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IBM Hides the Bodies, Eyes US Government Billions
theodp writes "As his company was striving to hide the bodies of its laid-off North American workers, IBM CEO Sam Palmisano stood beside President Barack Obama and waxed patriotic: 'We need to reignite growth in our country,' Palmisano said. 'We need to undertake projects that actually will create jobs.' While Sam positions IBM to get a slice of the $825 billion stimulus pie, Big Blue is quietly cutting thousands of jobs and refusing to release the numbers or locations, arguing that SEC disclosure rules don't apply since the US job cuts are immaterial in its big global picture. The layoffs included hundreds in East Fishkill, coming early in the year after NY taxpayers paid IBM $45 million not to cut additional jobs in East Fishkill in 2008. Some are questioning whether IBM incentives are worth the cost."
http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/
...they're so disorganized and flat-out dishonest with their employees that I say screw giving them any incentives, stimulus, or any other kind of special help. They need none.
All IBM has done since Gerstner is coast, layoff, reorg, and outsource. No significant new technology, major divestitures (heck, we sold off our entire networking arm to AT&T). The first thing Palmissano did in his video address after taking over as CEO is tell sales "don't let the engineers tell you no". Great idea - it led to vaprous announcements, selling technology we couldn't produce, and atrophied all of our internal systems, investment, and talent. Growth targets are consistently at bubble levels to ensure no one gets reasonable bonuses, and in the lead up to the firings in Fishkill managers were told to downrate employees on their PBC's to limit severance payments.
And no, I wasn't one of the ones laid off. If I had a better nest egg I might welcome it, freeing me from that blasted place. In the meantime, I have a family to support...
The claim that their German subsidiary was taken over by the state is a little shaky; Not only were the same management left in place but they continued to report to Thomas Watson in New York throughout the war. Most importantly, after the war they recovered the profits made selling and maintaining punch card machines for the holocaust.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
You can find historic examples of how to handle a financial like this one. In the early 90-ies Sweden experience a housing bubble similar to what has happened in the US. The state bailed out the banks, but unlike the US the state also took control over the banks. Here is NYT article about it. As a result the Swedish economy bounced back and most, if not all, of the money used to rescue the banks have been returned to the taxpayers. This was done by a right-wing government. This is in contrast to Japan where the Japanese government did nearly nothing in similar situation a few years before. Japans is still suffering the consequences of the resulting recession.
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think. --Niels Bohr
Roads are funded by gasoline taxes, so a cut in income tax would not affect them at all.
Police waste a lot of time chasing non-violent criminals. If they stopped bothering people smoking marijuana while watching the Superbowl (a "crime" that harms absolutely no one except the smoker), they'd have LOTS of resources to go after the actual thieves and murderers.
Schools are funded by school taxes, and therefore a cut in income tax would not affect them at all.
And finally:
Most government agencies, in my own government experience at the FAA, have 60-65% of workers who sit-around doing nothing all day long, except surfing the net. They could easily layoff those persons (same way a corporation trims the fat), and still get the same amount of work done.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall