How about the government emposes salary caps on companies? Then the execs would have to do some endorsement deals for more money.

I'd buy some Eugene McQuade Nikes

So am I to understand that this guy has been around Fleet long enough to be the one who screwed all the full time Fleet employees and turned it in to a souless giant that actually doesn't want to deal with individual people as customers?

Someone help me understand this.

Executive A comes into Widgets Inc. and cuts 10,000 jobs. When he's done, the company has lower fixed costs, is still able to provide the same or better level of service to its customers, and this is thought to be a bad thing?

If the jobs were not necessary to provide the appropriate level of service to customers, I'd be pissed as a shareholder if he DIDN'T cut them.

Sure you can argue the level of service isn't the same, but if that's the case then it stands to reason customers would leave, and Widgets Inc. would either hire enough back to provide the previous level of service, or eventually go out of business.

Christ, I don't understand some of you people.

So, he, their Fearless Leader, sees that BOA is going to buy them out, takes the money and runs, and watches those who followed him get sh*tcanned.

Leaving a stronger company for the tens of thousands remaining. Again, if those who followed and then were sh*tcanned were absolutely necessary, they wouldn't get sh*tcanned, then, would they? Or should they all keep their redundant job and the combined bank should double it's fees?

Please. Enlighten me.

Bob_Laublaw

Well, heads of household returning from WWII could, in general, support their families on one salary. How many people do you know in single-earner households that can make ends meet today? Someone already posted a link to a great article on the growth in income disparity between the rich and poor. Read it.

/shake your head out of your arse
//hates condescension

Knock-knock. Who's there? BofA. BofA who? Bofa deez nuts in your mouth.

/Had to.

If he negotiated the deal, then he deserves the cash. People who depend upon a pension in their old age need to get a reality check. Companies don't care about the employees as much as they do for the bottom line. Own your own company or do something else. Don't depend on your job, you are only setting yourself up to fall.

The stockholders and the leading executives made a killing.

It was the jobs at Fleet that they killed.

But, hey, as long as the big investors make big money, who really gives a damn about the workers, right? There's plenty more 'sheep' where they came from.

My company has BoA as tenants, and our corporate banking is through Fleet.

The former is obnoxious, the latter is incompetent.

(/hugs Ernst & Young, teh best tenant evar!)

PawisBetlog

Someone help me understand this.

Executive A comes into Widgets Inc. and cuts 10,000 jobs. When he's done, the company has lower fixed costs, is still able to provide the same or better level of service to its customers, and this is thought to be a bad thing?

If the jobs were not necessary to provide the appropriate level of service to customers, I'd be pissed as a shareholder if he DIDN'T cut them.

Sure you can argue the level of service isn't the same, but if that's the case then it stands to reason customers would leave, and Widgets Inc. would either hire enough back to provide the previous level of service, or eventually go out of business.

Christ, I don't understand some of you people.

THANK YOU!

No Gecko yet? You people disappoint me...



/greed is good

guess this thread: the headline is completely wrong, the comments quickly wandered away from the article and never looked back. a handful of people are convinced ayn rand (a.k.a. dumb biatch) would approve of the banking practices in question, and weaver95 has convinced two or three people to pick up TF accounts.

//didn't RTFA or the comments, just the headline and a couple names as i scrolled down. how did i do?

From Hot_Sauce's link from TIME magazine

The typical CEO now makes $301 for every $1 paid to the typical employee. That's up from $42 to $1 in 1982.


So, during the past 22 years, CEOs have gotten 7.1667 times better? I think they reaped the benefit of the productivity gains from the computerization of the workplace. All those greedy farkers should turn around and give that extra money to Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, those are the guys responsible for the expansion of the economy over that span.

The rising tide may lift all boats (almost everyone who wants cable TV here can get it now, and obesity is our current problem, not starvation), but it looks like some of the boats are lifting alot faster than others.

Thanks to Bush, this guy will pay a lot less taxes than he would have a few years ago. That means he has more money to spend on you, the chumps.

See? Trickle-down economics really works!

-There has to be a limit on the rate at which the uber-wealthy earn money, else what is the incentive to do good things next year if this year you made a a hundred million dollars?

--Who gets to set the limit, and based upon what formula?

I would be arbitrary, just like so many things are, like the age to get a driver's license.

The reason there has to be a limit to how much money can be made in a year is this; imagine in your job you can pull shenanigans and make off with some of the company's money yet if you are caught you'll get arrested. I would bet that most people wouldn't bother trying for only a hundred bucks but as you add zeroes to that amount, more and more people would try, and once you get into the millions, I doubt many wouldn't try. The greater the incentive, the greater the chance that illegal crap will go on to make money so by capping the maximum amount anyone can net, it cuts down on the BS stuff and hopefully makes those in charge of companies take a more long term view.

http://www.fact-index.com/y/yo/you_have_two_cows.html

Corporation, American:
You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when the cow drops dead.

feepness let's face reality.

If each of these people make $40K/year

What bank do you know that pays tellers 40,000?

*shameless BoA plug*
BoA being Bank of America....
and note: I do not work for BoA, I just have free accounts there.

Fact #0: I have free accounts with no minimum balance.
Fact #1: I have had an account with BoA since my bank (Seafirst) merged with them.
Fact #2: I online bill pay for free and can access my accounts from anywhere with internet and 3 multidigit numbers. (for free)
Fact #3: I do not pay for my account, checks, money orders, talking to tellers, talking to atms, talking to the bank manager, my safety deposit box or anything else.
Fact #4: The 3 times that I deposited money one day and used the account the same day, and they overdrafted me; I went in to my bank, waited for a bit (5 minutes?), spoke with the manager for like 12 seconds (with my statement in hand) and had the charges removed.
Fact #5: BoA has GIVEN me 'freebe' shuff for nothing. $50 to sign up for a CC that i have set at a $0 limit. $5 to open a safety deposit box that I don't pay for and use. & some retarded BoA marked goodies that I trashed. :)
Fact #6: They have offered to match any loan I can procure with any other bank in this zip code.
Fact #7: I have a home loan with BoA in excess of 30k and thats why they 'gave' me all this and more that I can't even think of.
Fact #8: So long as BoA is in existance, and they don't try anything crazy, I'll stick with them.

So, I ask you... What exactly is wrong with banking with BoA?
-
John

Bank of America bought out a local chain here in Florida a few years ago. Then they started charging for parking in their lot on Sundays.
I pulled all my accounts on my next day off and redeposited in a locally-owned bank.

"I for one welcome our new corporate overlords"

No feepness, don't be absurd.

But, according to the circular logic that "business is business" the largest organism should eat all the smaller ones until it is the only one left. This dosen't strike me as being a very healthy dynamic. Further, The failure of a company is no longer a failure for the investors and leaders of the company, just all the little 'sheeple'. So a CEO can, these days, go from company to company going, "Oops! That didn't work! Oh well." (*FLUSH*) And no one of importance is upset or put out by this.

RTFA, socialist morons. This guy had been with Fleet a long time. BoA was probably just honoring the contract he had with Fleet - there's usually a clause in contracts handing them off to "all successors or assigns", in this case, B of A. Also notice that he is one in a long line of managers to leave after being acquired by BoA... $10 says he was asked to leave as to avoid pissing matches for power at the top.

2004-05-25 06:57:31 PM Weaver95
You credit me with more influence than I actually have. I'm just a guy with a regular fark account and an opinion. No different than anyone else here.


it appears after reading the comments that i was wrong about most of my sweeping generalizations. the headline was wrong and the comments fairly unrelated, but the rest was kinda off. maybe next time i should just assume my stereotypes are correct and not try to verify them...

No feepness, don't be absurd.

But, according to the circular logic that "business is business" the largest organism should eat all the smaller ones until it is the only one left.

I haven't been remotely absurd. And I said nothing of the kind about "eaten until there's only one left". That has nothing to do with this particular case. He worked at Fleet for a long time. He did something good for the shareholders and remaining employees. He left. He got paid well. Good on him.

Funny, it seems you were just complaining that there was no possible way to justify all the layoffs...

Uhh, I said no such thing. I don't know where you're getting this...

Would you rather have to lose some of your fingers, or lose your head because it would be unfair to allow the fingers to decay unattached to your body?

Sorry, this analogy doesn't work...

All the players here have said digits intact. If there's any money being lost, it's a drop in the bucket compared to how much BOA/Fleet is slogging around.

They should have fired the guy. With NO severance package. And if they REALLY were worried about some kind of traceable money flow, again, I say, they could have hired some troubleshooter in the interim.

Don't put words in my mouth, Sid...I've already spelt it out for you...

A quote comes to mind.


"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."

Right Jake, that's the "engineering" part of the process.
'You honor all of our severances packages, and the executives of this company will cut you a good deal.

See, everybody* wins!

(*the people that matter.)

Bob_Laublaw

Rudely suggesting you shake your head free was an after thought and does not a diatribe make. Sorry.

I mean that the 'greed is good' crowd ignores that within a free market those who are not greedy enough eventually begin to see their entire vision of America and the American dream(whether based in reality or not) crumble as they sink into debt and poverty. Looking at the statistics in the Time article linked above you can see how much things have changed in the past 50 years as far as the gap between rich and poor is concerned. If we keep going like this we will eventually see another revolution, hence a America will become a literally different country. Sorry if my post was vague, but next time you can ask for clarification without the virtual headshaking.

Hey Weaver, let's go to the sarin flamewar K

"You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when the cow drops dead."

We're not surprised. It's part of our business model.

When the cow drops dead, we chop her up, wrap it in Suran, then sell it to you and your family.

We're only suprised that you actually eat it.

When "doing well" becomes the antithesis of "doing good" then yes, I have a problem with that.

It's only a matter of time before everyone in the US is working for the government in some capacity (either desk job or military), on welfare, or in some piddly-shiat minimum wage slavery. Every other job is going overseas. Manufacturing, IT, tech support, they're all going bye-bye because it's cheaper to do it there than here.

/crackpot

2004-05-25 07:06:00 PM Nanookanano


Right Jake, that's the "engineering" part of the process.
'You honor all of our severances packages, and the executives of this company will cut you a good deal.

That "good deal" has to be approved by the shareholders, asshat, people at least as avaricious as the executive in question. The deal has to be fair or it won't fly.

Why do hard-core capitalists always assume that the only alternative to capitalism is socialism? Are those really the only two economic systems that ever did or ever will exist? I find that hard to believe.

Take into account the costs of land, electricity, the buildings the employees are working in.

Why should I? Those are GIVENS. Should this information be hung over our heads as employees?

NO. It's their investment. I'd still be making 25,000. No way you're gonna tell me I'm making 40.

And it isn't like said company can't WRITE IT OFF on their TAXES, or receive some other kind of corporate break.

Sorry, I just don't buy into your vision, and it's disquieting to me that YOU do. Are you in some kind of similar position of power, Sid that you make such apologies?