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Cisco To Slash Up To 6,000 Jobs -- 8% of Its Workforce -- In "Reorganization"
alphadogg (971356) writes Cisco Systems will cut as many as 6,000 jobs over the next 12 months, saying it needs to shift resources to growing businesses such as cloud, software and security. The move will be a reorganization rather than a net reduction, the company said. It needs to cut jobs because the product categories where it sees the strongest growth, such as security, require special skills, so it needs to make room for workers in those areas, it said. 'If we don't have the courage to change, if we don't lead the change, we will be left behind,' Chairman and CEO John Chambers said on a conference call.
From the article: “If we don’t have the courage to change, if we don’t lead the change, we will be left behind,” Chairman and CEO John Chambers said on a conference call. In reality, Cisco doesn't have courage at all. If they had courage, they would work to retrain a capable workforce and buck an ever growing trend in employment. By laying off 6,000 people, they are showing cowardice and a lack of confidence in their existing workforce. They would sooner send 6,000 people to the unemployment line then work work with a known, reliable quantity. The move is shortsighted because it costs money to hire someone and the new person must then learn the culture, infrastructure, and the business. Add to it the potential for the starting salary to be higher and any positives from the "courage to change" are negated. Bravo on another epic failure of the corporate world. I would have had more respect for honesty and integrity.
So that is Snowden's fault? That is the equivalent of a rapist blaming someone who reports a rape for his ruined reputation.
Like I said, companies are borrowing in the USA from money supply inflated by the Fed using their foreign reserves that companies earned and are holding abroad as collateral in order to consolidate ownership and try and beat inflation. The money is borrowed at very low rate of interest due to money not coming from any savings but being brought into existance with Jannet Yellen's magic touch. This is absolutely rational behavior, since the Fed wants to inflate asset bubbles and provides existing large companies with the cash to do it, people do it.
Of-course this misallocation of resources is destroying the dollar, preventing people from making any interest on savings and inflating savings away, which is why senior citizens are working again, in this economy those who want to work are laid off and those who want to retire cannot.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
Blaming Snowden for NSA abuses is like blaming Al Gore for Global Warming.
It is shooting the messenger.
If that messenger didn't tell us, some other messenger would have sooner or later. It was inevitable.
People only keep secrets (like global warming) when they feel it is their patriotic duty to do so for love of country. When they see widespread abuse, contrary to the values of a democracy, little or no oversight, and their peers feel the same way, it is inevitable that somebody is going to blow the whistle about global warming. If it hadn't been Snowden, it would have been someone else, eventually. This was never going to stay secret forever.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
The OP title is idiotic, Mr Snowden did not make the decision to backdoor all USA made networking equipment and he certainly didn't force Mr Chambers to accept the NSA's "help".
... so is the value-added tax or sales tax, which hits poor and middle class disproportionately to the percent of income taxed.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
I get that bashing the rich, while pitying the poor, gives everyone a feeling of moral superiority, the parent post did mention taxing capital gains the same as income.
So if you are a rich guy paying 15% tax on your capital gains investments, taxing that as regular income could push the rate well beyond 25%. That's a tax increase or "broadening the tax base".
Taxes should be flat across the spectrum. You shouldn't get a break because you are extremely rich or poor. Besides, a flat tax is naturally progressive. If you make more, you pay more.
Better still, let's not tax income or property. Since all money in the economy is eventually spent, let's simply tax consumption and fund our society that way. Everyone consumes - those that consume less will pay less tax.
Poor people also pay a disproportionate part of their income on food, clothing, energy, housing and transportation. Should all of those things be cheaper for poor people as well?
Should I have done an income analysis on my neighborhood and if I found that I was on the low-end of the income spectrum, should I have demanded a lower price on my house simply because I make less than my neighbors?
I understand charity for the poor, but demanding that poor people pay less for everything simply because they are poor defeats the point of a market economy. If you are going to do that, why not go all the way to a state planned economy?
I'll tell you why that sucks. Capitalism, even with all its problems, is the best way to distribute limited resources in a world with unlimited demand.
Oh yea - keep on blaming the poor for being poor! Have you ever lived paycheck-to-paycheck? If not then count your lucky-ducky stars because you are in the minority of Americans (assuming that you live in the US).
when the poor stop getting earned income credits totaling in the several thousands every year
You're thinking about this in the wrong way. Social safety nets are not about altruism, or even making it easy for the poor to get subsidies (it's not). When poor people lose their jobs, they lose their homes and end up on the streets. When large swaths of the population are homeless, you end up with filthy slums where basic necessities are rare and diseases flourish. Walls, police and even social ostracism may be able to keep undesirable people out of your pristine life, but they won't prevent diseases from spreading from poor communities to the rich who've managed to deny them even a damn toilet to shit in.
Keeping the poor from becoming that poor is a necessity for any civilization. Subsidies for the poor do far more for the common good than tax breaks for the rich.
Yes, the rich should be paying more back into the economy (through taxes or spending) instead of hoarding wealth, and the H-1Bs and other outsourcing of costs has to be curtailed.
However, when the poor stop getting earned income credits totaling in the several thousands every year (which goes up with the number of children claimed as dependents), while they don't pay a penny in income tax because they're unemployed for whatever reason, then you'll have a solid argument. Until then, too many of the "poor" are getting a free ride on the backs of bad government policy - and they have no skin in the game. Maybe they need to get rid of their iPhones, stop buying $250 Nikes, and cut their cable to pay some taxes back into the system that's paying for those luxuries.
This is a very emotionally appealing "solution". But notice that these "freeloading poor" are contributing to the economy by buying iPhones, $250 Nikes, and cable. Keeping money in circulation and creating jobs.
On the other hand, how many iPhones, numerically speaking, are 1% of the population going to be buying? How many pairs of Nikes? Probably more that any single poor person, but there are so many poor people. Companies like Cartier may be able to prosper serving only the wealthy, but Apple didn't get to be the behemoth it is by selling solely to the well-to-do, even at Apple's notoriously high prices.
We more or less respect the "idle rich" whose money comes not from working, but from investments, whether direct or inherited.
Maybe we can spare a little love for the "idle poor" as well.