewed by gray and black market "employment" and by illegal alien employment, so I doubt anyone has any totally real numbers anyway.
;)
skewed in what way?
i mean i am sympaetheic to baked data. but examples? for my own sake.
This announcement simply reveals the local (to Europe) details of the larger (global) layoffs announced earlier, not a new set/round of layoffs.
Believe me, most HP employees couldn't be happier about this. Take it from my Uncle Gary, an engineer:
I am extremely happy to announce my departure from HP. My last day is September 15, next Thursday. It will be a day of celebration!!
In their effort to get rid of employees, an "enhanced early retirement" package (EER) was offered to those who met age and length-of-employment criteria (age 50 or higher, employed 15 years or more). I squeaked in. I looked at the "enhancement" incentive, which for me amounted to 10 months salary, tax defered. Deal. I'm outta there, and not a minute too soon.
About 100 people at the Vancouver site were eligible; all but a half dozen or so took the offer. We're all walking around with ear-to-ear grins. Everyone else is saying "you lucky dogs". In the business group I work in (Imaging and Printing) 449 people took EER. The company is saying they will boot another 800 real soon. Then there will be another round of booting next year.
This is the best thing that could have happened and it came unexpectedly. I doubt this generosity will happen again, and the employees left behind
are extremely bummed.
A system that has 5% unemployment vs. 10% or higher is more compassionate, is it not?
That depends entirely on what provisions the government makes for those 5 or 10%. Sorry to get all Rawlsian on you, but where would you rather be placed, among the 5% of unemployed Americans, or among the 10% of unemployed French?
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Companies are very reluctant to hire people if it is overly difficult to fire them.
Nonesense. Companies have to hire people. Any well managed company hires people based on the minimum staffing levels required to carry out its work.
The problem for companies comes when that number declines. In a workers-are-material legislative scenario, the company disposes of the humans immediately. In a workers-are-people scenario, the company must wait for natural attrition to take its toll, meaning that it must suffer reduced profitablility.
Hence the rational preference for companies (and hence shareholding people) is a workers-are-material set-up, while the rational preference for working humans is the opposite.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Wrong. The US has severe underemployment.
The service industry - namely, restaurant workers - is the fastest growing pool of jobs in America.
The higher paying, higher skilled jobs are going overseas.
Also consider these unintented consequences - with severe underemployment in the US, or severe unemployment in France, consumer buying power is crippled. Your company depends on customers. Take away their money and who will buy your stuff?
Workers are your foundation. Eat your foundation and what do you have left?
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Sometimes companies layoff just enough to cut expenses to meet their quarterly numbers. If they let go 800, it is very possible for them to rehire half of the same group couple months later.
US companies don't publicize rehires because they don't want people to think their HR is indecisive. Most importantly they know it's bad ethics to be playing with people's jobs and lives to compensate for poor earnings.
I know I sound like a gold kook. But, truthfully I would really rather have my money in google or red hat stocks, but not with the way things are now ( and their P/E's). The truth is, gold doesn't do anything but sit there, but gold has one thing going for it that nothing else has, it can't be printed out of thin air, crash to nothing, or default.
A housing bubble is a lot different than a stock bubble. With stocks you typically don't own debt, and stocks remain liquid even when they drop huge amounts. But when housing crashes, it will bring down everything else with it, even banks, unless the fed prints up money - that's what I mean about gold.
In my opinion the economy is not doing well, but is being held up by loose money and easy home financing. Now the stock market has been betting on that loose money using derivatives, and consumers have been betting on that loose money by going outrageously into debt for housing. The notational value of derivatives is 270 trillion dollars while the GDP is only about 13 trillion. This is making the margin calls of 1929 look like tight wads, but at least money was backed by gold then. And it's making the inflation of the 80's look like a 50% off sale, but at least the US could absorb a lot more debt then. There is no easy way out this time.
US companies ... know it's bad ethics to be playing with people's jobs and lives to compensate for poor earnings.
Bad ethics?! Surely the only ethical consideration for a corporation (inasmuch as a non-natural person is bound by ethics) is to maximise shareholder returns. People's lives and jobs should matter to a company only insofar as the company's reputation for good working conditions attracts employees who are better able to guarantee that imperative. If you are just hiring unskilled and easily replacable labour, the worker's lives shouldn't matter in the least (from the perspective of a corporation).
On the other hand, from the point of view of good governance, it is arguable that people's lives should be paramount. Don't forget that corporations are creatures of legislation. They were imbued with legal personality and limited liability in return for the good they could do for society (such as engaging in works requiring massive capital which the 'natural' joint-stock companies were unable to raise). In a democracy (or a republic founded on democratic principles), it is the duly elected legislature, reflecting the will of the people, who must determine the limits of corporate behaviour.
Apparently the voters in France feel that people's lives have precedence of company profits, while the voters of the US feel the opposite to be the case. All irony aside, however, don't expect companies to self-govern in this regard, nor to adopt ethical considerations foreign to their imperative of maximising shareholder returns. That's not their job, it's yours as a citizen.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Or why don't americans repay damages they caused by selling weapons to the enemy... oh wait, but ya didn't think about that one did you? It always cuts both ways.
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
That was beautiful.
this is an excellent point
According to "Le monde informatique", Sales figure by employeer in France for HP (1.7 million euro) is greater than in the rest of the world (arround 500 k euro). So can you explain the reason of this layoffs?
Ask yourself why they still do invest in France? Productivity is NOT a comparison between number of days worked here or there. Productivity is a mix of working hours/days/period AND organization AND qualification AND adaptation AND some other things. NO COUNTRY in the world is a dream land for a worker nowadays. But France is not that bad and we are (regarding productivity as defined and compared by the IBW) over England, Germany, Italy, India, Japan, China and some more. Only US is ahead but living in the US is a nightmare for a more important part of the population than it's for the people having a nightmare living in Europe.
I thought that HP was selling ink nowadays, I wasn't aware that part of the staff was still working in the IT area...
Georg
[Hurd]...warned in May that some of HP's underperforming units would have to lower their breakeven point, leaving layoffs as an obvious out for management. ......
Hurd gained a fearsome reputation for his efficient, cost-cutting moves at NCR, which included offshoring work, shrinking support staff and offering retirement packages to longtime employees. (The Register 9th June)
So, there we have it. HP, in common with many other businesses in the IT sector, continually and obsessively compares itself with others. They are the benchmarks Hurd speaks of, and they are the positive or adverse comparisons that drive the numbers game WRT structural costs.
When HP and Compaq merged, they aquired several things, including a PC division and a services arm. But to continue to be a big PC player and/or a big services player, is a hard game to win at. ./'ers dont need telling about the real margins in the PC business, or who HP's competition is, but we can guess that HP really struggles to find any way it can win there.
But now, services is almost the same. No one will pay for support on PCs or Billyware, no one will pay anything for Linux support, a few will pay a little for big-systems support, for so-called business-critical systems, and some might pay for an outsourcing FM deal. But none of those can sustain the large and (by 'benchmarks') costly services arm inhertited from DEC/Compaq.
In all these areas the 'benchmark', is a cost of 'peanuts'.... and that is the target structural cost HP is trying to reach. So dumping jobs in a high wage country makes sense, as does the general trend to 2nd and 3rd world outsourcing which usually accompanies it. And if its PCs and Services today, it'll be Storage and the Big-Systems tomorrow.
The plural of anecdote is not evidence.
The 5% of unemployed Americans.
This is the old government intervention vs free market arguments.
Many interventions would like to argue that consistancy is needed and many people hired have bills to pay and its not fair for them to be hired at will.
Its the same logic as the feds setting interest rates to make things consistant.
http://saveie6.com/
Actually, according to the research, it usually isn't. For example, coders and manual workers both come in around that level. So do managers, incidentally, although overconfidence in their abilities while tired is widely noted.
Of course it's not a case of 40 hours or nothing works. As I noted before, gains have been seen up to around the 60 hour mark in some studies, though the extra hours offer diminishing returns, and the extra hours are much more productive if only worked occasionally rather than week in, week out. If they start affecting employees' ability to get a proper night's sleep, that's an instant performance killer, though, even in the short term. Managers also have to be wary of morale damage from expecting staff to spend more time on work and therefore less time on life. A discontent workforce is also an instant performance killer.
On the flip side, I remember reading a study about (IIRC) a software company, which was trying a 30 hour week and seeing surprising success. They found that their staff, working around 9-3 each day, had time outside working hours to do the shopping, visit the bank or pick up the kids from school. Consequently, they were much less distracted during the time they were at work, and their concentration and performance improved.
Really, you should read the research. BTW, I didn't mention that article because of the usual Guardian stance, but simply because it was one of the first links I turned up that provided several sources supporting my claims. I prefer not to post that sort of thing for a critical audience without at least some immediately accessible information to back it up, but Google is your friend.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Sometimes, however, consumer demand changes in ways the entrepreneur either could not, or failed to, predict. This is especially true in a world where our central banks create huge business cycles.
And the ability to lay off workers just makes matters worse, as it turns a problem in one industry into a downward spiral which affects all industries.
During the boom phase of the cycle, way too much purchasing power is invested in the capital goods sector, and it must be slowly transferred back to the consumer goods sector.
Don't you think maybe the boom phase of the cycle would be evened out if a company was forced to look at the long run rather than just hire and fire for a quick profit?
What happens when government interferes with this adjustment process?
Let's start with what happens when the government doesn't interfere with the "adjustment process": a long, sustained depression.
Efficient service of consumer demand can not be obtained, because funds are tied up in a suboptimal structure of production.
You're assuming employers and employees can't come to an agreement on things, but I never meant to imply that. If an employee can find a new job and the employer wants to let go of her anyway, then everyone is happy and there isn't a problem.
Profits decrease, so it takes longer for businesses to acquire the capital they need to build an efficient structure of production. During this lengthened capital build-up process, entrepreneurs are less likely to replace businesses that go bankrupt with new businesses.
I would think new businesses would have an advantage over old ones, as they can hire the number of new workers that they need, rather than have to worry about paying for the current ones.
So long as society has enough savings, they will be fine. That is, if everyone has enough berries saved up to sustain their old level of consumption while they swith production methods, there are no problems.
Society today is so efficient that there would be plenty of food, shelter, etc. even if everyone in the world only worked 4 or 5 hours a week. We, as a society, do have enough savings, far far beyond what we need to keep everyone living at a quite comfortable level. There shouldn't be any unemployment. If there is, then our economic system has failed us.
In that case, reorganization is needed; some people must be moved back to the old method of production. What if this reorganization is not allowed to happen?
I'm not saying reorganization is not allowed to happen. But "you're fired, go reorganize" isn't the way it should happen.
Well, that is the inefficiency I am talking about. A certain level of consumption is desired, but there will not be enough berries to fulfill it. The only thing that can fix this is to allow the market to form itself into a structure of production that efficiently meets consumer demands.
I'm not saying we should abandon capitalism. The market is still there, and it'll still be able to reorganize. But instead of firing people first and then having them figure out the reorganization themselves, this would force companies to assist in the reorganization process.
Anyway, you act like it's a grossly foreign concept, but it's really not that different from what we have now, with unemployment compensation. If someone gets laid off, for no fault of his/her own, then the company has to pay the person (usually around 50%) while looking for a new job. In France they take what is arguably a more reasonable approach, and instead of applying a formula based on previous compensation they allow negotiation and ultimately adjudication by a judge if it comes to that, to determine what amount of severance pay is fair.
Hi I've recently spoken to a friend of mine who's currently working for HP in Grenoble. He told me the reason behind this layoff is quite simple : the CEOs in the States want the high paid jobs in the States and the others... in China, no matter the real cost of the people working in France. This strategy is simply better for the investissors (lay offs : good for short term ROI). Why did he say so ? Quite simply because they're cheaper in Grenoble for some stuff than in the States (according to internal stats) but... but... it doesn't matter, HP wants these jobs to be somewhere else. However, for him and his colleagues, it's really not a pleasure to be laid off... At the end of the day, it shows, at least, that people should refrain to draw general conclusion without deep knowledge, or at least good research... Cheers, ZedroS
> Workers are your foundation. Eat your foundation and what do you have left?
No, no, workers are a resource. Our employees don't get paid enough to be our customers. It's the OTHER companies that are supposed to pay people enough to buy OUR stuff.
That still means workers - paid by someone else or not - are your foundation. Where will you get your profits without workers? Where? What are you without a gainfully employed population? What are you then?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that most of our nation's job growth is in restaurant services and retail jobs. How are you going to sell homes and cars to more and more people earning closer and closer to $6/hr (moving constantly down from, say, $8-10/hr)? How can that possibly happen?
The math simply does not add up in the long term.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
You left-out "nukular-saying."
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
The hidden part of "maximise shareholder returns" is that often companies create an instantaneous appearance of high returns by immoral, even illegal, and assuredly stupid and unsustainable acts. This is done to increase stock price primarily, and to create confidence secondarily. The elite and insiders can then cash out on the temporary condition.
Later, reality must assert itself and bad things happen, up to even ferocious legal actions and bankruptcy.
Hence, the assertion of the primacy of "maximise shareholder returns" contains a hidden bomb that is exploding far too often.
I found the rest of your posting particularly cogent. Good analysis.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
As an AC, I doubt that you'll see this...
You're confusing the two accounts.
An FSA lets you put money into a company account to use during the year pre-tax, and get reimbursements. The incentive to the company is that they keep leftover money.
The idea is that things like co-pays, etc., should be tax-neutral. In other words, if I pay an extra $1000/year to avoid $1000 in co-pays, without FSAs, I pay takes on the co-pays, so I come out behind. That encourages over-insurance to lower copays. Itemized medical deductions would be easier, but instead you can only deduct the amount over 5% or 7.5% or something ridiculous of your AGI.
The cynic in me says that the government knows that a straightforward "above the line" deduction for health care would be theoretically the same as their complicated system, but "cost the government money" because right now, they keep the errors in estimating. i.e. if I estimate $500 in FSA expenses, and spend $1000, I only get the deduction on $500. The fact that the money is lost provides an incentive to low-ball.
The idealist in me thinks that the government knows how few people itemize and therefore keep receipts, and see this as an easy solution.
The HSA is YOUR money. You can withdraw it at any time (and pay taxes + 10% penality), withdraw it at retirement / 59 1/2, (and pay taxes), or use it for ANY qualified medical expenses.
It's a federal tax incentive to encourage people to adopt high deductible plans, which aims to include market forces into routine medical decisions...
If a doctor charges $150 for a procedure (under negotiated rates) and my co-pay is $20, I make a decision on the procedure based upon the $20 co-pay. If it is worth $20 to me, I get the procedure. With a high deductible, I decide if it is worth $150. My insurance still covers any MAJOR costs, but leaves it to me to manage the low-end.
Basically, it creates insurance. If my deductible is $2000/year, I can put $2000 away in above-the-line deductions (pre tax even without itemizing), so even in years that I use my deductible, it is all pre-tax money being spent. In all other plans, at least SOME of the money is either post-tax (co-pays, or co-pays in excess of FSAs, or the company's keeping of your excess FSA money is taxable income).
Alex
Travoltus, you should just point out to these guys that:
You can't eat paper or electrons.
They are lost in the worship of the uberwealth provided by Hypercapitalism. The dupes, rubes and morons will continue accumulating paper and electrons as if keeping score exclusively mattered in the long run. And then they will find that you can't eat stock certificates or a website.
Sad, really.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
Right. Basically, there are economic inefficiencies in certain markets, which is called a dead weight loss.
:) Basically, if a service is worth $50 to me, and the "market" price is $20, there is a $30 consumer surplus. If the monopolist can charge $40, then I keep $10 in surplus, and the monopolist transfers $20 in consumer surplus to producer surplus. That "sucks" for the consumer, but doesn't hurt the overall economy as the surplus is still captured anyway. The problem for the economy is the people that value the service at $35, that in a free market would buy and get $15 in surplus, but don't by from the monopolist, and that surplus is just gone.
If a monopolist grabs my share of the "surplus" that isn't really an overall loss, thought I'm pissed off.
Now, we can debate the role of the government in preventing the transfer of surplus, but at least there you aren't losing productivity.
These free-rider problems, adverse selection problems... if it costs $250 in a group, but $500 for an individual, that is because the individual is more likely to be an adverse case, that also means that the non-adverse person willing to pay between the $250 and $499 goes without insurance, which SHOULD be available at $250 but isn't because of signaling. The person for whom it is worth $500 or more is "screwed" because the insurer took his surplus, but the overall transaction is neutral... he still was better off for the trade (surplus > 0 by at least some very small epsilon, it's worth $500.0000001 to him, for example).
Beyond the political problems, any solution should be aimed to minimize ALL dead weight loss in the market, because that is money that just goes away.
NOTE TO OTHER ECONOMICS GEEKS: I am intentionally ignoring producer surplus, because it makes it too confusing to explain in a Slashdot post.
Basically, we can debate programs, but any INCREASE in dead-weight-loss needs to be realized, as this is national wealth that evaporates... the TRUE "cost" of the program... the cost of the program to the nation is the DWL, not the sticker price of the program.
BTW: I philosophically agree with you with some minimum line. I also like the consumption tax w/ rebate approach, where people can a pre-bate (basically a check from the government) to cover the poverty line level cost of the taxes, so their net tax position is effectively 0. I am comfortable with saying that our society is wealthy enough that we can suffer some losses to provide some guaranteed minimum level of lifestyle to our citizens, that includes the ability to get food, medicine, and some amount of discretion for lifestyle. I realize that this makes me a bad conservative, but I think that it is "the right thing to do" and would probably be relatively neutral compared to the absurdity of messy systems we have now.
If everyone (based on SSN) got some automatic deposit of cash, food allowance, and medical allowance, and all our taxes were hidden in some VAT, I'd think it was great. You are in the "national health plan" unless you opt-out, and your insurer files with the government to get your "allowance" deposited with them, and theoretically private enterprises can offer "0 cost" insurance that absorbs your "allowance" and offers something better/different. Likewise, for the poor, they can get physical "food stamps," while the rest of us have our banking system pull reimbursements from via the Fed/ACH to cover approved expenditures via credit card/debit card at grocery stores. Likewise, your pre-bate money... essentially your first level tax-free income, gets DD for those that use a banking system, and the rest of the people get a "Federal Bank Note" mailed to them that can be endorsed and used "same-as-cash."
I think that the tech is here that we could GREATLY simplify things and have it be non-cumbersome for all. Those that use the financial system can ignore the intricacies, and the burdens on those that don't can be minimized. On the plus side, "taking cash" instead of a check and under-reporting income becomes irrelevant, because the VAT is already collected along the way... meaning people in the black/grey markets become tax payers, instead of just hiding.
Higher productivity really does drive useful technology faster.
Yeah, I can suuuuure see that "useful" stuff flowing into the hands of the wealthy or the seriously-stupid indebted middle class.
Get over yourself. What's happening now is not expanding the franchise of the middle class, which was the very engine of the modern First World nation. Productivity gains are being essentially stolen across the board just to mint a few more millionaires. The middle class is tolerating this economic rape purely due to the stupidity of believing that THAT franchise will be expanded to include them. That's why I call these indebted-to-the-eyeballs middle classed idiots "pre-rich". Why else would they be "buying" $500K homes?
Once they come to understand that they aren't rich, and as well will never BE rich, then perhaps they'll return to taxing wealth and corporations again. It may be a long walk from under the bridge to the polls, but they'll eventually get there. (Stupid fucks.)
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
Why should someone have to move from a country they love when all they are trying to do is improve it?
If you can't stand to listen to other people express their views freely, maybe it is you who should consider moving...
The hidden part of "maximise shareholder returns" is that often companies create an instantaneous appearance of high returns by immoral, even illegal, and assuredly stupid and unsustainable acts. This is done to increase stock price primarily, and to create confidence secondarily. The elite and insiders can then cash out on the temporary condition.
I was not careful enough in choosing my words. Instead of the "only ethical consideration", I ought to have written the primary ethical consideration. Clearly there is a raft of ancillary duties (such as those imposed by law via directors duties), which a company must also meet.
Maintaining the mere "appearance" of profitability, as you point out, does not, in the long run, satisfy the primary duty. If you want to talk about "bad ethics" (as it pertains to a corporation and its servants), Enron would be the most obvious starting point. Please take that as being implied in my analysis, I did not mean to restrict the term 'shareholders' to "the elite and insiders," nor to day-traders for that matter.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
More fool you.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
I don't think so. There is greater opportunity under capitalism than there is under socialism. I prefer the American system because I don't want to rely on government to be responsible for me.
It's astonishing how often I get accused of being Republican or Democrat or pro-Bush or anti-Bush on slashdot. Everyone sees every fact through the polarizing light of politics these days.
In fact I am none of these things - indeed I'm not even American. I just call em the way I see em, and if that seems to support one side or the other, well that's not my problem.
I apologize if the facts don't agree with your view of the world. I'll try to do better.
Yes, sarcasm is a dangerous tool when used with neither facial expressions nor tone of voice...
In the US, blame WWII economic mobilization. The job market was tight, and employers had strict wage and price controls to deal with. Generous medical benefits were a payment in kind for employers to attract bodies. Postwar management/labor court cases reinforced the employment-based system. Tax benefits accrued. [1]
Individual insurance costs more, because the underwriter is pretty much stuck with assessing your individual risk. You may think you're a big, healthy buck, but they may not. With a group plan, the sort you often can't get your hands on without a big-ass employer, the underwriter can make the stats work such that he can charge less and still get a warm fuzzy.
Luke, help me take this mask off