When a corporation lays off thousands of workers

[phrodeau]

You're mixing apples and oranges. Did Travolta's employers lay off a ton of people?

Of course not. They're all still making the same movie over and over again.

 

[Ham Murabi]

You're mixing apples and oranges. Did Travolta's employers lay off a ton of people?

Same principle. The investors took it in the shorts. They lost money. Who's looking out for them?
What about other people in the movies. Are their reputations tarnished by being in a clunker? I think so. Who is going to make them whole?
You are willing to to take people to task who made bad decisions that impacted other people in a bad way. It's the same thing.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Same principle. The investors took it in the shorts. They lost money. Who's looking out for them?
What about other people in the movies. Are their reputations tarnished by being in a clunker? I think so. Who is going to make them whole?
You are willing to to take people to task who made bad decisions that impacted other people in a bad way. It's the same thing.

You're not listening, as usual. The principle I am talking about is that thousands of people lost their jobs in the process of Citibank giving its former CEO a golden parachute. It's not the same principle because your example does not have the issue of mass layoffs.

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

Do you want bbq sauce to go with that crow?

*laugh*

Crow?

You haven't managed to put forward a coherent defense of your own hypocrisy. Until you do, the only crow on the menu is on your plate Le Jackass.

You said, as I have told you for nearly a year now, that using an excuse of "they did it / said it first" was childish. Yet you use exactly that defense when your own use of ethnic slurs and threats of violence are pointed out to you. "I only use slurs and threats in retaliation" is no different at all than "They did it first!".

Both being the excuses put forward by children and not accepted by reasonable adults for bad behavior. Unless of course you're defending your OWN actions. you have once again condemned yourself in the process of trying to berate a perceived enemy.

This is why you will forevermore be called "Le Jackass".

 

[Ham Murabi]

You're not listening, as usual. The principle I am talking about is that thousands of people lost their jobs in the process of Citibank giving its former CEO a golden parachute. It's not the same principle because your example does not have the issue of mass layoffs.

OK, OK. So the studio is in dire straits and puts it all on the line with Travolta. The movie bombs, the studio closes and people are out of work.
Someone has got to pay! That's all I'm sayin'.
And I'm sure you agree.

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

OK, OK. So the studio is in dire straits and puts it all on the line with Travolta. The movie bombs, the studio closes and people are out of work.
Someone has got to pay! That's all I'm sayin'.
And I'm sure you agree.

Maybe the government should go after those evil Scientologists. I'm sure Travolta donates most of his pay to them anyway. Why go after small fish?

 

[Ham Murabi]

Maybe the government should go after those evil Scientologists. I'm sure Travolta donates most of his pay to them anyway. Why go after small fish?

Well said.
I wonder what happened to all those CEOs at buggy whip factories 100 years ago. I'll bet they got their golden parachutes, too, and Congress couldn't be bothered to get involved.

 

[Ham Murabi]

I just had a scary thought. What if the CEO modernized his plant so that he could lay off 100 people, keep 200 employees and make the product cheaper so more people could afford it?
I think Congress should look into that, too.
How about it, LT. Shouldn't that CEO be punished in some way?

 

[Le Jacquelope]

*laugh*

Crow?

You haven't managed to put forward a coherent defense of your own hypocrisy. Until you do, the only crow on the menu is on your plate Le Jackass.

There isn't any hypocrisy to defend.

You claimed that I wouldn't want that rule applied to me, and I explained to you that I did. What's at issue here is that you're a lying sack of shit, but to you that's a badge of honor, Altwife McGunface.

You said, as I have told you for nearly a year now, that using an excuse of "they did it / said it first" was childish. Yet you use exactly that defense when your own use of ethnic slurs and threats of violence are pointed out to you. "I only use slurs and threats in retaliation" is no different at all than "They did it first!".

Now you're going off topic.

Both being the excuses put forward by children and not accepted by reasonable adults for bad behavior. Unless of course you're defending your OWN actions. you have once again condemned yourself in the process of trying to berate a perceived enemy.

This is why you will forevermore be called "Le Jackass".

You don't really care about what's childish and what's not. All you care about is making up any rule you can, out of thin air, to go after me.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Maybe the government should go after those evil Scientologists. I'm sure Travolta donates most of his pay to them anyway. Why go after small fish?

Actually, the Government has far better reasons to go after Scientologists:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Snow_White

 

[Le Jacquelope]

I just had a scary thought. What if the CEO modernized his plant so that he could lay off 100 people, keep 200 employees and make the product cheaper so more people could afford it?
I think Congress should look into that, too.
How about it, LT. Shouldn't that CEO be punished in some way?

Let's apply a relevancy test to your inane argument, shall we?

Has Citibank announced the layoffs of 21,000 people because of plant modernizations?

No? Oh shit. Then your argument is irrelevant! Oh noes!

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

Actually, the Government has far better reasons to go after Scientologists:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Snow_White

Done and finished..

Are you saying that they US Government should continue to prosecute Scientologists for the crime in perpetuity? Maybe they should just round up all of them and toss 'em away for crimes of the past.

Hell, it was good enough for those "white invaders" in Africa who were justifiably killed for the sins of their fahers and grandfathers. At least in your mind. Using the same logic, all Scientologists should be prosecuted for the crimes committed decades ago.

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

There isn't any hypocrisy to defend.

You claimed that I wouldn't want that rule applied to me, and I explained to you that I did. What's at issue here is that you're a lying sack of shit, but to you that's a badge of honor, Altwife McGunface.


Now you're going off topic.


You don't really care about what's childish and what's not. All you care about is making up any rule you can, out of thin air, to go after me.

We'll be adding hypocrisy to the list of words that you don't know the true meaning of.

It wasn't my rule Le Jackass.

You said yourself that using that excuse was childish. You don't want your rules applied to yourself, you've stressed time and again how justified you are in fighting "fire with fire" both in referring to your use of ethnic slurs and now in making threats against others.. Yet you deny that option to anyone else.


http://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/images06/jackalope.jpg
Hypocrite: Hypocrisy is the act of condemning another person, where the stated basis for the criticism is the breach of a rule which also applies to the critic and of which the critic is in breach to a similar or greater extent. A person engaged in hypocrisy is called a hypocrite. (see above photo)

Sorry, but pointing out your idiocy isn't off topic in any thread you participate in. It's the main topic of every one of them.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Done and finished..

Are you saying that they US Government should continue to prosecute Scientologists for the crime in perpetuity? Maybe they should just round up all of them and toss 'em away for crimes of the past.

Hell, it was good enough for those "white invaders" in Africa who were justifiably killed for the sins of their fahers and grandfathers. At least in your mind. Using the same logic, all Scientologists should be prosecuted for the crimes committed decades ago.

Nope. My point is, it's highly likely that they're still at it in some way or another. They were hardly anywhere nearly as badly punished as acts like this warrant.

At the very least, they should be denied their "tax-exempt nonprofit" status for what they're doing now. Hell, they already are denied in other countries - such as Germany.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

We'll be adding hypocrisy to the list of words that you don't know the true meaning of.

It wasn't my rule Le Jackass.

You said yourself that using that excuse was childish. You don't want your rules applied to yourself, you've stressed time and again how justified you are in fighting "fire with fire" both in referring to your use of ethnic slurs and now in making threats against others.. Yet you deny that option to anyone else.


http://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/images06/jackalope.jpg
Hypocrite: Hypocrisy is the act of condemning another person, where the stated basis for the criticism is the breach of a rule which also applies to the critic and of which the critic is in breach to a similar or greater extent. A person engaged in hypocrisy is called a hypocrite. (see above photo)

Sorry, but pointing out your idiocy isn't off topic in any thread you participate in. It's the main topic of every one of them.

KRCummings: Do you want someone who doesn't know you telling you where to put all your money and not giving you a choice?

Ulaven Demented: Of course this should never apply to him.. None of his rules do.

We were talking about the rules I proposed in THIS thread, which involve "someone who doesn't know you telling you where to put all your money and not giving you a choice",

and I said I would certainly not mind being held to that rule. So, your argument that "none of my rules should apply to me" is DEAD WRONG.


As for your arguments about fighting fire with fire, here is a simple reason again why you are an idiot.

It is okay to call someone a racial slur when they hurl one at you first.
It is not okay to threaten someone when they have not threatened you first.

Those are my rules. There's no hypocrisy in that, AltWife McGunface.

 

[Trace_Element]

Are you saying that if CEOs, for instance, are allowed to make only 40 times as much as the average worker, and aren't allowed to make 600 times as much - namely, if much LESS than 10% of corporate profits are siphoned away by top dogs - that a company's going to go under?

Dude, we're talking about 10% of a company's profits going to a handful of people. It stinks like a Sicilian pizzo job. It's legal highway robbery. Reduce that 10% overhead to 5% and give the company an incentive NOT to give out golden parachutes during times of hardship, and they may bleed LESS money, not more.

No, not at all. I wasn't referring to CEO pay at all there. I think CEO's are incredibly overpaid. INCREDIBLY. Making an assload of money if all fine and good, but an outgoing CEO making hundreds of millions of dollars is obscene to me. As for not giving them the golden parachute, especially if they are being "forced" to resign or retire, I am with you.

 

[Trace_Element]

She is a girl.

Who the hell are you and where did you EVER get that idea?
Sorry, folks, the self-proclaimed great one is truly off base on that one...100% male, all day, every day here.

 

[Shagly]

isn't it time that we start levying huge, HUGE fines against the people at the top of that company's food chain?

Fining the CEO and management for such drastic hits on our economy is barely a drop in the bucket for what we'll need to get those laid off workers re-employed - which will have them paying tax revenue again, a net plus for our economy - but it's a start.

It's time for corporations to start making amends for when upper management's shitty decisions cost America a ton of jobs and tax revenue. If you wanna do business in or with America, then you stop fucking up like this.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080115...p&printer=1;_ylt=AiPpNfcWrgx6uRG8U13QSORv24cA

Citi loses almost $10B, slashes dividend

By MADLEN READ, AP Business Writer 41 minutes ago

Citigroup Inc. lost almost $10 billion in last year's final three months, the largest quarterly deficit in its 196-year history, and slashed its dividend and 4,200 jobs as it recorded a mammoth write-down for bad bets on the mortgage industry.

The nation's largest bank wrote down the value of its portfolio by $18.1 billion and said it was setting aside $4 billion to cover U.S. consumer credit defaults. It signaled further problems in its consumer businesses as deflated home prices, high energy and food costs, and rising unemployment weigh on people's ability to keep up with their payments.

The reduction of 4,200 jobs in the fourth quarter is in addition to 17,000 layoffs announced in the spring, and chief financial officer Gary Crittenden said during a conference call that more job cuts would be on the way.

Chief Executive Vikram Pandit, who replaced Charles Prince in December, said the fourth-quarter results were "unacceptable", and that he was "not yet finished" in his review of whether any of the global bank's core operations need to be cut or sold.

To bolster its capital, the bank also said Tuesday it has lined up $12.5 billion in new investments from sovereign wealth funds and existing shareholders.

That includes $6.88 billion from the Government of Singapore Investment Corp. for a 4 percent stake. Other investors were Capital Research Global Investors, Capital World Investors, the Kuwait Investment Authority, the New Jersey Division of Investment, shareholder Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia and former chief executive Sanford Weill and his family foundation.

The $12.5 billion in fresh equity adds to the $7.5 billion that Citi got in November from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority in exchange for a 4.9 percent stake in the company.

Citigroup's shares, which were trading around $55 a year ago, fell $1.98, or 6.8 percent, to $27.08 in morning dealings on Tuesday.

The loss for the quarter totaled $9.83 billion, or $1.99 per share, compared with earnings of $5.13 billion, or $1.03 per share, during the same quarter a year earlier. Citigroup's revenue fell to $7.22 billion, down 70 percent from $23.83 billion in the final quarter of 2006.

Citigroup said the 41 percent cut in its quarterly dividend to 32 cents a share from 54 cents — along with the Asian investments and a stock offering of about $2 billion — will help boost its Tier 1 capital ratio, a measure of its financial strength. But it will also dilute the value of shareholders' stock.

Financial companies have been the highest dividend-paying sector in the stock market, but many — including Washington Mutual Inc., National City Corp. and the government-sponsored lenders Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae — have pared those payouts in recent months.

Citigroup's decision to cut its dividend and seek new cash from outside investors was widely anticipated on Wall Street after months of scrutiny over the bank's deteriorating operations. The biggest was Citigroup's bad bets on mortgage-backed bond instruments called collateralized debt obligations. It also was forced to bring $49 billion in hemorrhaging funds known as structured investment vehicles onto its books.

Over the past several weeks, Asian funds have been buying up the battered stocks of struggling U.S. banks. Early Tuesday, Merrill Lynch said it will receive a total of $6.6 billion from the Korean Investment Corp., Kuwait Investment Authority and Japan's Mizuho Corporate Bank — in addition to the $4.4 billion it has already gotten from Singapore's state-run Temasek Holdings.

Pandit said Citigroup would continue to sell "non-core" assets. The bank has already sold shares in Redecard, a card business in Latin America, and an ownership interest in a unit of the Japanese brokerage Nikko Cordial it bought last year.

Citigroup's $18.1 billion writedown was significantly wider than the $6 billion writedown it took in the third quarter last year, and bigger than the $8 billion to $11 billion it guessed in October that it would take for the fourth quarter.

Citigroup said as of Dec. 31, it had a total of $37.3 billion in direct subprime mortgage exposure, down from $54.6 billion three months prior.

It was not all bad news for Citigroup, as the bank recorded record results in its international consumer, transaction services and wealth management segments.

But the bank's strengths were not nearly big enough to offset its weaknesses.

Citi's full-year net income for 2007 fell 83 percent to $3.62 billion, or 72 cents a share, versus a year ago.

___

AP Business Writer Stephen Bernard contributed to this report.

Do mass layoffs and just outsource the jobs or even better pull a corporate bankruptcy after getting resources sent underground.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Do mass layoffs and just outsource the jobs or even better pull a corporate bankruptcy after getting resources sent underground.

Then yank their right to do business in the US.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

No, not at all. I wasn't referring to CEO pay at all there. I think CEO's are incredibly overpaid. INCREDIBLY. Making an assload of money if all fine and good, but an outgoing CEO making hundreds of millions of dollars is obscene to me. As for not giving them the golden parachute, especially if they are being "forced" to resign or retire, I am with you.

Ham Murabi does speak well for the paranoia of the Radical Right, though.

They're actually afraid that such a law would ding CEOs indiscriminately. No such thing has happened but then again Democrats aren't that stupid. The USSR, on the other hand, was (which is part of why they're not around anymore).

If you're an officer/CEO, or sitting on the board of directors, and you oversee a major layoff that coincides with a write down or bankruptcy, you should be made to contribute to job retraining.

ANYONE who sends jobs overseas, for any reason, should pay even a very high premium for retraining.

People who sell stuff here that's made in sweatshop countries ought to have an AUTOMATIC job retraining tariff tacked on.



Companies will pay those fees - after all, they do DESPERATELY want not to be locked out of selling goods to the US market. They'll pay whatever tariff that get slapped on their asses. The sweatshop countries would shrivel up and nearly die if we started sinking their ships before the goods got here. What does the US have to lose with "retaliatory" tariffs? We import far more than we export.

But like I said, bringing the hammer down like this would be nearly impossible because of all the corporate bribery money that would flow into Congress to oppose it.

 

[BoringAdonis]

You're not listening, as usual. The principle I am talking about is that thousands of people lost their jobs in the process of Citibank giving its former CEO a golden parachute. It's not the same principle because your example does not have the issue of mass layoffs.

You're such a big, strong, handsome man. Let me rub your shoulders and listen to your words of wisdom. Mmmmm.

 

[Shagly]

Then yank their right to do business in the US.

Now stop making sense, your scarrie.

 

[TurdFergeson]

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/images/a_merry_corporate_christmas.gif

 

[Le Jacquelope]

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/images/a_merry_corporate_christmas.gif

And you wonder why the Republicans are so unpopular?

 

[TurdFergeson]

And you wonder why the Republicans are so unpopular?

Look up "wages vs. corporate earnings".

You'll notice an extreme lopsidedness.

Especially when factoring in cost of living increases.