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Cutting 'Old Heads' at IBM (propublica.org)
An anonymous reader shares a report: As the world's dominant technology firm, payrolls at International Business Machines swelled to nearly a quarter-million U.S. white-collar workers in the 1980s. Its profits helped underwrite a broad agenda of racial equality, equal pay for women and an unbeatable offer of great wages and something close to lifetime employment, all in return for unswerving loyalty. But when high tech suddenly started shifting and companies went global, IBM faced the changing landscape with a distinction most of its fiercest competitors didn't have: a large number of experienced and aging U.S. employees.
The company reacted with a strategy that, in the words of one confidential planning document, would "correct seniority mix." It slashed IBM's U.S. workforce by as much as three-quarters from its 1980s peak, replacing a substantial share with younger, less-experienced and lower-paid workers and sending many positions overseas. ProPublica estimates that in the past five years alone, IBM has eliminated more than 20,000 American employees ages 40 and over, about 60 percent of its estimated total U.S. job cuts during those years. In making these cuts, IBM has flouted or outflanked U.S. laws and regulations intended to protect later-career workers from age discrimination, according to a ProPublica review of internal company documents, legal filings and public records, as well as information provided via interviews and questionnaires filled out by more than 1,000 former IBM employees.
The company reacted with a strategy that, in the words of one confidential planning document, would "correct seniority mix." It slashed IBM's U.S. workforce by as much as three-quarters from its 1980s peak, replacing a substantial share with younger, less-experienced and lower-paid workers and sending many positions overseas. ProPublica estimates that in the past five years alone, IBM has eliminated more than 20,000 American employees ages 40 and over, about 60 percent of its estimated total U.S. job cuts during those years. In making these cuts, IBM has flouted or outflanked U.S. laws and regulations intended to protect later-career workers from age discrimination, according to a ProPublica review of internal company documents, legal filings and public records, as well as information provided via interviews and questionnaires filled out by more than 1,000 former IBM employees.
It's not that the 1% want to be richer.
It's that they want to wipe out the middle class.
You are an ignorant fool. Most of your so-called "1%" includes doctors, lawyers, business owners, inventors; in other words, folks who've made it. Through a combination of good fortune, timing and perseverance, these are people for whom the "American Dream" worked. Obviously, the ignorant, resentful masses are turning their greedy, resentful eye towards them.
But what you and others fail to realize (I have a theory that the 'zombie apocalypse' is a thing) is that not only are they not your enemy, they're not even rich. Most of these "One Percenters" are (repeat after me) the "Upper Middle Class." Yes, they can afford a Tesla - perhaps a couple - and they probably have a vacation home somewhere nice... perhaps even a couple. They can afford to send their kids to expensive schools, without having to take out loans. But are they truly rich? Most of them, no. Not even close (while "a million dollars" might sounds like an unobtainably astronomical sum to a lot of you, what you fail to realize is that, with inflation it's less than it's ever been.)
Your problem... are the elite. And they likely number less than 0.001% of the worldwide population.
So get a clue.