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My Position On The Disney Layoffs

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Re: My Position On The Disney Layoffs

#141

Post by dspillett »

yourapostasy wrote: post #111
dspillett wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's definitely possible to work for a for-profit company and still care personally It is certainly possible, and usually very much appreciated (sometimes even rewarded) in the short term. Just don't expect it to make much difference to how you are treated over the longer term. The company won't forget that you are an employee and you shouldn't either. Heck, a company with shareholders is practically legally oblige…

> Heck, a company with shareholders is practically legally obliged to... You are spreading the myth of a US (and most nations, for that matter) legal obligation (the term of art is "fiduciary duty") of profit maximization to shareholders. Please read the following. http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/8146/are-u-s-com... http://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/06/26/the-shareholder-va... https://hbr.org/2010/04/th…

That is why I said practically rather than literally. It depends how scared management are of shareholder action (or, more cynically, how willing they are to use that thought as an excuse for what they wanted to do anyway).

Re: My Position On The Disney Layoffs

#142

Post by talmand »

exelius wrote: post #70
talmand wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would somewhat disagree with the thought that technology is not Disney's core competency. Technology is a really, really big deal for Disney and has been for a long time. It is a major part of their day-to-day across the entire company and they are quite competent at it. They didn't hand these tasks over to someone else because they were somehow better at it or Disney's people were incompetent. I simply cannot beli…

Technology is not their core competency, marketing is. All of their technology would be far less valuable without Mickey, Elsa and Cinderella plastered all over it. Their C-suite may have decided that their technology department was too expensive and the needs of the business could be adequately served by an outside firm. Quality likely didn't factor in to the decision; so long as it was good enough to not be a roadb…

But what are they marketing? It isn't just their characters and movies. Disney is huge and the majority of it heavily relies on technology of many types, including their marketing. I would say they don't have a single core competency, it is a multi-faceted company.

Re: My Position On The Disney Layoffs

#143

Post by talmand »

prostoalex wrote: post #90
talmand wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would somewhat disagree with the thought that technology is not Disney's core competency. Technology is a really, really big deal for Disney and has been for a long time. It is a major part of their day-to-day across the entire company and they are quite competent at it. They didn't hand these tasks over to someone else because they were somehow better at it or Disney's people were incompetent. I simply cannot beli…

This is the entity that controls Disney entertainment parks. I can see how in-house software engineering is important for some of their entities like Pixar, for Disneyland/Disneyworld it's hardly core competence.

Except that almost the entirety of the theme parks are run by technology to rival any other part of the company.

Re: My Position On The Disney Layoffs

#144

Post by geebee »

shas3 wrote: post #9
justizin wrote: post #4

"I'm sharing news about it because this experience has taught me the H-1B Visa program needs to change to protect others in the future." Anyone who still supports FWD.us and believes that the US doesn't produce enough professionals to satisfy the needs of our businesses is straight up, while they are reading this, actually holding a crack pipe to their mouth.

Protectionism doesn't work. There is wide consensus among economists on comparative advantage [1]. Healthy, non-protectionist immigration policies have been proposed to have similar effects as free trade [2,3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage [2] http://www.economics.uci.edu/files/docs/micro/s07/Peri.pdf [3] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100008723963904434771045775512...

I think the problem is that occupation-specific visas may distort markets in a way that general immigration would not.

Now, short of open borders in every direction, any immigration system could be seen as a form of protectionism. But an immigration system that allows people to come in as free and full citizens, without requiring them to have a specific academic background or have a job offer from a specific kind of company in a specific kind of position (tech, in this case), would do more to preserve the positive qualities of a free labor market than targeted, industry specific, role specific visas.

Let me give an example of what I mean. Suppose that a country with a large and valuable market has a 100% protectionist tariff on all foreign grown fruits and vegetables. The next day, the government removes tariffs on lemons only. Would that lead to a freer market in fruits and vegetables?

Most likely what would happen is that anyone outside the borders seeking access to that market would start producing lemons, and anyone inside it would seek to start producing something that is still protected by tariffs. Domestic production would collapse, imports would soar.

I think this is essentially what the US has done with IT. We've created very specific visas for a narrow band of roles, under the assumption that there is a "shortage". Open borders are a political non-starter, but we could replace this with a lottery that allows people to come here as free and full participants in the labor market, welcome to choose whatever field they like. This way, tech employers would have to actually compete in a free labor market.

My opinion, like a lot of people here, is that there really is no shortage, in the sense that aversion to tech careers may be very rational when you consider options available to people with the talent to do tech. Without these visas, tech employers would actually have to compete with finance, law, medicine, nursing, and dental hygeine, and so forth to hire workers.

There is no reason immigration would need to subvert this, all we need to do is allow immigrants to come here as free citizens with choice, and not force them to study a particular field or work in a particular job role as a condition of coming here.

Re: My Position On The Disney Layoffs

#145

Post by tanmayb »

djb_hackernews wrote: post #112
exelius wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the author is simply mistaken that H1-Bs are the problem. H1-Bs are limited enough that they can't be responsible for the volume of outsourcing. They also carry salary parity requirements, and while H1-B holders rarely actually make market salary, the savings still aren't enough to prompt a wave of outsourcing. There was a problem at one time with H1-Bs, but the H1-B lottery has become so competitive that i…

> The majority of H1-B recipients these days are foreign nationals who attended American universities, often with masters degrees. Those are the kinds of foreign nationals we want participating in the US economy. most smart companies that use the H1-B visa program only hire those with masters degrees. This does 2 things: - They can first bring them on as "interns" under the F1 visa, which can be extended quite a bit.…

> This creates a nice little loophole where smaller colleges have massive massive STEM programs with an insane majority being foreign students. The students get their foot in the door to play the game and the colleges get paid.

And these foreign students usually take education loans(around $35k on average) back in their countries. So when they fail to get a job after completing MS degree, they go to the same outsourcing firms and work on F1 visa as contractors for substentially lower salaries again with getting their foot in the door mentality. Outsourcing firms know and exploit the strong tendency of these students to avoid having to go back to their countries where salaries would be insufficient to pay back their student loans fast enough.

Re: My Position On The Disney Layoffs

#146

Post by toomuchtodo »

scutfarcuss wrote: post #105
Frondo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Because we (as in "we the people") decide it is so? Remember, the government, and all its laws, derives its power from us, not the other way 'round.

"We the people" decide that it's not worth 30k by refusing to pay $20 for a big mac.

Australia has an appropriate minimum wage yet their Big Mac's don't cost $20.

Re: My Position On The Disney Layoffs

#147

Post by makeitsuckless »

shas3 wrote: post #140
makeitsuckless wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-protectionist would be free traffic across borders like within the EU. Any immigration policy is a form of protectionism. BTW, I find your naive notion of the US as the promised land rather unsettling. Personally, I don't know anybody who would want to immigrate to the US, and especially not for the archaic, exploitative work culture. Yes, this is matter of perspective. But you seem to be lacking any other perspe…

Wow! Gratuitous negativity?

Seriously? I politely object to you pissing all over any country that isn't the US with false claims and I'm being gratuitously negative?

Re: My Position On The Disney Layoffs

#148

Post by fche »

Frondo wrote: post #123
fche wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... but "we" haven't given government the power to micromanage every aspect of our lives.

A minimum wage law isn't micromanagement of our lives.

But by your reasoning, "we the people ... deciding" is good enough justification for government action. There need to be limits on "we the people deciding" other people's affairs - that's elementary.
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