Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: gofaster on February 26, 2004, 02:13:44 PM
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AT&T announced that it was going to reduce its workforce by another 8%. That's almost 20% reduction in 18 months. They're also selling off their wireless company for $41billion. AT&T's plans to generate revenue? Re-sell someone else's wireless service. Ok, so why should I buy from AT&T at a mark-up when I can get the service from the original supplier? :rolleyes:
By the way, the announcement is timed so that they can get the employees off payroll before the bonus checks are paid out. Oh, and no raises are planned for this year, either.
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GO CORPRATE AMERIKKKA!!!!
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AT&T is a dinosaur. All that copper wire.
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Yeah AT&T is saying that they want to move into managed IT services and away from the long-distance business. C. Michael Armstrong even tried to tie in cable tv as a way to carry tv, internet, and telephone on the same cable. Unfortunately he kept paying too much money for every company he acquired.
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last I heard, this admistration thinks the lack of jobs is good for America.
I don't think they live in the same America I do.
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Originally posted by capt. apathy
last I heard, this admistration thinks the lack of jobs is good for America.
I don't think they live in the same America I do.
Cap, you're talking about people that have the word "mortgage" deleted from their dictionaries.
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That's wierd my company is talking about hiring more draftsmen because we're just about to have more work than we did at the beginning of the slowdown. What do land developers know though they're probably just spending money out of denial ;)
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Thats no suprize ... 18 months ago AT&T merged with Comcast ... right afterwards I got laid off .... worked for a cable constrution outfit that contracted with AT&T to build fiberoptics. They are cutting costs to the bone but raising rates.
Don't ya just love those money hungry corprate types?
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I called Dell for support and got some Indian guy I didnt understand, called back again and got a mexican that didn't understand me...
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All I know that 4 guys I know who have been out of work for a year +/- (different jobs for all of them) now have jobs. Two of them got multiple offers.
Boeing is laying of some people in one program, but hiring a bunch in other programs.
Things seem to be looking up from evidence around me.
BB
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I've been laid off since Feb 9..Was getting ready to go back next week when got word we laid off again(I work at Ford)....Don't tell me the economy is picking up.
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That sucks!
But let me pre-empt miko:
Just remember outsourcing your job to some slave-wage earner in Bangladesh is good: their low wages will force companies to lower prices so your can buy more with the dollars you don't have anymore because you lost your job!
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so in for an "economy on the upswing", there are zero lay-offs/downsizing?
wow - tell me when you wake up from that one ..
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Originally posted by SirLoin
I've been laid off since Feb 9..Was getting ready to go back next week when got word we laid off again(I work at Ford)....Don't tell me the economy is picking up.
My father worked GM for 30 years- layoffs are normal and periodic. The past two or three years of low interest rates have encouraged folks to go out and buy new. It can't last forever. Don't worry, you will be called back. You have to remember to put money back for these spells when you are working. You should do that until you build enough seniority to avoid the bite.
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'Zippies' pose challenge (http://mobile.azstarnet.com/sn/pdaopinion/11292.html)
Thomas L. Friedman: 'Zippies' pose challenge
Thomas L. Friedman
Published: 02.25.2004
I have just arrived in Bangalore, India's Silicon Valley, to meet the zippies on the receiving end of U.S. jobs.
Judging from the construction going on on every block here, the multiple applicants for every new tech job, the crowded pub scene and the families of four you see zipping around on a single motor scooter, Bangalore is one hot town.
Taking all this in, two things strike me about this outsourcing issue.
One, economists are surely right: The biggest factor cutting old jobs and creating new ones is technological change - the phone mail system that eliminated your secretary.
As for the zippies who soak up certain U.S. or European jobs, they will become consumers, the global pie will grow, and ultimately we will all be better off.
As long as America maintains its ability to do cutting-edge innovation, the long run should be fine. Saving money by outsourcing basic jobs to zippies, so we can invest in more high-end innovation, makes sense.
But here's what I also feel: This short run could be a real bear - and politically explosive. The potential speed and scale of this outsourcing phenomenon make its potential impact enormous and unpredictable.
As we enter a world in which the price of digitizing information - converting it into little packets of ones and zeros and then transmitting it over high-speed data networks - falls to near zero, it means the vaunted "death of distance" is really here.
And that means many jobs you can now do from your house - whether data processing, reading an X-ray, or basic accounting or lawyering - can now also be done from a zippie's house in India or China.
And as education levels in these overseas homes rise to U.S. levels, the barriers to shipping white-collar jobs abroad fall and the incentives rise.
At a minimum, some very educated Americans used to high salaries - people who vote and know how to write op-ed pieces - will either lose their jobs or have to accept lower pay or become part-timers without health insurance.
I think he sums it up reasonably well.
Enjoy the new world economy.
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(http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com/images/_39061593_min-ap-203body.jpg)
There is no unemployment.
There is no economic crisis.
This is simply redeekulous.
All your economy is belonging to us.
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Originally posted by Boozer2
I called Dell for support and got some Indian guy I didnt understand, called back again and got a mexican that didn't understand me...
The 2nd guy was from Panama :) And Dell is moving major accounts back state side from India. The language problems was worse than they expected.
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Originally posted by Kieran
My father worked GM for 30 years- layoffs are normal and periodic. The past two or three years of low interest rates have encouraged folks to go out and buy new. It can't last forever. Don't worry, you will be called back. You have to remember to put money back for these spells when you are working. You should do that until you build enough seniority to avoid the bite.
Well layoffs don't go by seniority when they shut the whole plant down for weeks..I've been there 10+ years and never have we seen so many down weeks.
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Originally posted by SirLoin
Well layoffs don't go by seniority when they shut the whole plant down for weeks..I've been there 10+ years and never have we seen so many down weeks.
I'd say you've been pretty lucky, then. Still sucks, and I don't mean to make light of it.
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Originally posted by Udie
The 2nd guy was from Panama :) And Dell is moving major accounts back state side from India. The language problems was worse than they expected.
"drive c" sounded too much like "slurpee" :)
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GDP up more than expected during 2003 4rd Quarter: 4.1%. Companies boosted investment in equipment and software in the fourth quarter at a sizable 15.1 percent annual rate. Business inventory building added 0.92 percentage point to fourth-quarter GDP, even better than the 0.61 percentage-point increase estimated a month ago. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4397946/)
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The new world economy. One thing that's not mentioned very much is the law of averaging. Yes it will raise the standard of living in a lot of backwards places around the world. That's a positive.
Unfortunately, it will serve to lower the quality of living here, where our standard is the highest in the world. The white collar guy here getting $60k a year will have to compete with his indian counterpart that will do the same job for $20k. So he will bargain down to $30k and say it's worth the extra $10k to have me local instead of overseas. The American worker keeps the job but takes the hit.
Also, I don't want my xrays read in india. When they get them wrong, who the heck do I go after?
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kj714: The American worker keeps the job but takes the hit.
But the american consumer and an american shareholder gains exactly what the american worker lost. With $30k spare money they will be able to hire another american worker who was unemployed because it was unprofitable to hire him at $60k and they will buy his products at lower price.
Products produced at $30k will be so much cheaper and more competitive, so that we can sell more of them abroad - so we will hire one more guy at $30k to make stuff and sell to foreigners in exchange for more their stuff that we need.
So we have an two extra persons working and producing and the same number consuming.
How could our average standard of living drop?
miko
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So we have an two extra persons working and producing and the same number consuming.
How could our average standard of living drop?
If the first guy has to default on his mortgage the bank loses money. Mulitply this time hundreds of thousands per year and the price of houses comes down, causing other people to default rather than continue to pay a mortgage for a house which is losing value.
Losing jobs to cheap foreign labor is not a bad thing unless it happens at a rate which is too fast for people to adjust to. As a nation we are in debt up to our necks, so we don't have much ability to adjust to lower incomes quickly.
ra
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ra: If the first guy has to default on his mortgage the bank loses money.
Money is just the medium of exchange - we do not consume it. The house is there and someone who bought it at cheaper price would benefit.
Mulitply this time hundreds of thousands per year and the price of houses comes down, causing other people to default rather than continue to pay a mortgage for a house which is losing value.
And wth cheap, more affordable houses on the market, people can accept lower salaries and at lower salaries they become more competitive and the products they produce can be sold cheaper which increases the demand for them and thus production, which increases hiring.
We live worse when we work less or have less capital at our disposal - not when we have more and cheaper products. The reasons we may live worse is when people who could work don't and that is caused by inability of businesses to adjust prices/salaries - due to laws and union contracts.
The amount of money in the economy increases during the upswing causing the prices and salaries to rise. The amount of money decreases during the recession and people just do not have enough money to buy/hire at the last year prices. If they were free to adjust downward as well as upward, there would be much less unemployment. The nominal salaries and prices would jump around but the real wages would not change much.
With current monetary system you must either have prices and salaries going up and down with more or less stable employment and production, or you must have employment and production going up and down with more or less stable prices and salaries.
Second way is much more disruptive and wastefull but the price and wage controls pretty much ensure that is what happens.
Of course the reason why we have cyclical recession and depression is the monetary system that allows the stock of money to fluctuate.
miko
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except many of these "cheap, more affordable housing" that where lost from people not being able to pay the morgage are going to be in ghost towns.
drive through old oregon (or washington, or insert most any state here) logging country.
the mill shut down so the workers lost their job.
they lost their job so they move away in the hope of finding a better one.
then the shops, stores and services begin to go out of bussiness because their customer base has no money.
as these bussinesses begin to close the customers for the remaining bussinesses begin to disapear because more and more jobs are lost as the problem gets worse and worse.
eventually you're left with a town full of boarded up, reposesed houses, with nobody living there but welfare moms (who's family split up when the husband could no longer provide for his family), retired people who have a penson coming in, and a mixed colection of junkies and thieves who prey on the other people.
nobody moves into these towns, the houses sit empty, and the former residents are standing on a freeway onramp with a cardboard sign.
you talk sounds good in theory it just doesn't play out in practice. it's the typical economists pipe-dream, where your heads on fire, your feet are frozen in a block of ice, and your report is "on the average, we're comfortable"
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^^^^
Why that sounds a lot like trickle down economics. But wait! the democrats said that doesn't work! :D
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"If the first guy has to default on his mortgage the bank loses money."
That's just a small piece of the pie. The bank also has pay to maintain the propriety and any taxes that come due while it's in their hands. Also, pay to keep it insured and heated if need be.
Say the bank put up $100k for a house that they now can't unload for $60k. How long will it be before the banks or other money lenders go belly up? CC companys? Any one that defauts on their mortage wont be sending in that monthly payment.
"But the american consumer and an american shareholder gains exactly what the american worker lost. With $30k spare money they will be able to hire another american worker who was unemployed because it was unprofitable to hire him at $60k and they will buy his products at lower price"
BS....Our brave CEOs will get the lions share of the saving in their own pocket. Thanks to the productive bonuses they will now get to cash in, for outsourcing the jobs.
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capt. apathy: you talk sounds good in theory it just doesn't play out in practice. it's the typical economists pipe-dream, where your heads on fire, your feet are frozen in a block of ice, and your report is "on the average, we're comfortable"
I am discussing what would have happened under free market. We clearly do not have free market, so we could hardly expect the results I describe. It is quite clear from my post.
The theory I am talking is not attampted in practice, so you have no way to know if it would play out. It certainly did before.
Maybe there are some some other reasons that a town is abandoned while a new town is created elsewhere where a new factory opens - non-economic reasons.
A price support that makes raw materials more expensive, stifling state raxes and regulations, wage laws, union- friendly workforce - all those things cause companies to create new towns from scratch rather than open it at the existing town.
There may have been good reasons why the original company closed down - the voting and union policies of the town's and state's poulation. So nobody wants to get into the same trouble and the people start spreading out, settling in the new sites and spreading the same scourge that ruined their towns.
Look at California - californians run away to midwest states to avoid stifling socialism and then start voting the same socialism there as well, drive prices up, impose restrictions on building, businesses, raise taxes, etc.
And so it goes.
miko
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Originally posted by Udie
^^^^
Why that sounds a lot like trickle down economics. But wait! the democrats said that doesn't work! :D
Trickle down economics would work if those at the top trickled. Problem with the theory is those making the profits tend to keep them in the bank.
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"But the american consumer and an american shareholder gains exactly what the american worker lost"
As if they weren't the same people? Miko, free enterprise has soundly demonstrated in the past that it will pursue what is seemingly good for it in the short run, ignoring negative long run effects. A job that goes overseas is a job lost now, there is not necessarily a 1 for 1 replacement. Ask anyone who worked for Levi's. You lose your job today, the lowering of prices of goods and services may take several years and may not happen ever at all.
There are several areas of our country that have been affected adversely by jobs going overseas and have not recovered after many years. These areas take an enormous toll on society just in terms of welfare and supporting an out of work labor force which is not factored into the simple equation you put forth. Your argument is eloquent and simple to make and is very often repeated verbatim by global free traders, but I believe that it will be proven wrong over time. Either that or I may have to move to India to find a job.
If I was in poor country I would welcome the changes, being employed in the far wealthier country I believe that this will have an overall negative effect on us.
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Originally posted by SirLoin
I've been laid off since Feb 9..Was getting ready to go back next week when got word we laid off again(I work at Ford)....Don't tell me the economy is picking up.
you at the Oakville plant Sir?
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After reading this thread, I have concluded it's the end of the world !
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In the U.S. you don't have to work for someone else and be strapped w/ the fact that others control your employment destiny.
Being self employed has it's many problems... getting fired/laid off isn't one of them.
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true, but unless you where born to well-off parents you have to find a job that pays enough to live on and set aside enough to get a bussiness off the ground.
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Took me 13 years of driving other peoples trucks before I had the money to buy my own.
So start up capital is key.
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Hey Nuke!
Look its LAwcobr er I mean Mrblack!!
His parents must be out on the town late tonight? Isnt past a 12 year olds bed time?
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Originally posted by GtoRA2
Hey Nuke!
Look its LAwcobr er I mean Mrblack!!
His parents must be out on the town late tonight? Isnt past a 12 year olds bed time?
Maybe you should sober up you really are making a fool out of yourself.
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Originally posted by LAWCobra
Maybe you should sober up you really are making a fool out of yourself.
At least he can sober up and he'll be better in the morning
:rofl
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Originally posted by rpm371
Trickle down economics would work if those at the top trickled. Problem with the theory is those making the profits tend to keep them in the bank.
:cool:
In an especially encouraging sign that companies are feeling more confident in the staying power of the recovery, they boosted investment in equipment and software in the fourth quarter at a sizable 15.1 percent annual rate. That was stronger than the 10 percent rate first estimated and was a main factor in GDP being revised upward for the fourth quarter.
(http://ak.imgfarm.com/images/ap/thumbnails//ECONOMY.sff_NYET261_20040227094205.jpg)
AP) America's economy, bolstered by brisk business spending, grew at a healthy 4.1 percent annual rate
Source: "US Ecomony up 4.1%"-- http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040227/D80VLQLO0.html[/b]
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true, but unless you where born to well-off parents you have to find a job that pays enough to live on and set aside enough to get a bussiness off the ground.
So start up capital is key.
Yes, but many people fail to realize that there are many ways to acquire venture capital. I saw my job coming to an end and spent time trying to figure out what people in a paticular industry needed, thought of an idea... took me two months to put it together. There's lots of $$ out there to be had. One just has to find a product/service that people need... getting the money is easy(relatively) from there.
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WTG Steve! I've always wanted to do my own thing, just haven't had the guts to give up the security of my employer for the great unknown. It's that old equation greater rewards = motivation + acceptance of greater risks.