Seagate Fires 6,500, Or 14% of Workforce, Stock Soars (zerohedge.com)

Re: Republicans raped me in Brazil by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 13:28 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Thank you for sharing your story. I too was raped in Brazil by a group of men outside the airport. Only by sharing our stories can we improve this world.

Lay them all off! by youngone · 2016-07-11 13:28 · Score: 5, Funny

Get rid of 100% of the workforce. Just think what that will do for the share price.

Re:Lay them all off! by Tough+Love · 2016-07-11 13:36 · Score: 1

Don't give them ideas.

--
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Re:Lay them all off! by JustOK · 2016-07-11 13:38 · Score: 2

C'mon, give 110% for the TEAM if you really want to win.

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rewriting history since 2109
Re:Lay them all off! by HornWumpus · 2016-07-11 13:48 · Score: 4, Funny

110% = 25% (mon-thur) + 10% (fri)

--
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Re:Lay them all off! by DNS-and-BIND · 2016-07-11 13:49 · Score: 2, Funny

Better yet, forbid layoffs. This ensures jobs will always be available and in no way will ever backfire. Then, since the corrupt corporate executives will always try to get around your laws, replace them with pro-government supporters. This will ensure the company will continue prosperity well into the future and will not at all result in your country turning into Venezuela. Nope, never happen.

--
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Re: Lay them all off! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 14:07 · Score: 1

Company ruins lives, Wall Street cheers. Welcome to the future.
Re: Lay them all off! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 14:13 · Score: 0

I wish Seagate had zero employees.
Seagate drives suck.
Re:Lay them all off! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 14:18 · Score: 0

Those are some damned good ideas, man! I'm getting my congresswoman's address right now.
Re:Lay them all off! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 14:28 · Score: 0

Infinite Stock growth. :)
Re:Lay them all off! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 14:46 · Score: 0

Better yet, forbid layoffs. This ensures jobs will always be available and in no way will ever backfire. Then, since the corrupt corporate executives will always try to get around your laws, replace them with pro-government supporters. This will ensure the company will continue prosperity well into the future and will not at all result in your country turning into Venezuela. Nope, never happen.
You're too short-sighted. It would be even better to forbid unemployment. This ensures workers will always stay in their jobs and in no way will ever backfire. Then, since the government will no longer be necessary since nobody will commit a crime and lose their jobs, replace it with a group of corporations that exist solely to enrich their owners. To ensure that workers are not a burden, once they no longer become useful for labor, convert them into a tasty and nutritious protein-carbohydrate blend which in turn will sustain the next generation. This will be great, and the way for true freedom.
Re:Lay them all off! by JoeMerchant · 2016-07-11 14:51 · Score: 3, Interesting

I worked for a company that did this - stock took a 50% bounce up.
The market doesn't appreciate employees - employees are an expense, the market cares about results and seems to think that an empty building is more likely to get profitable results than one filled with people working toward a purpose.
Re:Lay them all off! by JoeMerchant · 2016-07-11 14:52 · Score: 1

Shockingly accurate, I like it.
Re:Lay them all off! by MightyMartian · 2016-07-11 14:56 · Score: 2

Obstetrician 1: Get the EEG, the BP monitor, and the AVV.
Obstetrician 2: And get the machine that goes 'ping!'.
Obstetrician 1: And get the most expensive machine - in case the Administrator comes.
Patient: What do I do?
Obstetrician: Nothing, dear, you're not qualified.
Hospital Administrator: Ah, I see you have the machine that goes 'ping!'. This is my favourite. You see, we lease this back from the company we sold it to - that way it comes under the monthly current budget and not the capital account.
[The doctors and onlookers applaud.]
Hospital Administrator: Thank you, thank you. We try to do our best. Well, do carry on.

--
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Re:Lay them all off! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 15:40 · Score: 0

That's amusing. But seriously, we've had an 80% failure rate in the first year for Seagate drives. It's going to get even worse now that they've gotten rid of so many engineers. Hopefully my boss will let us start buying a different brand even though his last name is Shugart. He has made kickbacks from Shugart Associates for over thirty years here. The Shugart family is one of the most notorious crime families in the US at this point.
Re:Lay them all off! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 15:42 · Score: 1

Get rid of 100% of the workforce. Just think what that will do for the share price.
That would be doing the world a great favor. Seagate drives suck and suck badly. I have a stack here of at least 20 500-3TB seagate drives that all failed right after the warranty expired [or soon after]. I will never put a drive made by seagate into a computer again. I also have another stack of a few of each of the other major brands here too but for every 1 WD that has died, 3 or 4 seagates died. The only drives that have been LESS relaiable to me were these old OCZ SSD drives that had a 100% failure rating. Even the replacements failed. I gave up sending them back. And it seems now that the more data they can store the more likely they will crap out on you at the worst possible time. Also makes it harder to back up when you have a 4 or 5 TB or larger drive. Long story short, please let seagate die and burn in hell.
Re: Lay them all off! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 15:44 · Score: 0

Our VP of OP's is a member of the Shughart Crime Family. We keep buying their drives despite a greater than 50% failure rate each year.
Re: Lay them all off! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 15:46 · Score: 0

Shugart is a very old and entrenched crime family. That is why so many companies still buy their garbage.
Re:Lay them all off! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 15:56 · Score: 0

So after the bounce, what happened? Has it been long enough since this occurred to determine the long term effects?
Short-term thinking is the new fad. Get that stock up, who gives a shit if the company completely tanks 2 years from now, the execs will be golden parachuted before then and the blame will fall on [unions, economy, unfair trade practices, weather, whatever...]
Re:Lay them all off! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 17:39 · Score: 0

I was about to say this and quote Jim Cramer but you stole his line. -6 points for (c) gayness.
Re: Lay them all off! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 19:48 · Score: 0

You got a good batch. Seagate drives seriously suck and have done so for decades.
Re:Lay them all off! by I'm+New+Around+Here · 2016-07-11 21:24 · Score: 1

By George, I think you've got it.

--
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Re:Lay them all off! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 21:52 · Score: 0

America. Downsizing its way to greatness.
Re:Lay them all off! by geekmux · 2016-07-11 22:27 · Score: 1

I worked for a company that did this - stock took a 50% bounce up.
The market doesn't appreciate employees - employees are an expense, the market cares about results and seems to think that an empty building is more likely to get profitable results than one filled with people working toward a purpose.
If empty buildings is what the market cares about, then the "market" gets what it deserves in the end.
One would think we learned a financial lesson from the dot-bomb era of vaporware-infused business ideas.
Re:Lay them all off! by JoeMerchant · 2016-07-11 23:42 · Score: 1

Long term, it continued as before, but more slowly... long exponential decays down to about 10% of that bounce value, twice in the last 15 years a dramatic uptick (to ~20M market cap), but then the long exponential decay again.
Re:Lay them all off! by JoeMerchant · 2016-07-11 23:47 · Score: 1

I worked for a company that did this - stock took a 50% bounce up.
The market doesn't appreciate employees - employees are an expense, the market cares about results and seems to think that an empty building is more likely to get profitable results than one filled with people working toward a purpose.
If empty buildings is what the market cares about, then the "market" gets what it deserves in the end.
One would think we learned a financial lesson from the dot-bomb era of vaporware-infused business ideas.
I'd like to think that the market gets what it deserves, but since banks quit paying interest, the only way to keep your cash savings "current" with inflation is to invest them in the market, and the market is driven by a bunch of dumb statistics like P/E ratio, etc. Having every single person in the world investigate their investment options is neither efficient, nor a good use of resources (time), and yet, the persons who stand up and say they'll do that for you (fund managers) just look at dumb statistics like P/E ratio and mostly roll the dice, because predicting the future is hard and rolling the dice is nearly as likely to produce pleasing results for the investors - and it leaves so much more time to enjoy the commissions.
Re:Lay them all off! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 23:53 · Score: 0

Better yet, forbid layoffs. This ensures jobs will always be available and in no way will ever backfire. Then, since the corrupt corporate executives will always try to get around your laws, replace them with pro-government supporters. This will ensure the company will continue prosperity well into the future and will not at all result in your country turning into Venezuela. Nope, never happen.
Obvious slippery slope argument here, but to address your first point. Yes forbidding lay-offs is likely stupid. there are valid reasons for them. Boosting your stock price is not one of them. If you really don't have the work, then you don't have the work.
At one point employers and employees had a symbiotic relationship. We need to get back to that. The current bit where the corrupt corporate arses see short term gains by regularly flushing older and more experienced workers and replacing them with college graduates is just wrong and technically illegal, but it seems there are a lot of ways around it. Move work to another state. Simply target higher grades as a surplus, etc, etc. A company I'm familiar with was targeting grades above the middle grade. They are now targeting one grade lower as well while at the same time still hiring grade ones in other parts of the company.
Again no one is saying go Venezuela. I'm just saying I'd rather live in a world where loyalty meant something, than one in which it meant nothing. Certainly you can't expect your employees to do their best if they are spending as much time on linkedin as they are at their jobs.
Re:Lay them all off! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 00:05 · Score: 0

From my experience, the empty buildings stay empty because it is trivially easy to offshore virtually everything. IT? Just call Tata or Infosys, and they can fix anything. For people that have to be present, it is trivially easy to hire H-1Bs, and because H-1Bs are minorities, it helps immensely with contract bids when it comes to affirmative action true-ups. Plus, there are no payroll taxes on H-1Bs either.
Of course, if H-1Bs dry up, you can rotate workers on tourist visas (B1/B2) who come to the US to "train", but who actually do office work for 90-120 days before rotated back out.
Those empty buildings can remain empty... the jobs don't ever come back... they just move offshore to cheaper areas.
Re: Lay them all off! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 00:20 · Score: 0

Form a union, get the union to buy a company and own and run it. Publicly traded businesses will always have a different master than the one you want to see them answer too.
Re:Lay them all off! by drainbramage · 2016-07-12 00:37 · Score: 1

I had heard that Seagate had MTBF problems.
I didn't realize that meant "Mean Time Between Firings".

--
No brain, no pain.
Re: Lay them all off! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 00:53 · Score: 0

You know, that stock price you hate? Thats the only good measure of the value of a company. That's what real people have decided it's worth. When the stock price tanks, that means that intelligent thoughtful people have evaluated the company and recognized that management is failing. When it increases, that's a sign that smart people have decided the company is valuable enough to put real money into. For all of the bitching and whining about HST, most outstanding shares are owned by pension funds ... Like yours. And the fund managers are long term investors, not daily or quarterly profit driven.
Re: Lay them all off! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 01:10 · Score: 0

Just make certain to fire all those single point of expertise peopleand make sure to shred any if that irritating boring documentation so that the company has no hope of knowing how to do anything.
Re:Lay them all off! by bluefoxlucid · 2016-07-12 01:22 · Score: 2

Well I, for one, don't want 50% of the hard drive cost to be covering the wage of idlers sitting around the office doing nothing. If you don't need them, why are you paying them? Scratch that; I'm the one buying the hard disk, so why am *I* paying them?

--
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Re:Lay them all off! by dbIII · 2016-07-12 01:52 · Score: 1

why are you paying them?
Some hopefully would have been working on new models so not vital to production any time time in the next few months. Maintaining stuff - probably won't need those guys this week. With zero plans for the future it's amazing how many people seagull managers can do without so long as they are quick packing their bags to leave for the next gig before it's suddenly found that all the people who used to deal with various problems that crop up have been fired.
Re:Lay them all off! by geekmux · 2016-07-12 01:52 · Score: 1

From my experience, the empty buildings stay empty because it is trivially easy to offshore virtually everything. IT? Just call Tata or Infosys, and they can fix anything. For people that have to be present, it is trivially easy to hire H-1Bs, and because H-1Bs are minorities, it helps immensely with contract bids when it comes to affirmative action true-ups. Plus, there are no payroll taxes on H-1Bs either.
Of course, if H-1Bs dry up, you can rotate workers on tourist visas (B1/B2) who come to the US to "train", but who actually do office work for 90-120 days before rotated back out.
Those empty buildings can remain empty... the jobs don't ever come back... they just move offshore to cheaper areas.
Ironically, your "jobs don't ever come back" statement is embedded in your other statements describing the very loopholes that need to be closed in order to ensure the jobs DO come back.
Abusing loopholes is hardly a real solution. It only remains a viable option because loopholes keep getting overlooked due to palm-greasing.
Re: Lay them all off! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 02:16 · Score: 0

by pension funds ... Like yours
The Free Market(TM) is doing its best to eliminate that argument. I don't have a pension, nor does anyone I know, so I don't give a shit.
Re: Lay them all off! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 02:17 · Score: 0

You know, that stock price you hate? Thats the only good measure of the value of a company. That's what real people have decided it's worth. When the stock price tanks, that means that intelligent thoughtful people have evaluated the company and recognized that management is failing. When it increases, that's a sign that smart people have decided the company is valuable enough to put real money into. For all of the bitching and whining about HST, most outstanding shares are owned by pension funds ... Like yours. And the fund managers are long term investors, not daily or quarterly profit driven.
Nope, stock prices are way too subject to manipulation and false value, as experiences dating from the 1920s and before easily show.
Re:Lay them all off! by bluefoxlucid · 2016-07-12 02:55 · Score: 1

Seagate has its own manufactories too, doesn't it? They produce their own hard drives. Maybe they retooled and have better equipment that doesn't need as much babysitting.

--
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Re:Lay them all off! by gmack · 2016-07-12 03:28 · Score: 1

why are you paying them?
Some hopefully would have been working on new models so not vital to production any time time in the next few months. Maintaining stuff - probably won't need those guys this week. With zero plans for the future it's amazing how many people seagull managers can do without so long as they are quick packing their bags to leave for the next gig before it's suddenly found that all the people who used to deal with various problems that crop up have been fired.
Sometimes it's not management's fault.
The problem in this case is that spinning drives are losing ground to flash and are a declining business. The "Performance drives" part of the drive market is already losing money for pretty much everyone leaving only the bulk storage part of the market still making money. I suspect that over the next while, we will see fewer updates on the performance drives while the drive makers concentrate on the larger/slower "NAS" drives until at some point, there aren't enough drives being sold to justify manufacturing them at all.
Meanwhile, the managers get to chose between firing some people now and delaying how long it takes before they need to close the business, or trying to keep everyone until they run out of money and have to fire everyone.
The stockholder's on the other hand, are idiots. No one in their right mind should be investing in spinning drives.
Re: Lay them all off! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 05:02 · Score: 0

Why not switch it up and start producing SSD's?

Seagate Fires 6500, Stock Soars by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 13:29 · Score: 0

Marxism can't come fast enough for me.

Re:Seagate Fires 6500, Stock Soars by jcr · 2016-07-11 15:17 · Score: 2, Insightful

Why wait? You can shift your useless ass to Cuba today!
-jcr

--
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Re:Seagate Fires 6500, Stock Soars by TigerPlish · 2016-07-11 15:32 · Score: 1

Before I bought a house in the favorable post-2008 market / housing crash I had thought of going to Central or South America an do IT work there, make a killing, and perhaps stay there. Im 100% spanish-english bilingual, you see.
Maybe it's time I sell / rent my house and do the south / central america thing anyway.
I've lost all faith in the US and in "Western Civilization." To the point where I"m almost ashamed of being American. That, from a 10-year veteran of the USAF.
I'm ashamed of what we've become. Maybe a decade or two down south .. way down south.. is what I need.

--
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
Re:Seagate Fires 6500, Stock Soars by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 16:24 · Score: 0

Maybe a decade or two down south .. way down south.. is what I need.
Well, say hello to Sonny Crocket when you see him, somewhere further south where the water is warm, the drinks are cold, and you don't know the names of the players.
Re:Seagate Fires 6500, Stock Soars by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 17:08 · Score: 0

In the marxist country all have jobs, usually assigned by the state, or else. Don't like your job? two f'ning bad, you work or you die.
Re: Seagate Fires 6500, Stock Soars by dunkelfalke · 2016-07-11 18:12 · Score: 2

Which is not how it was. The government assigned jobs only if you couldn't find one yourself. Changing jobs wasn't difficult at all if there were no previous problems with authorities.

--
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Re: Seagate Fires 6500, Stock Soars by tigersha · 2016-07-11 18:59 · Score: 1

North korea is looking for experienced personnell.
And i know lots of old east german and soviet citizens who are pining for the good old days...not

--
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
Re:Seagate Fires 6500, Stock Soars by Kokuyo · 2016-07-11 19:01 · Score: 3

Are you sure there was more to be proud of a few decades ago? What happens around the world today is, basically, the result of the fuckups the west committed in the last century.
You sure the difference isn't just that you're better informed nowadays?
Also don't kid yourself. Central and South America, as the rest of the world, is densely populated with people. There's just as much to be ashamed of there as in the US or where I live.
The only difference will be that it's new bullshit which gets you another few years to get used to and then fed up with. So that might be worthwhile.
Re: Seagate Fires 6500, Stock Soars by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 19:53 · Score: 0

I've always wondered how so many Americans manage not to be ashamed of their country.
Re: Seagate Fires 6500, Stock Soars by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 21:27 · Score: 0

Really? The old East-Germans still live in a communist country by the standards of many brainwashed Americans, and the Russians for sure doesn't seem adverse to put history in reverse.
Re: Seagate Fires 6500, Stock Soars by mrmatthewcarlson · 2016-07-11 23:18 · Score: 1

It doesn't occur to us.
Re: Seagate Fires 6500, Stock Soars by dunkelfalke · 2016-07-12 00:03 · Score: 1

Well, in my personal experience GDR wasn't all that bad. A plural of anecdote is not data.

--
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Re: Seagate Fires 6500, Stock Soars by dunkelfalke · 2016-07-12 01:34 · Score: 3, Informative

To clarify this: I can speak only for GDR, but AFAIK this was pretty similar in the USSR and other former socialist countries.
There was no social safety net at all. Instead there was a constitutionally guaranteed right to work. This right to work was not the same as the American right to work, but more like a right to a job and to a wage directly proportional to the qualification independent of age and sex. In additional to it, there was also, in fact, sort of a duty to have a job. This resulted in the government assigning jobs to people who wouldn't find one themselves. This is also why many factories weren't very productive - because they have employed people who didn't do much. That was a substitute to a social safety net that pays to the unemployed, so at least the people, who would otherwise be unemployed, were able/forced to do something.
On the other hand, people with a decent qualification usually applied for a job directly at the management of the so called public owned enterprises they wanted to work at instead of letting the government officials choose a job for them. They could also take a job that required less qualified people without any problem if they were in the mood for such a menial job (that was something similar to contemporary downshifting).

--
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Re:Seagate Fires 6500, Stock Soars by dbIII · 2016-07-12 02:01 · Score: 1

Are you sure there was more to be proud of a few decades ago?
While some very dubious stuff happened on Reagan's watch there were not actually many people involved in it - mainly because of how dubious it was. The chain of command was told to go fuck itself. A Senator from Nevada was doing an end run around the military to fund one of the guys we are now fighting in Afganistan, let alone someone as low on the totem pole as North selling classified anti-tank weapons to Hezbolla via Iran. A few rogues on the political track had very little to do with the majority.
Re: Seagate Fires 6500, Stock Soars by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 05:06 · Score: 0

Because with all its warts, it's still better than the rest of the shit holes in the world.
That's why people try to sneak over here. It's that great :P

Re:Republicans raped me in Brazil by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 13:31 · Score: 0, Troll

I swear it's true. Except it wasn't Brazil, and they weren't Republicans. Or men. And it only took 15 minutes.

And I liked it. Fuck you!!!

Good news! by Scutter · 2016-07-11 13:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

"Good news, and the stock is up 12% after hours as a result."

Well...good news except for the 6500 people you just fired. But as long as you got paid, that's all that matters, eh, Mr Investor?

--

"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"

Re:Good news! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 13:39 · Score: 0

Yes, as long as the investors get paid, that's all proper, moral, and glorious. What are you, a communist? A socialist? Trump will eliminate socialist thought in our country. Trump 2016!
Re: Good news! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 13:41 · Score: 0, Insightful

Do you have a 401k? If so, welcome to the party, Mr Investor.
Re:Good news! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 13:50 · Score: 1

Yeah, Mr Investor is all of us, in our 401ks.
Re: Good news! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 14:08 · Score: 0

Sarah?
Re:Good news! by wyHunter · 2016-07-11 14:19 · Score: 2

I have worked in a number of tech companies where engineering is considered a hindrance to "company progress." It's just amazing. I can't believe that so many tech companies stay in business for so long. Obviously, Seagate is not long for this world.
Re:Good news! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 14:22 · Score: 1

I guess - I wish my company would lay off about 20%. So much fucking deadweight it's ludicrous.
Has social welfare come to keeping unnecessary employees ?
Re:Good news! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 15:02 · Score: 1

Well, you see, if hte investors don't get paid, then all 58K people lose their jobs. See Hostess Cupcakes if you don't understand.
Re:Good news! by buddyglass · 2016-07-11 15:09 · Score: 2

Certainly seems as if the market considers it the right move w.r.t. the success of Seagate, Inc. If you disagree, and feel Seagate should have retained those 6500 employees, why should that be the steady state? Couldn't Seagate afford to take on additional employees? What should factor into Seagate management's calculus when they try to determine what the size of their workforce should be? As large as possible with the constraint that the company remain profitable? Whatever size maximizes long-term growth? Something else?

Honestly, I often wish my employer would lay off 15% of the company. Or, better yet, lay off the lowest-performing 30% and back-fill half of those positions with more competent new-hires. Productivity would stay roughly constant but payroll would shrink by ~10%. (This assumes the new hires would need to be paid more in order to guarantee the caliber of employee likely to be more productive than those being replaced.)
Re:Good news! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 15:20 · Score: 0

Zero Hedge had a good article on this as well.
Re:Good news! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 15:32 · Score: 0

You know, you wish for the bottom 30% to be laid off. Just keep in mind, which 30% *you* belong to just depends on who your manager is.
just remember that. If I were in your manager's shows, just having the above view makes you the exact opposite of a team-player, who should be fired the same day, and replaced with a polite, non-attitude-sy Indian kid. Competence? Not sure who competent you are, but please do not assume you are any sort of Einstein. The Indian kid will learn and quite likely surpass you too.
Re:Good news! by buddyglass · 2016-07-11 15:50 · Score: 1

I'm relatively certain I could go get another job inside a week or two, possibly making more than I do now. So I'm winning to risk being the one who gets laid off. It's pretty liberating, actually, being in that position. Or, at least, perceiving myself to be in that position. I can speak a-politically about things at work (hard truths, etc.) and have no anxiety about possible consequences.
Re:Good news! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 15:57 · Score: 2, Funny

>engineering is considered a hindrance to "company progress."
sure, engineers kept pointing out that the hard drive sizes were being advertised incorrectly.
Re: Good news! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 16:02 · Score: 1

It's possible for an investment to make money ethically, you know. Such as on the growth of companies through new developments and innovation. I hear it used to happen like 80 years ago.
Nowadays it's just slash 'n burn, pillage, and run off with the profits, leaving a charred husk behind.
Re:Good news! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 16:27 · Score: 0

I can't believe that so many tech companies stay in business for so long.
Good. It shouldn't be hard to compete against them then should it? Rolling grenades into stogy business models is what we techies do best. Maybe we should do more of that more often instead of complaining about the pink slips we just got handed.
Re:Good news! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 16:38 · Score: 0

So far all his economic solutions have been textbook socialism. Increased taxation. Protectionism etc. What's libertarian about it?
Re:Good news! by AtariEric · 2016-07-11 17:51 · Score: 1

Except for the millions of "us" who can't afford to retire - for whom investment means not being able to pay rent.

Next time, speak for yourself Mr. Tenth-Percenter.

--
Don't trust any concentration of power.
Re:Good news! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 18:44 · Score: 0

Ie: bums. Go back to Mexico or wherever. Oh wait you're BORN in the US and still are poor despite having better education and opportunities than 95% of the rest of humanity? Shame on you.
Re: Good news! by tigersha · 2016-07-11 19:02 · Score: 1

If you live is Germany that would be the wrong anser. Sarah Wageknecht is a classy sassy politician here. Looks like the Red woman in Game of Thrones. She Always wears red. Because she is the leftiest, loonient communist in the Bundestag

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The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
Re:Good news! by quax · 2016-07-11 19:09 · Score: 1

Been there. Actually tried to get fired from my six figure salary job as I am working on a start-up. But just being unpolitical was not enough to get fired :-(
Have enough assets to feed my family for two years, but being on the outside feels still very strange (just recently quit). I had been with the same company for almost 17 years, and pretty much my entire adult professional life.
Re: Good news! by vlad30 · 2016-07-11 19:15 · Score: 1

Looks like the Red woman in Game of Thrones.
With or without the necklace on ?

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Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
Re: Good news! by war4peace · 2016-07-11 20:07 · Score: 1

"Let me take off my necklace..."
"NOoOoOoOoO!"

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...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Re:Good news! by Jack_the_Tripper · 2016-07-11 20:15 · Score: 1

17 year old start-up?
Re:Good news! by BlackPignouf · 2016-07-11 20:51 · Score: 2

You should work on your reading skills ;)
Re:Good news! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 20:52 · Score: 1

So far all his economic solutions have been textbook socialism. Increased taxation. Protectionism etc. What's libertarian about it?
Nothing. In my country the conservatives and libertarian rage on about the welfare system and how benefits should be cut and then they turn around, bail out banks, bail out corporations, award largess to their buddies, increase farm subsidies and sell off state property to their friends at way below market prices. Welfare is socialism and socialism is bad unless it is corporate or banking welfare or largess and benefits that go to their support base. In reality the left and the right are pretty similar the first thing they do after coming into power is dole out benefits and warehouses upon warehouses worth of pork barrels to their supporters.
Re: Good news! by dunkelfalke · 2016-07-11 21:00 · Score: 1

Sahra. And she isn't the leftiest and most certainly not loony. Compare her to Inge Hoeger for example.

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"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Re:Good news! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 21:14 · Score: 0

So how did you get yourself fired then?
Re: Good news! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 21:36 · Score: 0

Höger? Leftiest? That's ironic.
Re: Good news! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 21:48 · Score: 1

80 years ago was prehistory, man! Move with the times! Embrace progress! Hey, we're going too slow! Go and shovel some other workers into the furnace!
Re:Good news! by ravenshrike · 2016-07-11 22:02 · Score: 1

Because keeping employees on and never cutting them always works out in the end, just look at the union bakers that made Twinkies. Oh wait, that company went bankrupt and the recipes were bought by a company that automated 80+% of the process.
Re: Good news! by pablo_max · 2016-07-11 22:48 · Score: 4, Interesting

That is because in Germany it is very expensive to fire your employees. In some cases, it is not possible at all.
Germany does a good job of protecting the workers and in many cases, protecting the companies from their own short shortsightedness.
At the end of the last recession, Germany was one of the few countries perfectly positioned to take advantage of the upturn in demand precisely because they were not allowed to kick out 50% of their work force. This meant that the trained workers were already in place to ramp up production.
While in other western countries, the most skilled workers, i.e. oldest and most expensive, were all on unemployment and could not get rehired since they wanted too much money.
I guess it is hippy thinking on my part. I believe that companies have a right to make money, sure. But, they should not have the right to do so at the expensive of society as a whole. Especially as society is what allows them to make money in the first place.
If everyone fucks everyone else all the time, then things wont tend to work out that well in the long run. IMHO anyhow.
Re:Good news! by AmiMoJo · 2016-07-11 23:47 · Score: 1

Maybe your employer should offer the bottom 15% some training to improve their skills, rather than just discard them? Because, you know, they are human beings.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Good news! by quax · 2016-07-11 23:54 · Score: 1

I didn't, had to quit.
Re:Good news! by PeeAitchPee · 2016-07-12 00:07 · Score: 1

You are assuming these people won't get better jobs. Every time I was fired / let go in tech, I always found a better gig. In this industry especially, such an event is likely to be a blessing in disguise for the worker. By knocking them out of their comfort zone they may very possibly end up in a situation they otherwise never would have.
Spinning rust had a great run . . . but we're already well into the era of storage on chips. A lot of these folks will upgrade their skill sets by making a move, even if it's not their choice to do so.
Re:Good news! by goose-incarnated · 2016-07-12 00:39 · Score: 1

Spinning rust had a great run . . . but we're already well into the era of storage on chips.

Wait, what? While SSD tech is getting better, the advantages are in niche applications compared to the application for spinning rust, mostly because spinning rust can easily keep up with 95% of what is required from storage (playing movies, etc).
Due to the (last I checked) 4x cost factor of SSD storage, I do not expect spinning rust to be toppled from the #1 spot anytime soon. Other than some fairly narrow use-cases, most people won't notice the difference in performance between platters and SSD, and even those that do notice may not want to pay 4x the price just to shave 30 seconds of bootup time.

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I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Re:Good news! by buddyglass · 2016-07-12 00:42 · Score: 1

"They" (meaning employees where I work) frequently "discard" my employer whenever a higher paying position comes along; there's no real "company loyalty" any more. (And I don't begrudge them that decision.) So why should my employer feel an obligation to not respond in kind? Besides: I'm not convinced training would help. The guy writing bloated, buggy, poorly performing code isn't going to magically starting writing clean, robust, succinct, performant code if we send him to a 3 week class.
Re:Good news! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 00:47 · Score: 0

The context appears to make it clear that it's good news about the gross margin and does not draw a connection to the firings. And 'laid off' or 'made redundant' is more likely.
Re:Good news! by AmiMoJo · 2016-07-12 01:08 · Score: 1

You tell him that he needs to write better code, and here are some resources and classes he could take, and try to improve in the next six months.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Good news! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 01:21 · Score: 0

It's not rust, you buffoon. Hasn't been in decades. Do you refer to SSDs as "sitting sand"?
Re:Good news! by JeffOwl · 2016-07-12 01:27 · Score: 1

Can you point me to an article that states it was engineers that were fired? Production operations I can understand given the decline in PC sales.
Re:Good news! by wyHunter · 2016-07-12 01:50 · Score: 1

I have no idea - my comment was on places other than Seagate where I've worked. But wouldn't Seagate mostly be engineering types?
Re:Good news! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 01:58 · Score: 0

Seagate has an employee stock purchase plan. So some of those laid off are going to be the very same investors who saw a stock increase. Some of those are going to be voting shares. It is kind of like firing the boss for not saying not to.
The most hilarious thing is that the filing says it is to increase the profit margin from 25.8% to 27% in the distant future. Because you cannot just raise the price, right? Gotta cut the cost then and employees are certainly a cost of doing business. Something something power of markets.
Re:Good news! by TooManyNames · 2016-07-12 02:01 · Score: 1

HDDs will stick around for a while -- even tape still exists for some circumstances -- but they really do not compare to SSDs in the long run, and even enterprise settings are moving massively toward SSDs. In those enterprise settings, the performance of SSDs over HDDs is just too compelling (including what it means for the bottom line), so pretty much every cloud-oriented company (speaking of both consumer-facing and internal storage) is making the switch. By the way, in that setting, you're talking about all sorts of requirements on performance and reliability, and SSDs as well as HDDs are priced far in excess of consumer-grade stuff of equivalent capacity (and are far more capable), so don't think that the prices you see at Wal Mart reflect the prices paid by storage-requiring industries.

--
"Is not a sentence" is not a sentence. Well damn.
Re: Good news! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 03:27 · Score: 0

You know it from reports. I know it from the inside. It's a medieval system of bondage and you get exactly what you need to buy some crap ALDI food, except if you are part of the manager class.
Try yourself and then come back and tell us about Germany.
Re:Good news! by buddyglass · 2016-07-12 04:36 · Score: 1

Honestly, I'd rather my employer not risk spending money to train him (not to mention having to keep him on for another six months) only to have him perform exactly the same at the end of that period. I'd rather "we" as a development organization start to have actual hiring standards, and apply those standards retroactively to current employees based on the body of work we've already seen from them.
Re:Good news! by JeffOwl · 2016-07-12 04:55 · Score: 1

I just don't know. I don't really know how their production is done. I assume it is at some level outsourced to China or some such indentured servant type market, but there would have to be significant oversight. In any case, a company with that many employees can't help but be impacted by the kind of sales slow downs hitting the market right now. It could be support, marketing, management, etc... I also believe that the transition to SSDs which can be built with much more automation, and requires much less in the way of electrical and mechanical engineering, is going to impact the general storage workforce.

fired? by ionymous · 2016-07-11 13:33 · Score: 1

let go.

Yeah right by TheRealMindChild · 2016-07-11 13:34 · Score: 1

"Specialist"

--

"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson

Re: Republicans raped me in Brazil by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 13:36 · Score: 0, Flamebait

They took you outside? Oh, you must think you're so special!1!!! But the ones they really like, they do 'em inside. I go there every week.

Re: Republicans raped me in Brazil by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 13:38 · Score: 0, Troll

Yep. Every time I go to Brazil I get raped by four guys right outside the airport and get Zika virus.

Frankly, I'm getting a little sick and tired of it.

FFS by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 13:42 · Score: 3, Informative

"Computer-memory specialist Seagate..."

Try again:

"Computer storage specialist Seagate..."

Memory â Storage.

Re:FFS by I'm+New+Around+Here · 2016-07-11 21:33 · Score: 2

"Computer-memory specialist Seagate..."
Try again:
"Computer storage specialist Seagate..."
Memory â Storage.
Pie â la Mode.

--
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Re:FFS by wildstoo · 2016-07-12 00:31 · Score: 1

"You're not wrong, Walter. You're just an Anonymous Coward."

The real question is... by __aaclcg7560 · 2016-07-11 13:42 · Score: 3, Interesting

Did the Seagate stock price go up because of the layoff or that the S&P 500 broke records today?

Re:The real question is... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 13:55 · Score: 1

It was almost certainly the Q4 projected revenue beat facilitated by the huge layoffs -- Seagate's trading range today was 23.94 - 24.33, but it was at 27.23 at the close of after hours trading.
Re:The real question is... by __aaclcg7560 · 2016-07-11 15:25 · Score: 1

The Q1 report for the following year will probably suck donkey balls.
Re:The real question is... by phantomfive · 2016-07-11 19:38 · Score: 1

The stock price jumped 13%.......that's far beyond what the S&P did.

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"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."

and we can replce people with H1B's as HR will by Joe_Dragon · 2016-07-11 13:42 · Score: 2

and we can replce people with H1B's as HR will say that people will not be happy to be rehired at a lower rate.

Re:and we can replce people with H1B's as HR will by HornWumpus · 2016-07-11 13:50 · Score: 1

You think Seagate still has American employees? Maybe 10.

--
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Re:and we can replce people with H1B's as HR will by WheezyJoe · 2016-07-11 14:49 · Score: 1

....better yet, outsource. If something goes wrong, the consultants are to blame (but you can take credit for successes). Salaried employees are a liability on the banksheets, them with their sick days and office space and benefits. Can't be hired and fired easily, dead-weights on shareholder value, and since the 80's came along, the shareholder is LORD you tiny little worker man.

--
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
Re:and we can replce people with H1B's as HR will by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 18:08 · Score: 0

They still have a large building in Fremont California. I drive by occasionally when I'm heading out of San Francisco.
Re:and we can replce people with H1B's as HR will by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 00:50 · Score: 0

in the US, Minneapolis MN, Longmont CO as well.
But there are large offshore development teams in Korea (the old samsung drive group) and Singapore.

Number Crunchers Fired Too?? by zenlessyank · 2016-07-11 13:49 · Score: 1

Because someone crunched numbers that weren't there. And then turned around and didn't crunch some numbers that were there.

Mama, Economy by rsilvergun · 2016-07-11 13:54 · Score: 1

And the stocks go up and the jobs disappear.

--
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/

Not Really up 12%, by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 13:58 · Score: 0

I'm after hours trading is worthless. Go look at the charts it's pretty much just noise.

"Fires"???? by mark-t · 2016-07-11 14:03 · Score: 1

Under most circumstances, such a termination would be grounds to not receive any employment insurance benefits, or at least delay them pending an investigation to see if there was any wrongdoing on the employee's part that deserved dismissal (in which case they are not eligible for benefits).

I was once fired for reasons that were not my fault and it delayed my benefits by almost a month. Sucked, royally.

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File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'

6500 new votes by Snufu · 2016-07-11 14:11 · Score: 4, Insightful

for your local nationalist party.

Re:6500 new votes by wyHunter · 2016-07-11 14:20 · Score: 0

Oh, they'll all be in the USA. And these people will keep voting D-D-D because after all, T-P-P is wonderful!
Re:6500 new votes by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 15:14 · Score: 0

Oh stuff it. Liberals have been trying to kill TPP for a while. Liberals vs. Conservatives, which side has huge rallies to try to stop shitty trade deals? Oh yeah, liberals....
Re:6500 new votes by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 15:27 · Score: 0

Um what? Pretty sure Obama is the one who signed TPP, and Trump is against it.
Re:6500 new votes by Hylandr · 2016-07-11 16:23 · Score: 1

The lines between liberal and conservative, democrat and republican have blurred significantly. It's all just a political circle-jerk now.

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~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Re:6500 new votes by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 19:32 · Score: 0

we all lost when bernie lost, even if you are hardcore right.

Seagate Hybrid Gaming Drives by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 14:17 · Score: 0

Seagate is on the right track, putting in 32GB Flash cache to their gaming drives...

An 8TB, 10 TB, 12 TB drive with 64GB Flash cache and 8GB DDR3 read/write cache would have their drives purring along very fast.

Build them with an M.2 connector and ribbon - and bypass the SATA III system to at least allow the basic OS boot up and typical programs run as fast as possible...
email, browser, Office, etc.

Huge Storage, Fast Booting, Fast OS - perfect for every occasion.

Sorry for all the unemployed people - that is so harsh, soo many families hurting without work.
But it is not all Seagate's fault. They are fighting against Samsung EVO SSDs and Samsung is very, very good and making flash storage.

Samsung uses RAPID in system RAM caching - Seagate could also license a drive accelerator software to pair with their drives,
like PrimoCache 3 level caching:
https://www.romexsoftware.com/en-us/primo-cache/

Samsung is great, and with the right blend of RAM/Flash/Platters and caching software - Seagate can try to match them.

Seagate could also consider buying one or more of the smaller SSD manufacturers and continue to blend in their huge storage platter technology with flash storage.

Re: Seagate Hybrid Gaming Drives by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 14:28 · Score: 0

Last I knew, they were in bed together. Has this changed?
Re:Seagate Hybrid Gaming Drives by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 14:39 · Score: 0

But are they as reliable/reputable, relatively-speaking, as back in circa 1990s?
Re:Seagate Hybrid Gaming Drives by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 14:58 · Score: 0

The flash cache has been an option for quite some time. It really only speeds up boot speed, it makes minimal difference in real world usage, and doesn't impact gamers (unless they need fast boot speed due to frequent reboots while overclocking).
Re:Seagate Hybrid Gaming Drives by Hylandr · 2016-07-11 16:24 · Score: 2

Their drives were shit in the 1990's and have only gotten worse. I wouldn't trust any seagate drive as a paperweight.

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~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.

The Donald's Hair by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 14:21 · Score: 0

I was visually raped by Donald Trump's combover!

Author is an ID10T, 2 very wrong facts by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 14:22 · Score: 1

#1: he used the term fired when he really should have said layed-off. Fired indicates terminated for cause.

#2: Computer-memory specialist Seagate, obviously this indicates he does not actually know the industry he is writing about and is just parroting back other information with no real knowledge of much of anything.

My rule is if I can find obvious really wrong things in the part I know about, no telling how many more errors are hiding in the details I don't know much about.

Re:Author is an ID10T, 2 very wrong facts by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 16:09 · Score: 0

#1: Cause was shareholders demanded more prawfit.
Captcha: disgrace

PutinHedge is not a reputable source by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 14:24 · Score: 0

PutinHedge is a loony echo chamber.

Fire 14% stock up 12 % by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 14:29 · Score: 0

Fire another 9988 %

"1/2 employees shot blindfolded, stock soars" by Tablizer · 2016-07-11 14:30 · Score: 0

...gotta love capitalism.

I know I know, some things are counter-intuitive, but some counter-intuitive things strike most human beings as really odd.

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Table-ized A.I.

Re:"1/2 employees shot blindfolded, stock soars" by speedplane · 2016-07-11 20:11 · Score: 1

...gotta love capitalism.
If there were a system in place to help retrain these workers, get them new jobs, and importantly, help them retain their dignity, then this wouldn't have to be such a sad day. Capitalism is probably necessary, but not sufficient for a well functioning society.

--
Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
Re:"1/2 employees shot blindfolded, stock soars" by bluefoxlucid · 2016-07-12 02:30 · Score: 1

The problem is jobs come from consumer buying power, which is increased by consumers having more left over after buying things. If, for example, half the people making food go away but half the food does *not* go away, two things happen: half the money you were spending on food can be spent elsewhere; and the amount of money someone needs to live in the same standard-of-living as the food workers (before they were unemployed) is decreased.
100% of the cost displaced by bumping those workers out of their jobs is enough to cover their wages, because that *is* their wages (including payroll taxes, benefits, and such). The story's bigger than that: when the market adjusts--which takes months or years, and involves things like inflation and universal competition--the theoretical settling on the same profit margin means there's actually more. If something costs $100 and has a 10% profit margin, that's a $110 of price; if you eliminate 50% of that cost and keep the same margin, that's $55. If you bumped out $50 worth of workers, you somehow reduced the end-target price by $55.
I should explain universal competition. Each consumer has a set amount of income as a TIME FUNCTION: you have so much income per year. There's a total amount of income every year, meaning paying some people more means paying other people less (as a proportion of the total income). All income represents all labor time and, ultimately, all productive output, so a proportion of income represents a concrete thing, and thus flatly more dollars doesn't create more buying power (more output per time does, and more laborers do). Put these together and you realize the money you spend on food can't be spent on Pokemon games, and thus Pokemon is in some way in competition with food.
So a number of things happens here. First, the costs go down, and workers end up unemployed. Prices can, but often don't, reflect this immediately; direct-competition on even terms (everyone having similar technology) tends to drive prices downward as businesses attempt to capture market share, while indirect-competition tends to just lag price inflation behind monetary inflation (i.e. the amount of money in total increases faster than the amount of productive output; the prices increase slightly slower than that). This, eventually, means the profit margins go back to where they were, and consumers have more money to spend.
With the prices lower, a consumer can buy into the same standard-of-living with lower wages. Because of this, that theoretical $55 freed up when eliminating workforce costs might not translate into new $50 jobs; their new wages might be slightly lower (wages not keeping up with inflation), while part of the productivity gains float upward (widening income gap). This makes progressive tax systems useful: as that income gap spreads, you can leave tax rates at the top income brackets alone, and reduce the tax rates at the bottom income brackets, thus improving the buying power of the consumer base (creating jobs). This has the great political advantage of not raising taxes (notably, this works well if you can attract rich people to tax shelter in your country).
The new jobs come from consumers spending that $55 on new goods, creating demand and a need for labor. If we assume the new jobs also drive a business at a 10% profit margin, $55 can only create $50 of jobs. Again, as above, the wage might be slightly less.
On a large scale, a slightly-lower wage slides between "improved standard of living by the productivity gain" and "no standard of living increase". In any data point between these, you *create* new jobs out of the proportion not lost to rich people getting richer. That is: there is now consumer buying power to support $50 of product costs; we only need to pay workers $48 for those new products for them to buy all the stuff they used to buy when we were paying them $50; that extra $2 can pile up to pay for slightly *more* jobs.
So yes, it sucks a little when you lose your job; and th

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Re:"1/2 employees shot blindfolded, stock soars" by speedplane · 2016-07-13 15:29 · Score: 1

The problem is jobs come from consumer buying power ... So yes, it sucks a little when you lose your job
That's a lot of written words, but what's your premise?

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Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
Re:"1/2 employees shot blindfolded, stock soars" by bluefoxlucid · 2016-07-14 02:20 · Score: 1

The premise was that jobs come from consumer buying power, not rich people sitting up on high throwing out wages to prop up an endless stream of failing businesses. The money floats to the top; it doesn't trickle down.
From that, you should recognize that there are a limited number of jobs at any given time. No amount of "retraining" will fix that; you're attempting a form of fairness in which we try to hurry up and fit the people who just lost their jobs into the now-available jobs (that only pop up when prices fall and consumers end up with more spending money) before someone who previously lost their job (or just graduated college) manages to steal that spot.
The rest was a discussion about how society's wealth grows by technical progress. I've been told this is Malthusian theory; I'm planning to read Malthus one day. Essentially, the reduction in costs means a reduction in cost-of-living (for a given standard-of-living), meaning there's a new set point of wages (N) that's *lower* than the prior set point of wages (P) such that any wage (w) where P >= w > N represents an increase in standard-of-living. In the real world, you must adjust those values for inflation (an increase in money greater than the increase in production). Thus you're able to hire more people, pay them less, and actually have them all living better-off.
In theory, this means you can raise the minimum wage more slowly than inflation, allowing more of the poorer people to have jobs while simultaneously increasing (and not decreasing) their standard-of-living more slowly than productivity gains. In practice, while that actually holds true, population expands, and continues to expand until it starts creating scarcity (that is, until 10% more population means >10% more labor needed to provide for them, thus the poor start getting poorer). A little of both actually happens, but it's far from the ideal; the optimal situation is also non-ideal.
Everyone wants to satisfy that little pain in their gut that makes them feel sorry for someone. There are millions of invisible someone-else's who we ignore in the process, because they haven't been named, we can't identify with them as anything more than an abstract concept, and so we don't honestly care. The result is we try to establish fairness by harming those someone-else's with impunity in order to stamp out our sad, sorry feelings, hurling unnamed children and hard-working family men into the street because they're not in the group of children and family men we've been made directly aware of.
In some tangential way, allowing the market to fix this particular problem--which only works because the turn-over of skilled workers and, especially, retirees and new college graduates is a hell of a lot bigger than the unemployed labor force--actually harms fewer people in total, because the cost that goes into retraining when you have other people ready to take up those new jobs first is removed from the economy's capability to support total jobs, meaning instead of some amount of food you're producing some amount of retraining, and somebody has to go hungry because they can't afford to eat. We're getting into complex interactions at this point--the kind of things you can identify as harmful (e.g. creating unnecessary things = waste production; training people for jobs we already have people trained for = expending labor to produce training which is not needed = waste), but don't trust anyone to give you a 1:1 graph of X causes Y because that's not happening.
The big, complex problems of the world aren't answered in a half a line of text.

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quality control by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 14:37 · Score: 0

Will this help with their shitty drive quality? If anything I think it will make the quality worse. Maybe the people left will start cutting corners and lots more drives will go down the tubes. Meh. This is still why I like WD for the win.

Re:quality control by hambone142 · 2016-07-11 15:57 · Score: 1

I've been buying WD drives since Seagate drive quality has gone to shit.
They need to fire their management first.
Re:quality control by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 21:40 · Score: 0

Why? At least as far as you're concerned they seem to be on track. :>

What an outrage! The greedy cocksuckers by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 14:38 · Score: 0

Is that what I'm supposed to post? The Slashdot party line? I wonder why they don't create a bot to post responses to these things.

This will become more frequent by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 15:16 · Score: 0

I expect many Silicon Valley firms will be laying off 10%+ of their workforce for this very reason. Mostly the ones that made an IPO too soon before the company was actually making money. Look at the balance sheets of the non-Fortune 500 companies in the area and you'll find many are slowly losing less money. 7 firms I examined will require at least 10 years to be profitable and they'll be bankrupt by then.

captcha: murmurs ... creepy.

The stock price would really soar, by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 15:28 · Score: 0

if they couls learn how to make a reliable HDD.

Re:The stock price would really soar, by Opportunist · 2016-07-12 00:30 · Score: 1

What do products have to do with stock prices? That's so last century.

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We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.

25% margin, revenue up, and still by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 15:28 · Score: 0

25% margin, revenue up, and still this. Sure they will be replaced by Infosys, TCS, Wipro etc. Or even accenture-branded India staff for the nationalists, or accenture-branded filipinos if for those who would like some asian eyecandy.

May be what this place needs a real workers movement. You know, like a real revolution.

1 + 1 = youre fired by n3r0.m4dski11z · 2016-07-11 15:51 · Score: 1

"Computer-memory specialist Seagate announced that its Q4 revenue would be $2.65 billion, beating expectations of $2.34 billion, and up from the $2.3 billion guidance given previously,"

Firings seem to have little to do with profits in corporate america. Profits up? Youre fired!, Profits down? Gotta downsize! Profits neutral? We need to trim the fat!
I'm sure they have their reasons in the long run, but let it not be said that corporations behave rationally. You can't really, when profits is the goal.

I would boycott them, but segate has such a bad reputation for longevity already, I stopped buying them years ago.

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Re:1 + 1 = youre fired by Opportunist · 2016-07-12 00:29 · Score: 1

What's odd is that they never notice where they can make the real cuts. Just look at the average CEO salary, if you get rid of that useless bozo, you can keep hundreds of people who're actually working!

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We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.

Given the quality of Seagate drives by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 16:37 · Score: 0

maybe they should be firing their engineers instead?

Stock prices go up, money saved! by AbRASiON · 2016-07-11 17:04 · Score: 4, Interesting

Less customers to buy stuff though, because more and more and more and more people are either jobless or have less disposable income due to this bullshit and it keeps going on and it's starting to get bad.

I'm convinced we're on the tipping point, real close to it. The division between the rich and the poor is about to be truly exposed soon.

Re:Stock prices go up, money saved! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 20:29 · Score: 0

You people are ridiculous. You have what unemployment levels in the USA - just 5%? So stop saying that more and more people are jobless!
Re:Stock prices go up, money saved! by Feral+Nerd · 2016-07-11 21:33 · Score: 4, Insightful

You people are ridiculous. You have what unemployment levels in the USA - just 5%? So stop saying that more and more people are jobless!
Unemployment statistics don't tell you everything. You can have 5% unemployment with 40% of the nation working jobs that pay so badly they can't hardly live off the salary and have to take extra jobs only to find that this still isn't enough. That's the resentment driving Brexit, that's the resentment driving every single Nationalist nut-bag party in Europe and that's what's driving Donald Trump.

Brexit for example has been sold as a fix-all solution to all the problems that ail people in the 'rust belt' of Britain. If we just limit or eliminate immigration, if we just leave the EU and make one sided trade agreements with China and Russia, If we just leverage our 'special relationship' with the USA (which, incidentally, most Americans are blissfully unaware of) to get a better trade agreement with the USA than the EU ever will, if we can just become an off shore tax haven for Europe... if, if, if... then everything will be OK and a golden flood of high paying jobs will flood the disenfranchised working poor in the UK. The thing I am afraid of is that even if the UK economy booms after Brexit, even if the economic growth in the UK explodes, that this will not benefit the people that voted for Brexit. Manufacturing jobs will not return, cracking down on immigrants will not happen and if it does it will not cause a sharp increase in wages for the working poor accompanied with a return of manufacturing jobs to the UK. Successive British governments run by political parties whose leadership is made up of wealthy elites will not tackle the root of the problem with the creation of well paying jobs, no more cutbacks in education, more money spent on education (which will have to continue for the next 20 years before it shows effect), and that there will be no effort to fix the National Health Service (despite what it said on that bloody bus), etc., etc... When the working poor in the UK find in a few years that they have yet again been stuck with a bucket full of shit they'll be even more angry except now the EU can't be blamed for it anymore.

The same essentially goes for Trump and the economically disenfranchised in the USA. If Trump actually becomes president and even if he gets reelected I seriously doubt that he will do anything for the urban and rural poor in the USA who live on a pittance pay working two or three jobs and that even if Trump tries to do something he'll meet with ferocious resistance from the wealthy and privileged classes. The net result is that all those angry three job working urban and rural poor who are voting for Trump now out of anger will find themselves, in a few years, if he gets elected, being shafted even worse by the likes of the Koch brothers than they are today and they'll be way more pissed off. All this while the US economy is booming, unemployment is low, growth is high and the purchasing power of their salary just shrunk again. Oh, and NO, I do not think Hilary Clinton will do anything to fix the problems that ail the USA. I also think that Bernie Sanders, if he had been elected, would have earnestly tried to fix these problems but that he would have been defeated by the same wealthy and privileged classes that will defeat Trump in the unlikely event that he tries to do anything to benefit his disenfranchised electoral base.
Re:Stock prices go up, money saved! by Opportunist · 2016-07-12 00:28 · Score: 1

Yes, we're really close to it. If you look over the shoulder, you can still see it.
We've long PASSED that tipping point. The economy IS exactly in the current slump it is because people cannot buy anything anymore. Our warehouses are full. We are stockpiling like crazy, but there isn't anyone left able to buy those things.
It's the same shit that happened in 1929, but apparently we're unwilling to learn from history.

--
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Re:Stock prices go up, money saved! by AbRASiON · 2016-07-12 00:42 · Score: 1

I'm desperately trying to let go of my materialism or at least reduce it. It's difficult but I'm getting there.
There's so many "bargains" so many 2 for 1s so many "must have new things" it's endless and maybe it's my imagination but since I've been an adult it's gotten worse, about 20 years, around the same length of time as the internet really.
A much bigger pool of "joneses" to compete with for a start, globalisation reducing the cost of producing goods (for other consequences) and of course the spreading of information and product ideas much faster.
The core essentials are going up (housing, utilitities, medicine, transport, decent quality healthy food) the cheap bullshit frivolous garbage is getting cheaper and it's all non recyclable shit, dug up from the ground that should save the middle man and go direct to the garbage dump.
We're fucking the planet for it too, we're super ultra combo fucked and there's no getting out of it. Within 30 years, things are going to be massively different.
Re:Stock prices go up, money saved! by dyslexicbunny · 2016-07-12 01:38 · Score: 1

Yea. It's like people have forgotten Fordism in the quest to maximize shareholder value. Hell, I have disposable income and I don't spend money on bullshit.
Re:Stock prices go up, money saved! by waveclaw · 2016-07-12 02:03 · Score: 1

If you read the filing the desktop market is tanking but the money is in storage for cloud providers. So these newly unemployed don't need to buy drives anymore just play Pokeymon Go! on their phones and keep uploading selfies on their data plans.

--

"You cannot have a General Will unless you have shared experiences. You cannot be fair to people you don't know."
Re:Stock prices go up, money saved! by bluefoxlucid · 2016-07-12 02:33 · Score: 1

If we blockade China to bring manufacture jobs back to America, we'll lose critical infrastructure jobs. Logistics, retail, shipping... all the $3.50/hr labor we use in China becomes $7.25/hr labor in America, and we can't buy as much stuff. Half of those support jobs go away, because they scale directly to number of units moved and sold. It'd be 15-40 million jobs lost if we completely eliminated outsourced manufacture.
People talk about getting all these new jobs, but they don't think about where consumers are going to get the new money to pay the new wages.

--
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Re:Stock prices go up, money saved! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 04:35 · Score: 1

The difference in the US is much closer to outright revolt (revolution?) than the UK due to not only what you have specified, but society issues with police brutality, ineffective congress, and believe it or not--gun control. There are tons of flash points that are waiting to happen--and our general populace is much, much better armed than our brethren across the pond.
I also find it interesting that Australia has similar problems with SE Asian immigrants and have heard claims of similar political issues. I have to wonder how much of this is due to coincidence vs. some leftover inherited societal item for all peoples descended from the British Empire? God know Ireland has been through a shit storm with The Troubles
Re:Stock prices go up, money saved! by hwstar · 2016-07-12 04:37 · Score: 1

I agree with your comments. The opulent minority needs to be controlled worldwide, they have too much power. In the US, it's almost like we need a new constitution to address this issue. There should be a mechanism in the constitution that starts limiting the protection of bill of rights for rich and privileged can do as they gain assets and become well-connected. I call this the "Reverse Animal Farm" constitution. This way there will be a burden associated with being too rich and powerful, and it will incent those that are to behave accordingly.
I know this sounds like we are not treating everyone equally, but I think it is the only way to get out of the current status quo.
Re:Stock prices go up, money saved! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 04:52 · Score: 0

Labor doesn't make up that big of a chunk of a product's cost, which is very well documented if you bother to look. The offshoring of US manufacturing has dropped the retail costs of products a little, but has mostly just increased their profit margins.
Re:Stock prices go up, money saved! by TheSync · 2016-07-12 05:28 · Score: 1

Unemployment statistics don't tell you everything. You can have 5% unemployment with 40% of the nation working jobs that pay so badly they can't hardly live off the salary and have to take extra jobs only to find that this still isn't enough.
US "Employed full time: Median usual weekly real earnings Wage and salary workers: 16 years and over" are at an all-time high.
Also US "Nonfarm Business Sector: Real Compensation Per Hour" is also at an all time high.
So in the US, unemployment rates are low by modern OECD and even historical US standards, and earnings are at all time highs. Even some of the poorest people in the US have access to the entire knowledge of the planet on Wikipedia on phones that are more powerful than supercomputers of 20 years ago.
Re:Stock prices go up, money saved! by Opportunist · 2016-07-12 08:15 · Score: 1

Keep consuming, you're one of the few that still drives the economy! Don't let go of materialism, keeping up with the Joneses is what keeps this husk of an economy propped up! What do you think is going to happen when the few that still CAN buy petty, useless crap suddenly stop doing so, too?

--
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Re:Stock prices go up, money saved! by TechnoJoe · 2016-07-13 06:51 · Score: 0

I would rather sink in my personal boat due to the choices I make, than be forced on the Titanic and sink due to other people's choices completely out of my control.

Re:serverwala by hyades1 · 2016-07-11 19:42 · Score: 1

Please try to be useful for once in your life and suck a bunch of cocks.

--
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.

I wish Seagate well... by hyades1 · 2016-07-11 20:02 · Score: 1

I use two computers regularly. I have two others that I employ occasionally, and am gradually being made the steward of quite a lot of others at work. I have another computer under construction. One of those boxes has a Seagate boot drive and a Seagate data drive. They have performed well.

I don't believe for one minute that Seagate's cuts will result in anything even close to the quality of those two drives I have not experienced the quality programs some have, and until this moment, I would have disputed them). So I have now taken Seagate off my list of potential hardware suppliers. Then can take a long, hard suck on my...whatever.

--
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.

Re:I wish Seagate well... by cdrudge · 2016-07-11 23:41 · Score: 1

So I have now taken Seagate off my list of potential hardware suppliers.
So who are you using then? Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Western Digital, Hitachi, Samsung...they've all had significant layoffs as part of cost cutting or restructuring. Your computers are going to suck if you just cross off names because they have layoffs.
Re:I wish Seagate well... by Rakarra · 2016-07-12 08:56 · Score: 1

So I have now taken Seagate off my list of potential hardware suppliers.
I've taken Seagate off my list of potential hardware suppliers because their hard drive quality has taken a real dip in recent years. I have a failing hard drive and while searching around for the model, I find that there's a class-action lawsuit against Seagate given the unreliability of the Seagate Barracuda 3TB model.
Re:I wish Seagate well... by hyades1 · 2016-07-12 17:00 · Score: 1

Thank you for that information. I guess maybe I've been a bit lucky.

--
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Re:I wish Seagate well... by hyades1 · 2016-07-12 17:10 · Score: 1

I'll simply do a little research and go with the company that has, in my opinion, done the least harm to First World work forces. There's not that much difference between drives in quality and price. Also, I got over that pernicious "everybody's some degree of evil so you might as well do nothing" argument years ago. On fait c'q'on peut.
And I don't play games on my computers, so I don't need bleeding-edge tech.

--
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Re:I wish Seagate well... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-15 22:36 · Score: 0

I've taken Seagate off my list of potential hardware suppliers because their hard drive quality has taken a real dip in recent years
I took Seagate off my list of potential hardware suppliers years ago, when NONE of the three tape backups of my system - all with brand new tapes, on a Seagate tape drive - were usable when the system hard drive died.
There was no indication of any problem writing the tapes, so it was a very unpleasant discovery to find that I didn't have a backup after all. Their tech support was useless. I lost months of work.
In all likelihood, some executive made a lot of money while making decisions that led to selling a poor quality system, and I got screwed. A lot of people who make it to executive positions seem to be sociopaths, and layoffs are simply another tool that type of person uses to get ahead.

Americans by argee · 2016-07-11 20:23 · Score: 1

That is 14% worldwide. I wonder how many of those jobs are in the USA?
Or am I a pessimist?

Re:serverwala by war4peace · 2016-07-11 20:35 · Score: 1

How do you think he got the position?

--
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)

Playing Devil's Advocate Here, But... by luis_a_espinal · 2016-07-11 21:33 · Score: 1

Seagate Fires 6,500, Or 14% of Workforce, Stock Soars

Of those laid off, how much of that was due to improved productivity?

What were the roles?

Were these engineers?

Or workers whose jobs could be automated?

Or how many of these were "dead weight" or in redundant functions?

Or where people blindly laid off due to getting paid more than a certain salary cap, regardless of function just to make the spreadsheets pretty? *** (I've seen this.)

Some layoffs are totally destructive. Others are completely justified. I've seen both types. The article doesn't tell me shit about it.

Re:Playing Devil's Advocate Here, But... by luis_a_espinal · 2016-07-11 21:35 · Score: 1

Replying to myself, I suggest people follow this: https://www.thelayoff.com/seag...
Re:Playing Devil's Advocate Here, But... by BlueKitties · 2016-07-12 02:04 · Score: 1

This, HARD.

--
"Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad." [Ecclesiastes 7:3]
Re:Playing Devil's Advocate Here, But... by CanadianMacFan · 2016-07-12 03:00 · Score: 1

If the company can manage without the people it's laying off then why were the people hired in the first place? Seems to me like the managers who hired the extra people should be fired.

Re:Anonymous bored me on Slashdot by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 22:37 · Score: 0

And this is a problem with slashdot: one liners are sometimes funny, but not when everyone through the door tries it, and not when it's a variant of the same one.

Just not funny. So if your first name is Seth, feel free to have a go. But everyone else: Try posting something insightful or interesting that helps the debate, or silently giggle to yourself at your own imaginary wittiness, because no one else will care.

As a Shareholder in the 1% by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-11 23:42 · Score: 0

As a shareholder in the 1%, I wholeheartedly approve of this move and hope they will fire even more people soon.

Re:As a Shareholder in the 1% by Opportunist · 2016-07-12 00:24 · Score: 1

I'd vote for CEO and board, what kind of money do you think this could save!

--
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.

Can we call it a bubble yet? by drinkypoo · 2016-07-12 00:10 · Score: 1

So, can we call it a bubble yet? Can we call it a recession yet? Can we call it a crisis yet? 1 in 6 children in the USA will go hungry tonight. Is that a sign of a healthy economy?

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"

Re:Can we call it a bubble yet? by Opportunist · 2016-07-12 00:24 · Score: 1

What does an economy have to do with kids, are they producing anything? Stupid labour laws...

--
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.

Just think what they could have done! by Opportunist · 2016-07-12 00:23 · Score: 1

They could have kicked out the C-Level suits, just imagine what this could have done to the stock!

--
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.

Re:serverwala by Opportunist · 2016-07-12 00:26 · Score: 1

You are aware that you are posting spam on a webpage where a sizable portion of the regulars do have the means to start a DDoS, yes?

Just asking.

--
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.

never understood by Tom · 2016-07-12 00:56 · Score: 1

Cutting employees is a sure sign of a company in trouble, so why does the stock go up? Even with the fixation on quarterly results it doesn't make much sense to me. Are these all investors hoping that they will find another idiot to offload the stock to before it crashes?

--
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org

Re:never understood by XxtraLarGe · 2016-07-12 02:37 · Score: 1

Cutting employees is a sure sign of a company in trouble, so why does the stock go up?
Cutting employees doesn't always mean a company is in trouble. Suppose they improved their production process so they are able to be 30% more efficient. Increases in efficiency often mean that fewer people are needed in the process.

Even with the fixation on quarterly results it doesn't make much sense to me. Are these all investors hoping that they will find another idiot to offload the stock to before it crashes?
Unless they're paying dividends, then yes.

--
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Re:never understood by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 02:43 · Score: 0

I guess there's two ways to look at it and come to this decision: mindless quarterly report financial calculations (profit will go up so the stock is worth more) or that the CEO recognizes that the company is in trouble and is doing something to turn it around (this is something, therefore it must be done). We'll see in a year if either are actually effective.
Re:never understood by Tom · 2016-07-13 18:14 · Score: 1

Cutting employees doesn't always mean a company is in trouble.
Of course it does. It means either you made terrible hiring choices for a long time in the past, and nobody noticed and stopped it, or your business went down and now you don't have work for people that you had work for before.
Either one means trouble.

Suppose they improved their production process so they are able to be 30% more efficient. Increases in efficiency often mean that fewer people are needed in the process.
You are right, I add a third one: You ran your company inefficiently for a very long time and nobody noticed.
Efficiency improvements in the order of 30% don't appear overnight. They happen slowly and over a long enough time that your workforce can be adapted.

--
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org

See this 20 year old Dilbert strip by DickBreath · 2016-07-12 01:40 · Score: 1

http://dilbert.com/strip/1996-...

This explains it perfectly.

--

I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.

Not so simple by dbIII · 2016-07-12 02:36 · Score: 1

Not so simple - sacking everyone working on a new product will improve productivity today if the metric is hours worked per product shipped. A lot of places have done that and had wonderful productivity figures right up to the day when a competitor with a better product comes in and takes their market.

regardless of function just to make the spreadsheets pretty

Even when it's regarding a function it can be the road to disaster if done badly. For example power plants have had to spend millions due to not making that "stitch in time to save nine". That recent chemistry grad is a payroll cost, got to cut those goes the mentality, but a capital cost for retubing comes out of a different money bucket. At least that mentality has given engineers lots of disaster porn to look at and give people examples of exactly what will happen if problem X is just ignored.

Vote Hillary by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 03:14 · Score: 0

She has vowed to continue transferring hard won White Man Technologies to the brownies. They will then explain how this is excellent from a Cultural Marxist Perspective.

Because you know, you are a white guy and you are supposed to give away everything until you are naked. Then the Maoists and their agent Hillary have won.

Understand ?

Only Banksters Matter by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 03:17 · Score: 0

And their Cultural Marxist propaganda will explain to you why. As long as you continue to be Naive White Man.

Grown some balls, vote for YOUR interests, or the banksters and their allies, the Marxists and the Mohammedists will strip you naked.

Yeah, Creative Destruction ! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 03:20 · Score: 0

(another Bankster Theory)

I only wonder why they scream when it comes to their own destruction.

Destruction is good, eh ?

Why "loyalty" ??? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 03:23 · Score: 0

Banksters can lie and cheat, reap bonuses in the millions per, but the engineers should "stay forever in one company" ??? Probably without a raise ?

We are not the smartest ones, but we are not totally stupid.

I guess the end will be very nasty and we will see a repeat of what happened once. Just that there will be no place to run to for the Master Cheaters.

Re:Why "loyalty" ??? by buddyglass · 2016-07-12 04:38 · Score: 1

Did you miss the part where I said I don't begrudge them their decision to leave for greener pastures? Employee loyalty to company is almost entirely dead. Company loyalty to employee is also dead. It's not fair to employers to expect them to be loyal to their employees when those same employees aren't loyal to their employer.

Re:serverwala by laurencetux · 2016-07-12 03:27 · Score: 1

well a few years back they had a member of the press try to hack DEFCON.

there are some things you don't do or YOU DIE.

Merkel Tried To Rape Me by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 03:36 · Score: 0

But after some inspection I declined the rape offer.

Pfffft by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 03:41 · Score: 0

Do you know who organized the "revolutions" ? The same people who run the banks. Das Kapital was written in LONDON.

Look who made the "revolutions". The same type of people who now run the snooping corporations, the banks, the movie studios and so on.

Heretic !!!! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 03:43 · Score: 0

Some of the best educated, most intelligent and most hard working people work in finance. How can you dare to challenge the Finance Religion ???

DARWIN by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 03:50 · Score: 0

This is all an intelligence test. You should question the propaganda - commercial, political, cultural. If you do not question, you genes will not make it.

And that includes questioning the Green Marxist Messages which you apparently have consumed. Remember - Marxism is an idea of the banksters.

Fast Food Drives... by evolutionary · 2016-07-12 05:34 · Score: 1

We created an economic system that rewards actions that create profit at the expense of quality of living. And the funny thing is...on average Seagate has worst MTBF (Mean time between failures). The cheapest price (and quality) drives found a way to be cheaper, and the stock market soars.Seagate, the McDonald's of Hard drives.

--
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein

Is This Good For The COMPANY? by CanEHdian · 2016-07-13 00:58 · Score: 1

Looks like the Bobs have been at it again.

The total pretax charges for the plan will be approximately $164 million in fiscal year 2017.

Great going for a company that is approaching 10 billion in revenue.

--
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.

And an amplification by maz2331 · 2016-07-13 03:30 · Score: 1

One point that should be amplified is that under the Soviet system, there was also a criminal offense called "Social Parasitism" whereby anyone without a job would be a considered to be a criminal, and likely sent to the Gulag. In practice, it was "the hammer" that the authorities used against dissidents - they would be fired from any job they had and blacklisted, then charged with "parasitism" for not working. Additionally, the court system was not independent, and all accused were automatically considered guilty. Indeed, "defense attorneys" often denounced their "clients" even more vigorously than the official prosecutors.

Typical Corporate B.S. by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-13 05:21 · Score: 0

They lay off thousands so their books look good and the fat-assed executives can claim their obscene bonuses...while the little people go without.

Or because of this: by DarthVain · 2016-07-13 06:14 · Score: 1

https://www.backblaze.com/blog...

I'd say the *real* question is will be how reliable will their HD be after they fire 14% of their workforce... of course no one will figure this out for sometime, and they will have made their money by then, at which point it will be some other CEO's problem likely.

Also they probably the only reason they can get away with this is that all the companies have been consolidated in to 4, and they all do the work pretty much in the same geographical location (as we saw as few years ago with that flood and the following profiteering).

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Seagate Fires 6,500, Or 14% of Workforce, Stock Soars (zerohedge.com)

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