Well, we're going in circles here. I *do* think companies should have *some* loyalty to their employees, I don't think they should be *compelled* to act that way, and I think the difference is what we're really arguing about. Also, I don't think that's an absolute: I have no loyalty to the people who built my house, they have no continuing rights to it. Those who own companies have substantial rights over the culture of those companies - not absolute, but certainly the right to hire and fire who they like (and to face the consequences of that choice) when that's driven by legitimate business interest.
Some loyalty? Like a mild pregnancy? And I never said that companies should be (legally) compelled to act that way - they should be compelled by their leadership and internal standards to act that way, since it is in the best interests of the company. However, thanks to constant repetition, they have convinced the younger generation that corporations have no obligations other than generating money. Your house analogy lacks a foundation; you don't need a constant crew of builders to keep it standing. A corporation does, and the most useful crew is the one that built it. It is not the people who "own" the companies that are doing the firing - it is top management. Since when is it a "legitimate business interest" to use outsourcing to bolster the CEO's bonus?
All in your opinion. Perhaps IBM did right by their stockholders, got rid of employees that weren't doing anything unique, and made a good decisionthat helped the company. The thing is: it's not your call. It's the call of those who own the company, made by the management they designated.
My opinion? You were the one talking about defunct companies in old portfolios. Management is not chosen by the stockholders. It is usually chosen by the board of directors, which is generally composed of CEOs of other companies, which is the only reason such morons can get multi-million dollar "compensation" while the "owners" and employees get screwed.
It's not like IBM killed these people and ate their children. Jobs were lost in one place and created in another. The folks in India will have a huge change in standard of living, bringing several families out of abject poverty for each job. The folks losing jobs in Europe will fall back on the world's best social programs (unsustainably good, but that's a different thread). The change means a substantial net reduction in the world's poverty. That's good, right?
Ah, yes, the matter-of-degree argument. The employees weren't shot, they'll just starve to death normally. Raising poverty in one part of the world while reducing it another does not result in a net reduction in poverty.
All of my ire in this situation is directed at the universities. To expect the companies to be altruistic is just silly. The universities are supposed to be the smart ones here - if they aren't, why the Hell do we give them all these tax dollars? If the universities are so easily fooled, they're useless in the first place.
You have got to be doing this just to push my buttons. Since when does honesty equal altruism? Do you really believe that corporations should lie to the educators of this country about what skills are needed in the workforce? That is insane.
I should be worried about that? I can't possibly grow my own food! I lack both the knowledge and the land. I couldn't provide my own safe drinking water and would be dead in a few weeks, one way or another, without the community I'm dependent on for basic services. Dependence on your neighbors tends to work out well in the long run, as long as you're willing to contribute in return (which is the next point).
I hate to break this to you, but our neighbors aren't "willing to contribute in return". China is currently taking us to the cleaners with their pegged currency and trade barriers. They've also just renewed an old alliance with Russia and warned the US to watch it. Wha
The CEO doesn't clean the toilets, so why should the toilet cleaner?
Because one of them will happily do repulsive things that would disgust most people, and the other one is an honest janitor working for a living? (Just a thought provoked by the question.)
But how do you measure productivity? It's not like you can do a factory style "number of widgets produced" measurement.
Well, in our department, managers use the squeaky wheel method. If you're incompetent and constantly complain about how hard your job is and how much work you have, then you must be productive. If you just get the job done without complaining, then you aren't working hard enough. Awards are given out accordingly - the worst performers get the most accolades. Then they get promoted to management, so it's a vicious circle. You have underachievers who actually believe they know what they're doing in charge of the people who have to mitigate their bad decisions.
Working in the areas I have so long (systems and networks), I find it really odd, how companies are running around yelling "Resilience, reliability.. We need everything able to withstand emergencies", and buy two of every server, RAID the disks, redundant routing, offsite backups..
Yet they have their tech team cut to the bone, with highly compartmentalised skills.
And in software, management is running around yelling "reusability" like some mantra. This is of course just a keyword for "fewer programmers", but the managers are cluless enough to think that data conversion code can magically be used to run tape drives if it's written with "reusability" in mind. Like most problems, it boils down to managers being promoted to their level of incompetence. Seriously, being in a meeting where management is detailing their "vision" is enough to make me wonder what kind of hallucinogenics they're using.
Is IBM a nice company? . . . That IBM was over in the 80s (at least here).
Wrong again. IBM didn't start doing layoffs until Gerstner, which begs the point: why did IBM go from being a "good" company to a "not nice" company? It is because the company's leadership forgot about morals and ethics in the pursuit of personal wealth (greed)?
On the more intersting question of whether it's evil for a modern company - with no real loyalty to or from employees - to shift jobs to where they're cheaper: I just don't see the problem.
No kidding? That's what started this argument. You think companies in this brave new world should have no loyalty to the people who built them. You see the non-executive employees as disposable widgets. I see those employees as repositories of institutional memory, knowledge, and experience, who are valuable to the company.
More and more companies are getting burned by pointless offshoring, with projects costing more than they would have to keep at home in the final analysis. It looks to me like the peak has passed (thought it will of course never be like it was in the dot-com days, when reality could be ignored). I have an old stock portfolio that proves that companies that don't know what they're doing eventually disappear, and take their fads with them.
So the employees the company most needs have lost their livelihoods, the shareholders have been burned, but it's okay because top management made millions by making bad decisions that hurt the company?
As far as Universities go, where's your ire for them? Sure companies act in their own self interest, as ever, but you'd hope the nation's scholars would know better (yes, that's a joke).
Sorry, I don't find that funny. My ire is not with the universities but for the industry representatives who claim to want certain graduates but are only lying to promote various legislation. These are the same people who are claiming that our universities don't produce enough IT graduates. Are you seriously claiming that higher education should ignore the needs of industry and that industry liars are behaving properly?
As far as my optimism being reduced to cynicism - you're supposed to grow out of cynicism, you know?
Then you have a lot of growing to do. Your view that companies should pursue money in lieu of all else has a hard core of cynicism. Personally, in light of our current Corpocracy and their proclamation of amorality, I think cynicism is a rite of passage.
This bit is important, because technological progress is at the heart of IT offshoring. Many many kinds of jobs have gone away in the past 150 years never to return, and yet it hasn't been a downward spiral of employment for 150 years! Heck, real unemployment now is better than the worst times of the 80s, or of the 70s. There's always some new kind of work being invented, even if it's not obvious at first what it is.
We have also lost our independence in the industries we have exported. We can no longer produce our own textiles, garments, steel, machined goods, consumer electronics, and soon - IT workers. I suggest you look at the numbers for real income over the last decade. In every previous jobs exodus, we were told to move on to (whatever) new thing there was. You still have not answered the question: What comes after knowledge work? Don't tell me that something will come up, because before there was already an upward path. What can be abstracted after knowledge? You didn't anwser the question - you fail it.
With all this, why am I not worried? Because this happens to every industry, eventually, and yet the economy goes on. You just can't overlook the huge benefit of increased effeciency, not just to the stockholder, but to the consumer.
I feel like I'm in a channelled discussion with Neville Chamberlain. What "efficiency", since you already mentioned companies getting burned? The tiny benefit to the average stock
You know, one can be insulting yet still be polite. The key is indirectness. It makes a huge difference to the opinions of bystanders as to who the asshole is. There's really no excuse for being impolite, even though it's become bascially a sport online.
Being insulting is impolite, no matter how it's done, and one of knows how to use dirty words in public. Your apology is accepted.
IBM didn't offer a lifetime contract to its employees, and implied promises are worth the paper they're printed on.
IBM did make verbal contracts. It was part of the "IBM culture" and widely publicized as a recruiting incentive (otherwise I'd never have known about it). Any ethical company would live up to the terms of any contract, written or verbal. Anything less is unethical. If I give you my word on something, it's my bond. After reading your arguments I wouldn't trust you as far as I could throw you.
Defined benefit plans (like Social Security) are just stupid, because you can't seriously depend on the money being there for you.
I believe you missed the point. The company gets certain tax considerations for their pension plan, not to mention that it is a benefit spelled out in the employment contract. There is supposed to be funding for these plans because the alternative is the federal (partial) guarantee. UA did not fund the plan despite claiming that it had, it declared bankruptcy, dumped the pension on the taxpayers, and the government agreed. If you can't see the problem, I'll explain it in fine detail.
You can't paint IBM with the UA brush, however - UA doesn't operate in any sort of free market, and is no better or worse morally than the unions it fights with (at least, according to my brother, who is a pilot).
Again, what country do you live in? There is no "free market" in the US. UA had written contracts with employees for 40 years, which it didn't keep. Given your metrics, I would think that would make UA more unethical than IBM, but, AFAIAC, they are both unethical since I consider a promise to be the same as a contract.
The feedback mechanism worked for Chrysler eventually, as the people who could[n't] run a company lost control of that company.
Lost control? I'd laugh if it weren't so sad. The taxpayers (including Chrysler employees) paid billions so that the people who couldn't run Chrysler, especially Iococca, were highly rewarded. The net effect was to use US taxpayer money to transfer the company and its assets to (a foreign owner) Daimler. With feedback like that, we should be out of business in no time.
But it's the breaking of an *explicit* promise that's would make them evil, not the general principle of moving jobs to lower cost of production.
You and IBM lost this argument some years ago. They were pilloried in the press for firing a large number of employees who were very close to retirement. They lost their "goodwill", and their image was forever tarnished. I suggest you look closely at any Slashdot thread where IBM is getting praised as an OS saviour. IBM has lots of baggage - well earned and emotional.
As a kid: did you know that if you live in a trailer where it snows, it's critical that you shovel snow off the roof if it's really coming down, because the flat roof will eventually collapse under the weight?
No, I didn't know that as a kid. We lived in a rented room, so the owners of the house had to worry about shoveling snow, although my vague memories of them indicate they were nice people. Until my mother got married and we "moved up", I didn't really have any clothes suitable for dealing with snow and was encouraged to stay out of it. Now, I get plenty of snow to play in every winter, and I wish there was someone else to do the shoveling.
Well, no one can predict the future, but based on history I'm optimistic. History is chock full of people with doom-and-gloom scenarios, but the advance of technology
Your arguments would be more convincing with less emotional baggage and personal attacks, however.
The emotional baggage is actually expensive luggage purchased with a lifetime's hard work. When one offers airy platitudes and infers the respondent is an idiot, one should expect the same in return.
Compensation: sure, employees are what makes a company successful, but that's what you get paid for! If you want compensation in the form of lifetime employment, try to negotiate that into your contract.
As far as I'm concerned this argument doesn't have much to do with compensation; it's about contracts and ethics. IBM made implied, if not written, contracts with employees about length of service, which IBM has reneged on by terminating the employees and shipping their jobs to another country. United Airlines has reneged on promises made to thousands of workers and the government for forty years by not funding their pension plan and dropping it in the taxpayers' lap. It's quite apparent that contracts with American companies mean nothing for the employees.
That's the secret that makes capitalism work!
What country do you live in? In the US, capitalism doesn't work because it's not been tried (at least in the past 200 years). What we have is a Corpocracy, which is a bastardized combination of plutocracy and oligarchy.
You can't just tell other people how to run their companies: liberty applies to owners as well as workers (plus, people are wrong so often, you *need* a feedback mechanism in the control of capital).
That feedback mechanism is long broken now that corporations can be assured of bailouts using taxpayer money (Chrysler, the airlines, etc.), the ability to drop their obligations like pensions, and the right to disolve their debts through bankruptcy, while individuals are denied those rights.
It's the difference between "can save" and "does save". I should be able to retire comfortably (not rich, but comforable) after 25 or so years of professional work. This is because, growing up quite poor, I learned the value of savings. If you spend all your money on toys and keeping up appearances, of course you'll be dependent on Social Security! 40 years of compound interest is a wonderful thing, however, and you don't really have to make much money to retire with a million or so (in today's dollars), especially with the tax-free investment vehicles available today.
I wonder if you really know what being "poor" really is, but if you do, then we have one thing in common. I suggest you rethink your expenses 25 years from now. Look at health insurance premiums today for senior citizens and multiply that by 10 at the current rate of increase. A nursing home in a less expensive part of the country runs over a hundred dollars per day. 25 years? Multiply that by four or five. So a million dollars might get you five years of managed care before they turn you into Soylent Green. You might want to consider what happened to one retired person I know who recently had her life savings reduced by 50% during the recent stock market "correction", even though it was supposedly diversified by a reputable investment company. Yes, I know you'll say she was stupid - go ahead.
My point was: *all* you have to do these days to join the "wealthy elite" is to be financially successful. It used to be *much* harder. Heck, you don't even have to kill anyone these days!
In order to be financially successful, one needs a job or to be born wealthy. It doesn't help when productive workers have their jobs sent to another country in order to boost Carly Fiorina's bye-bye gift of $40 million for ruining the company. Thank heaven that Paris Hilton doesn't have to worry about her job being outsourced. It has been on hold all this time, just waiting for her to realize her potential and accept her place in the company.
Getting a job in the field you love can be hard, as you've decided up front not to optim
I love how ACs are brave enough to post nonsense as fact. Ethics are as subjective to culture as morals (since they're basically the same thing). In some cultures, "greasing palms" is accepted ethically and morally (just helping a guy out), while in others, it would lead to a jail sentence. In some places, selling liquor is completely ethical and moral. Ever hear of the local restauranteur getting kicked out of his church or the Jaycees? In other places, selling liquor will get you the death penalty.
The company should provide you with charity in the form of paying you more than the job's worth on the market, just because you used to work for market rates once? That's a pretty stupid way to do charity. I'm all in favor of charity, but don't confuse receiving charity with earning your way.
So you believe that successful companies somehow spring full-blown from a shareholder's portfolio? It takes dedicated employees to build a successful company. With an attitude like yours, I can see how a company would readily view you as disposable, but valuable employees contain the institutional memory and experience that well-run companies need. It's even more unfortunate that a lot of easily led young people have accepted the idea that companies owe nothing to the people who built them. We can see the result as companies race to dump pension plans, which is tantamount to lying to employees and the government for decades.
You mean *until* you have enough stock to live off of dividends, it won't replace your job. Anyone working professionally makes enough to retire into this circumstance
Excuse me. Did you say "retire"? That would assume one works until retirement and that requires a job. Anyway your statement is bullshit for the vast majority, even professionals. Even those with stocks and pensions are typically dependent on Social Security to stay alive after retirement. If you doubt that, I suggest you go hang out with some retired folks for a while.
This isn't the middle ages. You can join the "wealthy elite" with the work of less than one lifetime, if that's what's important to you. You don't have to be born into the elite, fight a war for the king, then marry your children off to maximum personal advantage, all for a small chance of improving your lot - you just have to be willing to save
That's a load of bafflegas, and what does it have to do with some corporate raider coming in and sending your job to another country to bolster his bonus? It's tough to save when your source of income is exported. It's tough to get another job in an industry like IT where age discrimination is rampant and unemployment is high.
Or you can spend your money on toys instead of wealth and forever be a wage slave, whatever works for you.
Or you can spend your money on family, children, their education - unimportant things like that. What's it like to be completely self-centered? Do you have any real experience? I'm finding it hard to believe that anyone could really believe fantasies like yours or completely dismiss the largest part of the middle class.
I can see your point(s), but our current problem (in the US) is corporations writing the laws for legislators. Look at the laughable "Can Spam" act. Thirty or forty years ago, companies were usually considered good citizens. They hired local people, gave scholarships to local kids, and contributed to local charities instead of political campaigns and PACs. It wasn't an act, although it wasn't ignored by the PR people - it was expected behavior. It only made sense since the companies were the beneficiaries of local infrastructure while often paying reduced (or no) local taxes. Now, large companies are often no more than leeches. If the public were to view companies the same way we did decades ago, we wouldn't need hundreds of new laws to enforce ethical behavior.
As regards the specific case here, the anger shouldn't be directed at IBM who ultimately have all the motivational complexity of a bacteria (1. sell stuff 2. profit) but rather the government for allowing them to get away with it.
What a dilemma. I certainly can't defend the government for allowing corporations to write the laws, but the ultimate responsibility still falls on those corporations. The whole "amoral corporation" premise is nothing more than a smoke screen to deflect criticism of behavior that is bad for the employees, the country, and in the long run the company. The oft cited claim that companies have a duty to maximize return for shareholders is a fallacy with a huge hole in it: maximize during what time period? What is great for the short-term trader is not good for the long-term stockholder. In that kind of scheme, the last stockholders always get screwed. The real laws I've seen governing the duties of corporate officers indicate they have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of the company. And the original definition of company, as in a business, included the employees. IBM's views about employees and jobs were far different before Gerstner's reign. Likewise, HP's views were far different before Fiorina. Like a fish, a company rots from the head down.
The alternative is the continued bastard behaviour of these organisations, lying adverts informing me MS really cares about me(!) and ever more indignant discussion of what they "should" do but never will until they are made to.
Heh. According to the ads, we inspire them to do what they do. It must be our fault.:)
Well what the hell else is a Maxtor good for? You wouldn't put data on it, would you?
OMG, that's what's in my newest computer. That might explain why you only need to undo one thumbscrew and lift a plastic latch to pop out the hard drive. I fear I'm screwed.
Well OK, although I doubt you've actually been around since before the South Sea Company crashed which is really the background to the whole concept behind modern business practices:)
No, I'm not quite that old, but I'll never see the short side of a half-century again, and I've witnessed the perversion of normal corporations into entities with the rights of individual citizens with none of the consequences. You can't execute a corporation or even put it in jail and stop it from going about its business for a few years. I'm old enough to remember when the CEO of Westinghouse made six times the wage of the average worker in the company.
The dividing line here is between morality and legality. I'm not well up on the Enron thing but if something is illegal or unethical (grey area but lets says we talking about an agreed code of practice) then of course a corporation shouldn't do it, but lets not confuse laws with morals.
Yes, let's do mix laws and morals, since the former is the codification of the latter. There was no specific law that prohibited the circular routing of power delivery contracts and the resultant price increases that Enron and its stooges pulled off. Their unbelievable gall and gloating at circumventing ethics, screwing little old ladies, and the spirit of the law (morals) brought them down. The actual law used to convict the people involved, still not the company, was about collusion and price fixing IIRC, although the cause was the company's bad behavior. This was a perfect example of corporate piracy where the players thought they had nothing to fear. I guess you think they should have walked free even though what they were doing was highly immoral.
The corporation is an entity without basic feelings; it feels no shame, no remorse, no guilt and legally bound not exhibit any vestiges of mercy, compassion or generosity. Anything that suggests or mimics such traits is at best marketing, at heart there is a howling void.
The corporation in the originally intended sense espouses the ideas and (yes) morals of its management, directors, shareholders and hopefully the workers. You might want to look at Hershey's history for a clue (and also the archaic meanings of "company").
I think of this a lot whilst reading Slashdot because the average poster is both a feverent capitalist but also a hater of Microsoft who seems to attribute certain sly traits to MS. There is also a great deal of whining about outsourcing. Why do these things even invite comment?
In case you weren't aware, Microsoft was convicted of violating the rules that govern our supposedly capitalist behavior. Despite that, MS wasn't even barred from taking federal government contracts thanks to an executive order, i.e., the President said MS can do whatever it wants to. The "whining" about outsourcing is in response to CEOs shipping jobs away wholesale in order to increase their bonuses. In a few years, they will be moving the jobs back onshore because of all the problems incurred from offshoring. The CEO bonuses will increase again, but it won't compensate the workers who have been unemployed for years. Management has certain responsibilities to act ethically whether you want to admit it or not. I hope there really is a hell so that CEOs like Carly Fiorina can have eternity to contemplate the tradeoff between multi-million-dollar lifestyles and ruining the lives of thousands of truly productive people.
However, I'm not an apologist for big business
Yes, you are. Anyone who buys into this new idea of amoral corporations is just another tool of the new Corpocracy. Although I don't have much in common with the people behind Ben & Jerry's, I respect them for being an old-style corporation (even though the media tries to portray them as something new).
I'm pretty sure IMB was a huge company before any of the people being laid off were born. Perhaps your argument makes sense in some cases, but not in this one. Did IBM every promise lifetime employment? If they did, that was clearly wrong.
Well, IBM wasn't "huge" until the 60's, so you're wrong. Before Gerstner took over, IBM employees were considered "lifers". IBM did not lay off people because of work fluctuations before Gerstner, and yes, the policy was stated and well-known. Until very recently, most Japanese companies followed the same policy. Who are you to say it is wrong for a company to respect the contributions of the people who built the company? What kind of nonsense is that?
If you see that stockholders get a better deal than employees, become a stockholder.
You appear to be clueless. Most of us who work for large companies are stockholders. Unless you have enough money to live off dividends, that won't replace your job. Do you run any of this ideal capitalist fantasy through a reality filter before you post it?
People convince themselves they're not in the class of people who benefit from investment, and screw themselves to no end.
The last figures I saw stated that half of the people in the country were stockholders, typically through 401-Ks and IRAs. They still have to work for a living, which means they need a job. Try selling your hogwash to the old Enron employees, who were major stockholders thanks to company policy.
I blame this rare planetary alignment for my suddenly hirsute visage and the complaints my neighbors filed about me howling out on the deck last night. I suppose it could have been the pitcher of martinis and that I didn't shave this morning . . . nah, it's gotta be the planets.
Theres a book out recently called "The Corporation". I suggest you read it.
I don't need to read it. I've been around for awhile, and I've watched the the transition of American corporations from ethical (which is really what we are talking about when we say moral companies) good citizens to entities with more rights than individuals and none of the responsibilities. It is a sad state of affairs.
Ford had some moral theories about business and thought he should pay his people more and charge customers less. The Dodges (then shareholders) saw the issue somewhat differently. They won. And so was the modern corporation defined.
It's a bit more complicated than that. Ford was refusing to continue working, and the Dodge boys made him out to be a key asset. Truly, it was a dark day for freedom, ethics, and American business. They were just after a buyout, and they used the courts to get it.
For this reason even Noam Chomsky is on the record as saying that for corporations to take a moral action is in itself immoral.
So if an Enron executive had been opposed to the price-kiting scheme in California because it was dishonest and just plain morally wrong and notified the authorities, that would have been immoral? Surely, you jest. I think you and Chomsky are making distinctions between morality and ethics that don't exist. Perhaps you're talking about religious views, which is something else completely. If you don't believe companies need to make ethical/moral decisions, I suggest you look at the recent fines on companies imposed by the FCC.
See, the board's duty is to look after someone else's money, not express their moral and ethical personalities. That they can do on their own time and with their own money, not someone else's. Thats how it works.
No, that's what a lot of lawyers have spent a lot of time trying to make you and everyone else believe in order to get corporate crooks off the hook. Corporations are not allowed to operate outside legal or ethical boundaries in order to provide more return for investors, even though a lot of lawyers keep claiming so. Corporate officers are still bound by laws and ethical standards that are nothing more than the codified morals of our nation. Some of those executives (too damned few) are going to jail while claiming they did nothing wrong and were only helping the investors. People who buy into the corporate amorality line are sheep who are enabling the current crop of corporate robber barons and related crooks.
Those 16000 jobs still exist, they'll just be held by different people. Presumably those in India need to feed their families as much as those in the EU - seems morally neutral to me.
The problem is that the 16000 workers (wherever) helped build the company to what it is. A "company" used to encompass the workers who built the company as well as the investors and executives. In this brave new world, it seems the "company" only includes the executives and investors, while the workers who built the business and were promised things like pensions for decades of work are now expendable widgets. The executives get bonuses. The current employees lose their pensions, jobs, and otherwise get screwed. Does it still seem "morally neutral"?
Companies are in business for one thing only: To yield the highest amount of profit to its investors.
Companies are in business to fulfill their articles of incorporation and mission statements. I have yet to see one that says anything about "highest amount of profit to its investors". That's nonsense on it's face. "Highest" over what time period? Short-term or long-term? High short-term profits can (and will) screw the long-term investors.
That is the _only_ thing companies do and should do. People who think companies have a moral duty to anything are misguided.
People who don't think companies have a moral duty have been brainwashed by those very same companies. This amoral corporation hogwash is a recent, self-serving invention by those companies who do things like changing their names from WorldCom to MCI to try to escape their immorality.
This is called capitalism. Deal with it.
It's called corporate greed from the highest levels to enhance the earnings of the executive class. 40 million to get rid of Carly after she gutted HP. Not to mention the millions HP paid for worthless Lucent options after she finished screwing Lucent and moved to HP.
And if the road to the highest return on investor investment leads through paying management insane amounts, so be it.
See above. It doesn't. The current investment scenario is a way to redirect wealth from investors to a select group of clueless MBAs with the correct family, and corporate, ties. The current makeup of corporate boards guarantees it. There is no such thing as a CEO who is worth 1000 employees except in the minds of the easily distracted. Unfortunately, when the current CEO capitalist god is fired, those same people will be worshipping the next CEO as a saviour. Welcome to Capitalism as a religion where corporations can do no wrong. (All bow to the Holy Board of Directors and our glorious CEO.)
111 times? That's less posts than I've made to slashdot! What do such absurd comparisons prove?
How many other reusable space transports have a comparable record? How many times have you done something as easy and simple as flying on an international aircraft? It seems the only comparisions you don't consider absurd are the ones you make.
Right, so just ignore the bit in the previous post where I explicitly compared the Shuttle's costs to other heavy lift systems. I'm sure to let that slip by.
And let's ignore the bit where you admitted it would likely take several missions/launches to do the job of one shuttle mission. This is getting old and repetitive.
Do you realise that Saturn V had already been developed? That the factories and infrastructure were already in place? Anyway, the development cost of the Shuttle was small compared to the operating cost (less than a tenth). Spend a bit more up front to get a more efficient system and you'll save money in the longer term.
No kidding about the Saturn? Really????!!!!11 Do you think there weren't misgivings and doubts? Funding is limited, even for NASA. Again, where is your alternative to the shuttle that fits into the entire design with a space station that was on the table at the time? It's good to see that you realize the cost of running two programs (including keeping the Saturn alive) would be far greater than developing two programs, even if you didn't take it to the conclusion. Welcome to the world of budget constraints instead of ivory towers.
So you better hope that NASA has more imagination than you do when it comes to overcoming these oh-so-insurmountable obstacles you see. (I could turn this around and ask if the Shuttle has been such an unqualified success as you seem to think, why is NASA ditching the whole concept for something completely different, instead of going for an improved Shuttle design? Might it be that... gasp... Shuttle isn't as perfect as you think?)
I never said it was an "unqualified" success, nor that the objectives couldn't be completed in another way, and you probably are already aware of that if your reading comprehension is as great as you think. Once again, I consider it a successful experiment (I know that just irritates you no end, so I had to repeat it). I think I said before that the successor to the shuttle would be an experimental craft. In the normal succession of things, we learn from our minor successes and build on them. I realize that's not good enough for omniscient types like you who could dictate the course of space exploration full blown from your brow. Alas, the rest of us are mere mortals; mea culpa.
Ah, so we're resorting to puerile national slurs, are we now? How delightful. By the way, you're wrong yet again - I'm Australian. (The.au in my email and URL is a bit of a giveaway.)
I didn't realize it was a slur to be called a Brit, my apologies - I really haven't bothered to check your info, it didn't seem important or germane (note, that's not "German", so don't get offended). The point is, I believe there are residency requirements for FOIA applications. Please continue to feel free to accuse me of whatever you like. You can even call me a Brit, although my ancestors are Welsh - if you can find a slur for that, feel free to use it.
Doesn't really say much for your close reading skills, does it?
Maybe not. I tend to assume someone bringing a subject into an argument is tying it in to the argument. Should I apologize again? Wearing a hair shirt, maybe?
This is what I get for extending an olive branch to you. Obviously, you don't do nuance.
Yes, I love olive branches with poisoned thorns. The olives, without the thorns, are better - very good with martinis. As to nuance, well, I actually like some Yellow Tail wines, although they can be a bit brash.
Firstly, thanks to Slashdot for eating my first attempt at this post...
It did the same thing to my previous response. Perhaps it's a sign that the discussion is worn out. It does seem to be becoming redundant on both sides.
How does this change the fact that - whoever is responsible - the Shuttle was originally supposed to be routine and cheap? [And several other arguments that said the same thing.]
It was routine. I provided figures. 111 freakin' times. That's more often than I've had my tires rotated in my lifetime, which is a lot longer than the shuttle's. You still have not defined "cheap" other than to say the shuttle isn't it.
Straw man. Why would you use a tiny Apollo capsule to launch ISS components? They don't have to go to the Moon and back.
No straw man; it was an attempt to get you to look at the different purposes for the different craft. Ineffective, as usual.
Why not? It's no more risky for the astronauts because there are still the same number of manned flights. Plus several unmanned launches could be sent up for every unmanned one, and perhaps assembly could be partly automated.
Yes, of course. Running two programs instead of one would be far *cheaper*. Do you realize how much of NASA's funds get spent on the planning and support for different vehicles? Same thing for your possible assembly platform. It all costs money (apparently cheaper money than shuttle money?).
What other shuttle program? Are you saying that because there is no other shuttle to compare it to, by definition it must be cheap? What absurd Panglossian logic.
I shouldn't think it's that hard to follow. You've been claiming ad nauseam that the shuttle isn't "cheap". Once again, in comparison to WHAT? All I'm claiming is that it is the only one of its kind and costs what Congress has allocated for it.
Good grief - since when do I need to submit FOIA requests to back up a claim I made on Slashdot of all places?
My mistake. I thought the topic had something to do with your thesis and that you would be interested in the truth. But, since you're apparently a Brit, it wouldn't work anyway. My bad. Remember, you were the one who brought the fact that you were a Piled Higher and Deeper candidate into this discussion - otherwise I wouldn't have made a connection between the two.
Which, as I will point out yet again, is that FOR WHATEVER REASON, the Shuttle did not fulfill its original goals of cheap. reliable, regular access to space.
Which, as I will point out yet again, aside from your peculiar definition of "cheap", the shuttle has done its job. Without some grandstanding by certain members of Congress who are interested in publicity, the shuttle would still be flying routine missions. Yet again, I don't see how you can blame the shuttle for PR-based decisions from Congress that hamstring the program.
I'm just trying to point out that the Shuttle did not perform as initially promised. So what! It's still done a great job overall, and I'd say yes in an instant if NASA offered me a place on the next flight. But that's not going to change my objective view of the history of the Shuttle program.
Actually, it seems you have changed your view. The remark that started this was your claim that the shuttle was a failure. No doubt you will now explain how "great job overall" equals "failure".
You say that like it's a bad thing! I didn't realise every Slashdot post these days had to be some major piece of original thought.
Huh? I said you didn't have anything in the real world to compare the shuttle to, therefore your claims were invalid. Clearly, there is little original thought on Slashdot these days as our constant reposting of the same arguments illustrates.
So, I don't have any vested interest here, and anyway you might do me the courtesy of not assuming that I'm either a knave or a fool.
Since his address is in Germany, that's a good thing.
This guy is not only funny but wickedly smart. Like really really smart . ..
Yeah, I know he's smart. I've had to modify some of his code, so I've seen it. I agree he's really smart.
But the bottom of the rung for communication is the written word that has been translated from some other language.
So give the guy a break.
Considering how often he's been called on his responses, I'm sure a guy as smart as he is could manage to be a bit nicer if he wanted to. Most of us take care when using email and lists to avoid possibly offensive remarks. When in doubt, one can always include a "hope that helps" or a smiley. Berating some poor guy for using the last stable release of some code because an alpha of a new version was released the previous week does not seem like a matter of poor translation. JMHO.
You might know the author from cdrecord. He has a rather low opinion of the ide-scsi/ide-cd component of the kernel in general and Linus in particular. Good to see him where he is happy.
If you have any evidence to support your claim that he has ever been happy, quite a few of us would like to see it. Or maybe all those caustic replys to mailing lists are a sign of hidden joy?
Slashdot Mirror
Well, we're going in circles here. I *do* think companies should have *some* loyalty to their employees, I don't think they should be *compelled* to act that way, and I think the difference is what we're really arguing about. Also, I don't think that's an absolute: I have no loyalty to the people who built my house, they have no continuing rights to it. Those who own companies have substantial rights over the culture of those companies - not absolute, but certainly the right to hire and fire who they like (and to face the consequences of that choice) when that's driven by legitimate business interest.
Some loyalty? Like a mild pregnancy? And I never said that companies should be (legally) compelled to act that way - they should be compelled by their leadership and internal standards to act that way, since it is in the best interests of the company. However, thanks to constant repetition, they have convinced the younger generation that corporations have no obligations other than generating money. Your house analogy lacks a foundation; you don't need a constant crew of builders to keep it standing. A corporation does, and the most useful crew is the one that built it. It is not the people who "own" the companies that are doing the firing - it is top management. Since when is it a "legitimate business interest" to use outsourcing to bolster the CEO's bonus?
All in your opinion. Perhaps IBM did right by their stockholders, got rid of employees that weren't doing anything unique, and made a good decisionthat helped the company. The thing is: it's not your call. It's the call of those who own the company, made by the management they designated.
My opinion? You were the one talking about defunct companies in old portfolios. Management is not chosen by the stockholders. It is usually chosen by the board of directors, which is generally composed of CEOs of other companies, which is the only reason such morons can get multi-million dollar "compensation" while the "owners" and employees get screwed.
It's not like IBM killed these people and ate their children. Jobs were lost in one place and created in another. The folks in India will have a huge change in standard of living, bringing several families out of abject poverty for each job. The folks losing jobs in Europe will fall back on the world's best social programs (unsustainably good, but that's a different thread). The change means a substantial net reduction in the world's poverty. That's good, right?
Ah, yes, the matter-of-degree argument. The employees weren't shot, they'll just starve to death normally. Raising poverty in one part of the world while reducing it another does not result in a net reduction in poverty.
All of my ire in this situation is directed at the universities. To expect the companies to be altruistic is just silly. The universities are supposed to be the smart ones here - if they aren't, why the Hell do we give them all these tax dollars? If the universities are so easily fooled, they're useless in the first place.
You have got to be doing this just to push my buttons. Since when does honesty equal altruism? Do you really believe that corporations should lie to the educators of this country about what skills are needed in the workforce? That is insane.
I should be worried about that? I can't possibly grow my own food! I lack both the knowledge and the land. I couldn't provide my own safe drinking water and would be dead in a few weeks, one way or another, without the community I'm dependent on for basic services. Dependence on your neighbors tends to work out well in the long run, as long as you're willing to contribute in return (which is the next point).
I hate to break this to you, but our neighbors aren't "willing to contribute in return". China is currently taking us to the cleaners with their pegged currency and trade barriers. They've also just renewed an old alliance with Russia and warned the US to watch it. Wha
The CEO doesn't clean the toilets, so why should the toilet cleaner?
Because one of them will happily do repulsive things that would disgust most people, and the other one is an honest janitor working for a living? (Just a thought provoked by the question.)
You think working 80 hours a week is a good thing. The CEO does not work 80 hours a week so why should you?
Heh. Our CEO doesn't work 8 hours a week. He's an asset (maybe I spelled that wrong) don'cha know.
But how do you measure productivity? It's not like you can do a factory style "number of widgets produced" measurement.
Well, in our department, managers use the squeaky wheel method. If you're incompetent and constantly complain about how hard your job is and how much work you have, then you must be productive. If you just get the job done without complaining, then you aren't working hard enough. Awards are given out accordingly - the worst performers get the most accolades. Then they get promoted to management, so it's a vicious circle. You have underachievers who actually believe they know what they're doing in charge of the people who have to mitigate their bad decisions.
Working in the areas I have so long (systems and networks), I find it really odd, how companies are running around yelling "Resilience, reliability.. We need everything able to withstand emergencies", and buy two of every server, RAID the disks, redundant routing, offsite backups.. Yet they have their tech team cut to the bone, with highly compartmentalised skills.
And in software, management is running around yelling "reusability" like some mantra. This is of course just a keyword for "fewer programmers", but the managers are cluless enough to think that data conversion code can magically be used to run tape drives if it's written with "reusability" in mind. Like most problems, it boils down to managers being promoted to their level of incompetence. Seriously, being in a meeting where management is detailing their "vision" is enough to make me wonder what kind of hallucinogenics they're using.
Is IBM a nice company? . . . That IBM was over in the 80s (at least here).
Wrong again. IBM didn't start doing layoffs until Gerstner, which begs the point: why did IBM go from being a "good" company to a "not nice" company? It is because the company's leadership forgot about morals and ethics in the pursuit of personal wealth (greed)?
On the more intersting question of whether it's evil for a modern company - with no real loyalty to or from employees - to shift jobs to where they're cheaper: I just don't see the problem.
No kidding? That's what started this argument. You think companies in this brave new world should have no loyalty to the people who built them. You see the non-executive employees as disposable widgets. I see those employees as repositories of institutional memory, knowledge, and experience, who are valuable to the company.
More and more companies are getting burned by pointless offshoring, with projects costing more than they would have to keep at home in the final analysis. It looks to me like the peak has passed (thought it will of course never be like it was in the dot-com days, when reality could be ignored). I have an old stock portfolio that proves that companies that don't know what they're doing eventually disappear, and take their fads with them.
So the employees the company most needs have lost their livelihoods, the shareholders have been burned, but it's okay because top management made millions by making bad decisions that hurt the company?
As far as Universities go, where's your ire for them? Sure companies act in their own self interest, as ever, but you'd hope the nation's scholars would know better (yes, that's a joke).
Sorry, I don't find that funny. My ire is not with the universities but for the industry representatives who claim to want certain graduates but are only lying to promote various legislation. These are the same people who are claiming that our universities don't produce enough IT graduates. Are you seriously claiming that higher education should ignore the needs of industry and that industry liars are behaving properly?
As far as my optimism being reduced to cynicism - you're supposed to grow out of cynicism, you know?
Then you have a lot of growing to do. Your view that companies should pursue money in lieu of all else has a hard core of cynicism. Personally, in light of our current Corpocracy and their proclamation of amorality, I think cynicism is a rite of passage.
This bit is important, because technological progress is at the heart of IT offshoring. Many many kinds of jobs have gone away in the past 150 years never to return, and yet it hasn't been a downward spiral of employment for 150 years! Heck, real unemployment now is better than the worst times of the 80s, or of the 70s. There's always some new kind of work being invented, even if it's not obvious at first what it is.
We have also lost our independence in the industries we have exported. We can no longer produce our own textiles, garments, steel, machined goods, consumer electronics, and soon - IT workers. I suggest you look at the numbers for real income over the last decade. In every previous jobs exodus, we were told to move on to (whatever) new thing there was. You still have not answered the question: What comes after knowledge work? Don't tell me that something will come up, because before there was already an upward path. What can be abstracted after knowledge? You didn't anwser the question - you fail it.
With all this, why am I not worried? Because this happens to every industry, eventually, and yet the economy goes on. You just can't overlook the huge benefit of increased effeciency, not just to the stockholder, but to the consumer.
I feel like I'm in a channelled discussion with Neville Chamberlain. What "efficiency", since you already mentioned companies getting burned? The tiny benefit to the average stock
You know, one can be insulting yet still be polite. The key is indirectness. It makes a huge difference to the opinions of bystanders as to who the asshole is. There's really no excuse for being impolite, even though it's become bascially a sport online.
Being insulting is impolite, no matter how it's done, and one of knows how to use dirty words in public. Your apology is accepted.
IBM didn't offer a lifetime contract to its employees, and implied promises are worth the paper they're printed on.
IBM did make verbal contracts. It was part of the "IBM culture" and widely publicized as a recruiting incentive (otherwise I'd never have known about it). Any ethical company would live up to the terms of any contract, written or verbal. Anything less is unethical. If I give you my word on something, it's my bond. After reading your arguments I wouldn't trust you as far as I could throw you.
Defined benefit plans (like Social Security) are just stupid, because you can't seriously depend on the money being there for you.
I believe you missed the point. The company gets certain tax considerations for their pension plan, not to mention that it is a benefit spelled out in the employment contract. There is supposed to be funding for these plans because the alternative is the federal (partial) guarantee. UA did not fund the plan despite claiming that it had, it declared bankruptcy, dumped the pension on the taxpayers, and the government agreed. If you can't see the problem, I'll explain it in fine detail.
You can't paint IBM with the UA brush, however - UA doesn't operate in any sort of free market, and is no better or worse morally than the unions it fights with (at least, according to my brother, who is a pilot).
Again, what country do you live in? There is no "free market" in the US. UA had written contracts with employees for 40 years, which it didn't keep. Given your metrics, I would think that would make UA more unethical than IBM, but, AFAIAC, they are both unethical since I consider a promise to be the same as a contract.
The feedback mechanism worked for Chrysler eventually, as the people who could[n't] run a company lost control of that company.
Lost control? I'd laugh if it weren't so sad. The taxpayers (including Chrysler employees) paid billions so that the people who couldn't run Chrysler, especially Iococca, were highly rewarded. The net effect was to use US taxpayer money to transfer the company and its assets to (a foreign owner) Daimler. With feedback like that, we should be out of business in no time.
But it's the breaking of an *explicit* promise that's would make them evil, not the general principle of moving jobs to lower cost of production.
You and IBM lost this argument some years ago. They were pilloried in the press for firing a large number of employees who were very close to retirement. They lost their "goodwill", and their image was forever tarnished. I suggest you look closely at any Slashdot thread where IBM is getting praised as an OS saviour. IBM has lots of baggage - well earned and emotional.
As a kid: did you know that if you live in a trailer where it snows, it's critical that you shovel snow off the roof if it's really coming down, because the flat roof will eventually collapse under the weight?
No, I didn't know that as a kid. We lived in a rented room, so the owners of the house had to worry about shoveling snow, although my vague memories of them indicate they were nice people. Until my mother got married and we "moved up", I didn't really have any clothes suitable for dealing with snow and was encouraged to stay out of it. Now, I get plenty of snow to play in every winter, and I wish there was someone else to do the shoveling.
Well, no one can predict the future, but based on history I'm optimistic. History is chock full of people with doom-and-gloom scenarios, but the advance of technology
Your arguments would be more convincing with less emotional baggage and personal attacks, however.
The emotional baggage is actually expensive luggage purchased with a lifetime's hard work. When one offers airy platitudes and infers the respondent is an idiot, one should expect the same in return.
Compensation: sure, employees are what makes a company successful, but that's what you get paid for! If you want compensation in the form of lifetime employment, try to negotiate that into your contract.
As far as I'm concerned this argument doesn't have much to do with compensation; it's about contracts and ethics. IBM made implied, if not written, contracts with employees about length of service, which IBM has reneged on by terminating the employees and shipping their jobs to another country. United Airlines has reneged on promises made to thousands of workers and the government for forty years by not funding their pension plan and dropping it in the taxpayers' lap. It's quite apparent that contracts with American companies mean nothing for the employees.
That's the secret that makes capitalism work!
What country do you live in? In the US, capitalism doesn't work because it's not been tried (at least in the past 200 years). What we have is a Corpocracy, which is a bastardized combination of plutocracy and oligarchy.
You can't just tell other people how to run their companies: liberty applies to owners as well as workers (plus, people are wrong so often, you *need* a feedback mechanism in the control of capital).
That feedback mechanism is long broken now that corporations can be assured of bailouts using taxpayer money (Chrysler, the airlines, etc.), the ability to drop their obligations like pensions, and the right to disolve their debts through bankruptcy, while individuals are denied those rights.
It's the difference between "can save" and "does save". I should be able to retire comfortably (not rich, but comforable) after 25 or so years of professional work. This is because, growing up quite poor, I learned the value of savings. If you spend all your money on toys and keeping up appearances, of course you'll be dependent on Social Security! 40 years of compound interest is a wonderful thing, however, and you don't really have to make much money to retire with a million or so (in today's dollars), especially with the tax-free investment vehicles available today.
I wonder if you really know what being "poor" really is, but if you do, then we have one thing in common. I suggest you rethink your expenses 25 years from now. Look at health insurance premiums today for senior citizens and multiply that by 10 at the current rate of increase. A nursing home in a less expensive part of the country runs over a hundred dollars per day. 25 years? Multiply that by four or five. So a million dollars might get you five years of managed care before they turn you into Soylent Green. You might want to consider what happened to one retired person I know who recently had her life savings reduced by 50% during the recent stock market "correction", even though it was supposedly diversified by a reputable investment company. Yes, I know you'll say she was stupid - go ahead.
My point was: *all* you have to do these days to join the "wealthy elite" is to be financially successful. It used to be *much* harder. Heck, you don't even have to kill anyone these days!
In order to be financially successful, one needs a job or to be born wealthy. It doesn't help when productive workers have their jobs sent to another country in order to boost Carly Fiorina's bye-bye gift of $40 million for ruining the company. Thank heaven that Paris Hilton doesn't have to worry about her job being outsourced. It has been on hold all this time, just waiting for her to realize her potential and accept her place in the company.
Getting a job in the field you love can be hard, as you've decided up front not to optim
I love how ACs are brave enough to post nonsense as fact. Ethics are as subjective to culture as morals (since they're basically the same thing). In some cultures, "greasing palms" is accepted ethically and morally (just helping a guy out), while in others, it would lead to a jail sentence. In some places, selling liquor is completely ethical and moral. Ever hear of the local restauranteur getting kicked out of his church or the Jaycees? In other places, selling liquor will get you the death penalty.
The company should provide you with charity in the form of paying you more than the job's worth on the market, just because you used to work for market rates once? That's a pretty stupid way to do charity. I'm all in favor of charity, but don't confuse receiving charity with earning your way.
So you believe that successful companies somehow spring full-blown from a shareholder's portfolio? It takes dedicated employees to build a successful company. With an attitude like yours, I can see how a company would readily view you as disposable, but valuable employees contain the institutional memory and experience that well-run companies need. It's even more unfortunate that a lot of easily led young people have accepted the idea that companies owe nothing to the people who built them. We can see the result as companies race to dump pension plans, which is tantamount to lying to employees and the government for decades.
You mean *until* you have enough stock to live off of dividends, it won't replace your job. Anyone working professionally makes enough to retire into this circumstance
Excuse me. Did you say "retire"? That would assume one works until retirement and that requires a job. Anyway your statement is bullshit for the vast majority, even professionals. Even those with stocks and pensions are typically dependent on Social Security to stay alive after retirement. If you doubt that, I suggest you go hang out with some retired folks for a while.
This isn't the middle ages. You can join the "wealthy elite" with the work of less than one lifetime, if that's what's important to you. You don't have to be born into the elite, fight a war for the king, then marry your children off to maximum personal advantage, all for a small chance of improving your lot - you just have to be willing to save
That's a load of bafflegas, and what does it have to do with some corporate raider coming in and sending your job to another country to bolster his bonus? It's tough to save when your source of income is exported. It's tough to get another job in an industry like IT where age discrimination is rampant and unemployment is high.
Or you can spend your money on toys instead of wealth and forever be a wage slave, whatever works for you.
Or you can spend your money on family, children, their education - unimportant things like that. What's it like to be completely self-centered? Do you have any real experience? I'm finding it hard to believe that anyone could really believe fantasies like yours or completely dismiss the largest part of the middle class.
I can see your point(s), but our current problem (in the US) is corporations writing the laws for legislators. Look at the laughable "Can Spam" act. Thirty or forty years ago, companies were usually considered good citizens. They hired local people, gave scholarships to local kids, and contributed to local charities instead of political campaigns and PACs. It wasn't an act, although it wasn't ignored by the PR people - it was expected behavior. It only made sense since the companies were the beneficiaries of local infrastructure while often paying reduced (or no) local taxes. Now, large companies are often no more than leeches. If the public were to view companies the same way we did decades ago, we wouldn't need hundreds of new laws to enforce ethical behavior.
As regards the specific case here, the anger shouldn't be directed at IBM who ultimately have all the motivational complexity of a bacteria (1. sell stuff 2. profit) but rather the government for allowing them to get away with it.
What a dilemma. I certainly can't defend the government for allowing corporations to write the laws, but the ultimate responsibility still falls on those corporations. The whole "amoral corporation" premise is nothing more than a smoke screen to deflect criticism of behavior that is bad for the employees, the country, and in the long run the company. The oft cited claim that companies have a duty to maximize return for shareholders is a fallacy with a huge hole in it: maximize during what time period? What is great for the short-term trader is not good for the long-term stockholder. In that kind of scheme, the last stockholders always get screwed. The real laws I've seen governing the duties of corporate officers indicate they have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of the company. And the original definition of company, as in a business, included the employees. IBM's views about employees and jobs were far different before Gerstner's reign. Likewise, HP's views were far different before Fiorina. Like a fish, a company rots from the head down.
The alternative is the continued bastard behaviour of these organisations, lying adverts informing me MS really cares about me(!) and ever more indignant discussion of what they "should" do but never will until they are made to.
Heh. According to the ads, we inspire them to do what they do. It must be our fault. :)
Well what the hell else is a Maxtor good for? You wouldn't put data on it, would you?
OMG, that's what's in my newest computer. That might explain why you only need to undo one thumbscrew and lift a plastic latch to pop out the hard drive. I fear I'm screwed.
Well OK, although I doubt you've actually been around since before the South Sea Company crashed which is really the background to the whole concept behind modern business practices :)
No, I'm not quite that old, but I'll never see the short side of a half-century again, and I've witnessed the perversion of normal corporations into entities with the rights of individual citizens with none of the consequences. You can't execute a corporation or even put it in jail and stop it from going about its business for a few years. I'm old enough to remember when the CEO of Westinghouse made six times the wage of the average worker in the company.
The dividing line here is between morality and legality. I'm not well up on the Enron thing but if something is illegal or unethical (grey area but lets says we talking about an agreed code of practice) then of course a corporation shouldn't do it, but lets not confuse laws with morals.
Yes, let's do mix laws and morals, since the former is the codification of the latter. There was no specific law that prohibited the circular routing of power delivery contracts and the resultant price increases that Enron and its stooges pulled off. Their unbelievable gall and gloating at circumventing ethics, screwing little old ladies, and the spirit of the law (morals) brought them down. The actual law used to convict the people involved, still not the company, was about collusion and price fixing IIRC, although the cause was the company's bad behavior. This was a perfect example of corporate piracy where the players thought they had nothing to fear. I guess you think they should have walked free even though what they were doing was highly immoral.
The corporation is an entity without basic feelings; it feels no shame, no remorse, no guilt and legally bound not exhibit any vestiges of mercy, compassion or generosity. Anything that suggests or mimics such traits is at best marketing, at heart there is a howling void.
The corporation in the originally intended sense espouses the ideas and (yes) morals of its management, directors, shareholders and hopefully the workers. You might want to look at Hershey's history for a clue (and also the archaic meanings of "company").
I think of this a lot whilst reading Slashdot because the average poster is both a feverent capitalist but also a hater of Microsoft who seems to attribute certain sly traits to MS. There is also a great deal of whining about outsourcing. Why do these things even invite comment?
In case you weren't aware, Microsoft was convicted of violating the rules that govern our supposedly capitalist behavior. Despite that, MS wasn't even barred from taking federal government contracts thanks to an executive order, i.e., the President said MS can do whatever it wants to. The "whining" about outsourcing is in response to CEOs shipping jobs away wholesale in order to increase their bonuses. In a few years, they will be moving the jobs back onshore because of all the problems incurred from offshoring. The CEO bonuses will increase again, but it won't compensate the workers who have been unemployed for years. Management has certain responsibilities to act ethically whether you want to admit it or not. I hope there really is a hell so that CEOs like Carly Fiorina can have eternity to contemplate the tradeoff between multi-million-dollar lifestyles and ruining the lives of thousands of truly productive people.
However, I'm not an apologist for big business
Yes, you are. Anyone who buys into this new idea of amoral corporations is just another tool of the new Corpocracy. Although I don't have much in common with the people behind Ben & Jerry's, I respect them for being an old-style corporation (even though the media tries to portray them as something new).
I'm pretty sure IMB was a huge company before any of the people being laid off were born. Perhaps your argument makes sense in some cases, but not in this one. Did IBM every promise lifetime employment? If they did, that was clearly wrong.
Well, IBM wasn't "huge" until the 60's, so you're wrong. Before Gerstner took over, IBM employees were considered "lifers". IBM did not lay off people because of work fluctuations before Gerstner, and yes, the policy was stated and well-known. Until very recently, most Japanese companies followed the same policy. Who are you to say it is wrong for a company to respect the contributions of the people who built the company? What kind of nonsense is that?
If you see that stockholders get a better deal than employees, become a stockholder.
You appear to be clueless. Most of us who work for large companies are stockholders. Unless you have enough money to live off dividends, that won't replace your job. Do you run any of this ideal capitalist fantasy through a reality filter before you post it?
People convince themselves they're not in the class of people who benefit from investment, and screw themselves to no end.
The last figures I saw stated that half of the people in the country were stockholders, typically through 401-Ks and IRAs. They still have to work for a living, which means they need a job. Try selling your hogwash to the old Enron employees, who were major stockholders thanks to company policy.
I blame this rare planetary alignment for my suddenly hirsute visage and the complaints my neighbors filed about me howling out on the deck last night. I suppose it could have been the pitcher of martinis and that I didn't shave this morning . . . nah, it's gotta be the planets.
We had a discussion about those jokes over here. You should have just posted "2636", and picked up the funny mods.
Theres a book out recently called "The Corporation". I suggest you read it.
I don't need to read it. I've been around for awhile, and I've watched the the transition of American corporations from ethical (which is really what we are talking about when we say moral companies) good citizens to entities with more rights than individuals and none of the responsibilities. It is a sad state of affairs.
Ford had some moral theories about business and thought he should pay his people more and charge customers less. The Dodges (then shareholders) saw the issue somewhat differently. They won. And so was the modern corporation defined.
It's a bit more complicated than that. Ford was refusing to continue working, and the Dodge boys made him out to be a key asset. Truly, it was a dark day for freedom, ethics, and American business. They were just after a buyout, and they used the courts to get it.
For this reason even Noam Chomsky is on the record as saying that for corporations to take a moral action is in itself immoral.
So if an Enron executive had been opposed to the price-kiting scheme in California because it was dishonest and just plain morally wrong and notified the authorities, that would have been immoral? Surely, you jest. I think you and Chomsky are making distinctions between morality and ethics that don't exist. Perhaps you're talking about religious views, which is something else completely. If you don't believe companies need to make ethical/moral decisions, I suggest you look at the recent fines on companies imposed by the FCC.
See, the board's duty is to look after someone else's money, not express their moral and ethical personalities. That they can do on their own time and with their own money, not someone else's. Thats how it works.
No, that's what a lot of lawyers have spent a lot of time trying to make you and everyone else believe in order to get corporate crooks off the hook. Corporations are not allowed to operate outside legal or ethical boundaries in order to provide more return for investors, even though a lot of lawyers keep claiming so. Corporate officers are still bound by laws and ethical standards that are nothing more than the codified morals of our nation. Some of those executives (too damned few) are going to jail while claiming they did nothing wrong and were only helping the investors. People who buy into the corporate amorality line are sheep who are enabling the current crop of corporate robber barons and related crooks.
Those 16000 jobs still exist, they'll just be held by different people. Presumably those in India need to feed their families as much as those in the EU - seems morally neutral to me.
The problem is that the 16000 workers (wherever) helped build the company to what it is. A "company" used to encompass the workers who built the company as well as the investors and executives. In this brave new world, it seems the "company" only includes the executives and investors, while the workers who built the business and were promised things like pensions for decades of work are now expendable widgets. The executives get bonuses. The current employees lose their pensions, jobs, and otherwise get screwed. Does it still seem "morally neutral"?
Companies are in business for one thing only: To yield the highest amount of profit to its investors.
Companies are in business to fulfill their articles of incorporation and mission statements. I have yet to see one that says anything about "highest amount of profit to its investors". That's nonsense on it's face. "Highest" over what time period? Short-term or long-term? High short-term profits can (and will) screw the long-term investors.
That is the _only_ thing companies do and should do. People who think companies have a moral duty to anything are misguided.
People who don't think companies have a moral duty have been brainwashed by those very same companies. This amoral corporation hogwash is a recent, self-serving invention by those companies who do things like changing their names from WorldCom to MCI to try to escape their immorality.
This is called capitalism. Deal with it.
It's called corporate greed from the highest levels to enhance the earnings of the executive class. 40 million to get rid of Carly after she gutted HP. Not to mention the millions HP paid for worthless Lucent options after she finished screwing Lucent and moved to HP.
And if the road to the highest return on investor investment leads through paying management insane amounts, so be it.
See above. It doesn't. The current investment scenario is a way to redirect wealth from investors to a select group of clueless MBAs with the correct family, and corporate, ties. The current makeup of corporate boards guarantees it. There is no such thing as a CEO who is worth 1000 employees except in the minds of the easily distracted. Unfortunately, when the current CEO capitalist god is fired, those same people will be worshipping the next CEO as a saviour. Welcome to Capitalism as a religion where corporations can do no wrong. (All bow to the Holy Board of Directors and our glorious CEO.)
111 times? That's less posts than I've made to slashdot! What do such absurd comparisons prove?
How many other reusable space transports have a comparable record? How many times have you done something as easy and simple as flying on an international aircraft? It seems the only comparisions you don't consider absurd are the ones you make.
Right, so just ignore the bit in the previous post where I explicitly compared the Shuttle's costs to other heavy lift systems. I'm sure to let that slip by.
And let's ignore the bit where you admitted it would likely take several missions/launches to do the job of one shuttle mission. This is getting old and repetitive.
Do you realise that Saturn V had already been developed? That the factories and infrastructure were already in place? Anyway, the development cost of the Shuttle was small compared to the operating cost (less than a tenth). Spend a bit more up front to get a more efficient system and you'll save money in the longer term.
No kidding about the Saturn? Really????!!!!11 Do you think there weren't misgivings and doubts? Funding is limited, even for NASA. Again, where is your alternative to the shuttle that fits into the entire design with a space station that was on the table at the time? It's good to see that you realize the cost of running two programs (including keeping the Saturn alive) would be far greater than developing two programs, even if you didn't take it to the conclusion. Welcome to the world of budget constraints instead of ivory towers.
So you better hope that NASA has more imagination than you do when it comes to overcoming these oh-so-insurmountable obstacles you see. (I could turn this around and ask if the Shuttle has been such an unqualified success as you seem to think, why is NASA ditching the whole concept for something completely different, instead of going for an improved Shuttle design? Might it be that ... gasp ... Shuttle isn't as perfect as you think?)
I never said it was an "unqualified" success, nor that the objectives couldn't be completed in another way, and you probably are already aware of that if your reading comprehension is as great as you think. Once again, I consider it a successful experiment (I know that just irritates you no end, so I had to repeat it). I think I said before that the successor to the shuttle would be an experimental craft. In the normal succession of things, we learn from our minor successes and build on them. I realize that's not good enough for omniscient types like you who could dictate the course of space exploration full blown from your brow. Alas, the rest of us are mere mortals; mea culpa.
Ah, so we're resorting to puerile national slurs, are we now? How delightful. By the way, you're wrong yet again - I'm Australian. (The .au in my email and URL is a bit of a giveaway.)
I didn't realize it was a slur to be called a Brit, my apologies - I really haven't bothered to check your info, it didn't seem important or germane (note, that's not "German", so don't get offended). The point is, I believe there are residency requirements for FOIA applications. Please continue to feel free to accuse me of whatever you like. You can even call me a Brit, although my ancestors are Welsh - if you can find a slur for that, feel free to use it.
Doesn't really say much for your close reading skills, does it?
Maybe not. I tend to assume someone bringing a subject into an argument is tying it in to the argument. Should I apologize again? Wearing a hair shirt, maybe?
This is what I get for extending an olive branch to you. Obviously, you don't do nuance.
Yes, I love olive branches with poisoned thorns. The olives, without the thorns, are better - very good with martinis. As to nuance, well, I actually like some Yellow Tail wines, although they can be a bit brash.
The cognitive dissonance is kil
Firstly, thanks to Slashdot for eating my first attempt at this post ...
It did the same thing to my previous response. Perhaps it's a sign that the discussion is worn out. It does seem to be becoming redundant on both sides.
How does this change the fact that - whoever is responsible - the Shuttle was originally supposed to be routine and cheap? [And several other arguments that said the same thing.]
It was routine. I provided figures. 111 freakin' times. That's more often than I've had my tires rotated in my lifetime, which is a lot longer than the shuttle's. You still have not defined "cheap" other than to say the shuttle isn't it.
Straw man. Why would you use a tiny Apollo capsule to launch ISS components? They don't have to go to the Moon and back.
No straw man; it was an attempt to get you to look at the different purposes for the different craft. Ineffective, as usual.
Why not? It's no more risky for the astronauts because there are still the same number of manned flights. Plus several unmanned launches could be sent up for every unmanned one, and perhaps assembly could be partly automated.
Yes, of course. Running two programs instead of one would be far *cheaper*. Do you realize how much of NASA's funds get spent on the planning and support for different vehicles? Same thing for your possible assembly platform. It all costs money (apparently cheaper money than shuttle money?).
What other shuttle program? Are you saying that because there is no other shuttle to compare it to, by definition it must be cheap? What absurd Panglossian logic.
I shouldn't think it's that hard to follow. You've been claiming ad nauseam that the shuttle isn't "cheap". Once again, in comparison to WHAT? All I'm claiming is that it is the only one of its kind and costs what Congress has allocated for it.
Good grief - since when do I need to submit FOIA requests to back up a claim I made on Slashdot of all places?
My mistake. I thought the topic had something to do with your thesis and that you would be interested in the truth. But, since you're apparently a Brit, it wouldn't work anyway. My bad. Remember, you were the one who brought the fact that you were a Piled Higher and Deeper candidate into this discussion - otherwise I wouldn't have made a connection between the two.
Which, as I will point out yet again, is that FOR WHATEVER REASON, the Shuttle did not fulfill its original goals of cheap. reliable, regular access to space.
Which, as I will point out yet again, aside from your peculiar definition of "cheap", the shuttle has done its job. Without some grandstanding by certain members of Congress who are interested in publicity, the shuttle would still be flying routine missions. Yet again, I don't see how you can blame the shuttle for PR-based decisions from Congress that hamstring the program.
I'm just trying to point out that the Shuttle did not perform as initially promised. So what! It's still done a great job overall, and I'd say yes in an instant if NASA offered me a place on the next flight. But that's not going to change my objective view of the history of the Shuttle program.
Actually, it seems you have changed your view. The remark that started this was your claim that the shuttle was a failure. No doubt you will now explain how "great job overall" equals "failure".
You say that like it's a bad thing! I didn't realise every Slashdot post these days had to be some major piece of original thought.
Huh? I said you didn't have anything in the real world to compare the shuttle to, therefore your claims were invalid. Clearly, there is little original thought on Slashdot these days as our constant reposting of the same arguments illustrates.
So, I don't have any vested interest here, and anyway you might do me the courtesy of not assuming that I'm either a knave or a fool.
He speaks fluent German
Since his address is in Germany, that's a good thing.
This guy is not only funny but wickedly smart. Like really really smart . . .
Yeah, I know he's smart. I've had to modify some of his code, so I've seen it. I agree he's really smart.
But the bottom of the rung for communication is the written word that has been translated from some other language. So give the guy a break.
Considering how often he's been called on his responses, I'm sure a guy as smart as he is could manage to be a bit nicer if he wanted to. Most of us take care when using email and lists to avoid possibly offensive remarks. When in doubt, one can always include a "hope that helps" or a smiley. Berating some poor guy for using the last stable release of some code because an alpha of a new version was released the previous week does not seem like a matter of poor translation. JMHO.
I would bet this is an attempt to get people on OpenSolaris so that people will see how much better cdrtools work on that platform.
Because Solaris supports so much more PC hardware than Linux? Y'know Bob, I never thought you knew very much during your home remodeling shows either.
You might know the author from cdrecord. He has a rather low opinion of the ide-scsi/ide-cd component of the kernel in general and Linus in particular. Good to see him where he is happy.
If you have any evidence to support your claim that he has ever been happy, quite a few of us would like to see it. Or maybe all those caustic replys to mailing lists are a sign of hidden joy?
does it have cdrecord?
No, you'll have to get the "Professional" version of cdrtools from "Schily".