A profit of $1.9 billion.

[pnjsurferpoet]

Microsoft, the software maker, reported profit of $1.9 billion. Does the more pro business environment of the US translate not only into more profits for Microsoft, but more jobs? Or are the rich just getting richer?

[Clandestine]

Jobs in the tech sector are being slashed faster than ever on both sides of the Atlantic pnj. Profits are the only thing that corporations give a damn about, so yes the rich are getting richer.

[dantheman]

I know a lot of fellow IT Workers that are unemployed.
I encourage everyone to never purchase a Microsoft product, instead copy it or download it from kazaa.

[pnjsurferpoet]

In the US the big story is how the big corporations are shifting well-paying jobs to India where people are paid less. Is this a valid criticism and a reason for high unemployment in IT?

[dantheman]

Shifting jobs to India is being done in the UK as well, I think BT are doing which says to me that it's all about profits not jobs.
I'm not sure it's a reason for high unemployment in IT, their are many reasons for that, it's not just the IT Industry where this is happening.

[pnjsurferpoet]

So here's the question: how do you regulate companies so the public benefits without hurting profits...which also prevents them from hiring people.

This is complicated and confusing.:confused:

[dantheman]

Put a limit on how much work they can outsource abroad?
I think if they're gonna employ people in India then they should be forced (quite rightly ) to pay them the same wage, that would soon stop them doing it.

[pnjsurferpoet]

that sounds good.

[Clandestine]

What is needed is merely the political will (which itself would be a monumental task to obtain given all the special interest money used to bribe politcians) to establish a convention covering both North American and European markets.

The convention would stipulate that multinationals would heceforth be required to give a significant percentage of the revenues they exploit from society back to those societies they operate in. This would have to be in measurable and concrete ways that benefit the social, economic and environmental development of those areas.

The penalty for merely paying lip service to such responsibility would be a concerted freeze on that company's access to both US and European markets (which make up the bulk of most multinationals' profit base) until such time as they demonstrated compliance.

additional trade conditions needed would be a safeguard against wholesale workforce reduction merely to enhance profits, which would begin with applying the japanese model of capping the remuneration packages for senior execs and CEOs.

If CEOs werent being paid such ungodly sums into the millions of dollars, there would be more than enough money to maintain workers at lower echelons of the corporate scale.

all in all we need a fundamental rethink of our corporate culture which forces corporateions to be about more than the "bottom line". They must be a force for equitable and constructive enhancement of society, since society provides them with the befits they enjoy.

[pnjsurferpoet]

If CEOs werent being paid such ungodly sums into the millions of dollars,

very big news here on that all year and it probably has affected how many people are going to put their money into stock....espspecially when often CEO's who lost their company millions still got paid bonuses in many cases.

[monocrat]

Originally posted by pnjsurferpoet
Microsoft, the software maker, reported profit of $1.9 billion. Does the more pro business environment of the US translate not only into more profits for Microsoft, but more jobs? Or are the rich just getting richer?

Well Mr. Gates can reinvest that money if he chooses, as well as give it to the company's shareholders of course.

[monocrat]

Originally posted by dantheman
Put a limit on how much work they can outsource abroad?
I think if they're gonna employ people in India then they should be forced (quite rightly ) to pay them the same wage, that would soon stop them doing it.

Average wages differ from country to country.

Foreign companies may pay Indian workers a good wage by Indian standards.

[Whowhere]

but the results is that workers at home lose their jobs, while the ceo's get paid millions of pounds each year. It's disgusting.

[Aladdin]

Exactly. Look at the Dyson company. They could hardly be richer, yet they move their factories abroad in order to make even MORE profit, out of pure fucking greed.

Companies that do such things should be heavily penalised by the government.

[Clandestine]

In such cases AL, the convention which I suggested elsewhere would require such a company to pay even larger portions of their ill gotten revenues to their new host country to compensate for moeny they think they are saving by casting aside workers, or else forgo all access to lucrative Western markets for their goods.

That would nip this practice in the bud right quick and force the corporate world to completely rethink its greed driven ethos in favour of one which is more constructive and humanocentric.

[monocrat]

Originally posted by Whowhere
but the results is that workers at home lose their jobs, while the ceo's get paid millions of pounds each year. It's disgusting.

So?

If that foreign investment was coming here you wouldn't complain would you............

[Aladdin]

Difference being perhaps that companies that invest here are in most cases expanding operations, not moving them in order to make even more profits.

Perhaps if the CEOs of the companies that engage in such practices were kicked out of their jobs (some would suggest put against a wall and shot) others would think twice before putting greed and profits before people.

[monocrat]

Who says companies don't expand operations in third world countries?

One of the reasons that foreign investment increased in the UK under Thatcher was the fact that British workers were then (on average) paid lower than on the continent.

[Aladdin]

Sometimes they do indeed expand operations. But sometimes they move shop just to pay cheaper wages and amass even bigger profits- which is exactly what Dyson has done.

Steps must be taken so such moves are not repeated in the future.