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.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...
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.
They need to shift focus on lowering prices and not letting the NSA spy on people.
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".
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.
Because a pure 100% ideological solution to anything is a recipe for failure.
Sometimes a capitalistic approach works. Sometimes a socialistic approach works. Sometimes some other approach entirely works.
If you can achieve a good blend, where you take advantages of systems at their strong points and use some better approach at their weak points, you'll be better off than you will if you live in a binary all-or-nothing world. Where you may get the best of an ideology, but you'll pay for it by getting the worst as well.
Communism is a great idea as long as every actor is altruistic and interested in the welfare of the society above themselves. Because of that base assumption about human behavior it's a terrible system.
Libertarianism is a great idea as long as every actor is altruistic and interested in the welfare of the society above themselves.
Laissez-fair capitalism is a great idea as long as every actor is altruistic and interested in the welfare of the society above themselves.
Etc...
All these "improvements" on the system we have only work if you assume people aren't self-interested greedy pricks that will screw over their own mothers for $5. As soon as you insert the real world into these system it collapses from the sociopaths gaming the system for themselves. As you said you need checks and balances, capitalism with regulation to prevent the abuse of the system that is common appears to be the most functional system, that is as long as you don't get people that are so stupid they think the regulation is the problem.