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IBM Hides the Bodies, Eyes US Government Billions

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the what-layoffs dept.

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."

4 of 410 comments (clear)

  1. IBM has never been good at hiding the bodies by damburger · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Last time they left bodies in their wake, the Allies found most of them...

    --
    If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
  2. No, they're not *really* questioning it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Some are questioning whether IBM incentives are worth the cost."

    Even in the linked article, they're only questioning how much to pay IBM -- not whether to pay them. It amazes me that local officials do this so often, when there's no real proof these sorts of incentives are a net gain. Localities pay hundreds of millions of dollar for sports team's stadiums and get no direct profit sharing, cities offer multi-million dollar packages - or in Seattle's case, even build an egregious trolley line - for businesses and don't even pretend to have a measure of the monetary benefit to the community for the given initial outlay. I always wonder how much these pointless incentives come from honest incompetence versus corruption of the government officials.

  3. Re:More proof that executives don't do shit. by ROBOKATZ · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I can't find an online reference for this, but supposedly Warren Buffet once started out an earnings call with, "We would have done much better this year if I had never come in to work."

  4. Re:Time to tighten our belts by blitzkrieg3 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why was it so important to give Wall Street $700B, even after it fucked up so badly?

    Oh that's right, because they're refusing to loan out money even to reputable companies like GM and Chrysler.