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IBM says 'several thousand' layoffs on the way

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Re: IBM says 'several thousand' layoffs on the way

#71

Post by TheCondor »

jacquesm wrote: post #10
pesenti wrote: post #2

So does that mean we can finally stop listening to Cringely altogether? I am an IBM employee and I can tell you a lot of my fellow IBMers had a really bad week-end because of his ridiculous claims. For context see previous discussion on the 110000 employee layoff that won't happen: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8944637

I think for an error of this magnitude some kind of apology would be in order. If he can't manage that he's lost a lot of credibility.

An apology would restore credibility?

He's long had some sort of issue with IBM, I'm not sure what the source of it is, but regularly he publishes sensational articles about them with little or no basis in reality.

It this is far enough off base to warrant their response, I'd say the only way he'd gain any credibility is to list his sources and also make his investments clear. Is he buying puts on ibm?

What it looks like to me is that he heard a rumor about some cuts, not unusual and it sounds accurate. He elaborated it into a gigantic story of his creation. I expect better from Forbes.

Re: IBM says 'several thousand' layoffs on the way

#72

Post by ThomPete »

swatow wrote: post #63
dragonwriter wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would be a good thing because following the principal of maximizing profits is what is most socially beneficial, in the absence of externalities. "In the absence of externalities" is a pretty enormous qualifications -- very few real world exchanges have no externalities. > Such a framework exists and is called general equilibrium theory, which predicts that profit maximizing companies maximize social utility. It…

Externalities don't invalidate the entire theory, they just mean that adjustments have to be made in the cases where there are externalities. Hence my emphasis on the fact that a person losing their job is not an externality. I think you read my sentence as "(following the principal of maximizing profits is what is most socially beneficial) in the absence of externalities" where what I meant was "following the princi…

It is an externality when they don't get it back or loose income to keep it. And that is in reality what is happening.

Re: IBM says 'several thousand' layoffs on the way

#73

Post by aswanson »

alexqgb wrote: post #37
egwor wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't feel that an apology cuts it anymore. We have so many sources of complete garbage. Imagine if this was what caused the significant drop of the IBM stock price (on the 21st) Could we create a blacklist of sources that just aren't credible that we can just filter them out? e.g. Sky News. Perhaps negative weighting won't work; perhaps we should add a credibility weighting for respected works (web sites, or autho…

That, most likely, was the point. A few months ago, Marc Adreessen credited the proliferation of this kind of market manipulation with the demise of the IPO. In his view, a company as well established as IBM can roll with punches like these, but (for reasons he describes in some detail) fledgeling companies can't. So they stay private until they're big enough to fend off the hedgies who make money by planting and fan…

That's interesting...Ben Horowitz said he suffered the same types of attacks from hedge funds; they'd spread a false rumor and because he was under some type of regulatory restriction, he couldn't correct the record unless he simultaneously updated all his institutional investors at the same time. He had to let the rumors ride out...and he only had a 90-100 million market cap. Somebody has to reign in these useless zero-sum fucks.

Re: IBM says 'several thousand' layoffs on the way

#74

Post by swatow »

ThomPete wrote: post #72
swatow wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Externalities don't invalidate the entire theory, they just mean that adjustments have to be made in the cases where there are externalities. Hence my emphasis on the fact that a person losing their job is not an externality. I think you read my sentence as "(following the principal of maximizing profits is what is most socially beneficial) in the absence of externalities" where what I meant was "following the princi…

It is an externality when they don't get it back or loose income to keep it. And that is in reality what is happening.

That's not what is meant by an externality in economics. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

Re: IBM says 'several thousand' layoffs on the way

#75

Post by 31reasons »

stavrianos wrote: post #48
jacquesm wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize you're talking about 110k people losing their income? Including dependents (averaging 2.4 / wage earner) that means this would affect ~ 250K people plus those laid off so 350K people. Funny definition of a 'good thing', there is more to life than stocks.

I inferred a "for IBM" on the back of that sentence. Obviously, shitty for those laid off.

IBM is not a live entity it is composed of people.

Re: IBM says 'several thousand' layoffs on the way

#76

Post by ThomPete »

swatow wrote: post #74
ThomPete wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is an externality when they don't get it back or loose income to keep it. And that is in reality what is happening.

That's not what is meant by an externality in economics. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

I am aware of what is meant by externality in economics however economics have a lot of blind spots, the consequence of technology being one of them which makes it an externality for exactly that reason.

Re: IBM says 'several thousand' layoffs on the way

#77

Post by Gustomaximus »

trhway wrote: post #28

The correction is coming, and companies are starting to lay off people (like EBay doing "restructuring"). Some companies do global office "optimization" - i.e. completely closing offices in some countries/locations. Given that IBM commented on such a "baseless and ridiculous" claim puts a lot of foundation under it. Obviously not all the 100K at once. After all laying off people in Germany is completely different pro…

> The correction is coming, and companies are starting to lay off people.

In the last 3 companies I have worked for over 10 years this seems to happen every 6 to 12 months. Restructuring or right-sizing as HR love to call it is a fairly standard thing these days as companies search for optimal profitability. Every company I have worked for preaches employee loyalty in their mantra but I've never really seen it.

Re: IBM says 'several thousand' layoffs on the way

#78

Post by swatow »

ThomPete wrote: post #76
swatow wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what is meant by an externality in economics. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

I am aware of what is meant by externality in economics however economics have a lot of blind spots, the consequence of technology being one of them which makes it an externality for exactly that reason.

ok so your point is that when technology creates long term downwards trends in the value of labor, anything that decreases the value of labor can be thought of as an externality?

Redistribution can counteract this effect. If productivity increases but it also increases inequality, then there is some level of redistribution that will correct the inequality while making everyone better off (in the sense that the number of people earning more than X increases for all X). Not exactly a theorem, but a rough consequence of general equilibrium theory. You might claim that this kind of redistribution is impossible, but there are countries (e.g Scandinavia and Aus/NZ/Canada/UK) that redistribute a lot more than the US.

Re: IBM says 'several thousand' layoffs on the way

#79

Post by mpyne »

swatow wrote: post #63
dragonwriter wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would be a good thing because following the principal of maximizing profits is what is most socially beneficial, in the absence of externalities. "In the absence of externalities" is a pretty enormous qualifications -- very few real world exchanges have no externalities. > Such a framework exists and is called general equilibrium theory, which predicts that profit maximizing companies maximize social utility. It…

Externalities don't invalidate the entire theory, they just mean that adjustments have to be made in the cases where there are externalities. Hence my emphasis on the fact that a person losing their job is not an externality. I think you read my sentence as "(following the principal of maximizing profits is what is most socially beneficial) in the absence of externalities" where what I meant was "following the princi…

> Externalities don't invalidate the entire theory, they just mean that adjustments have to be made in the cases where there are externalities.

Are your adjustments the epicycles upon epicycles hammered onto ancient astronomy's theory of mechanics to make the orbits of the planets appear to work? Or are they like the relatively slight adjustments to Newton brought about by Einstein?

I personally feel that any discussion of sociological issues cannot be reduced simply to linear optimization problems, which implies the former view for me.

Re: IBM says 'several thousand' layoffs on the way

#80

Post by fluffheadsr »

stavrianos wrote: post #48
jacquesm wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize you're talking about 110k people losing their income? Including dependents (averaging 2.4 / wage earner) that means this would affect ~ 250K people plus those laid off so 350K people. Funny definition of a 'good thing', there is more to life than stocks.

I inferred a "for IBM" on the back of that sentence. Obviously, shitty for those laid off.

this guy is whats wrong with corporate america.. screw you and your cubicle..
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