Yesterday in the big wig meeting (his job is ok) the the international ceo said the company was selling more, and making more than they had in a long time.... They have 28 million in the back.. Things are good... But stockholders want something done. So they have to lay off 6000 employees..
Hmm..Let's say these 6,000 employees make 30 grand a year and maybe cost EA another 5 grand annually in benefits. Pretty conservative figures. Laying them off saves EA about, oh say 210 million dollars a year. The 28 million they have right now might get them through next Thursday. I guess they could leave everyone on the payroll until they need bailed out. Then we could blame the short sighted Board pandering to those d***** greedy stock holders for that too.
Who are these stock holders anyway? I wish somebody would point one out to me. I'd give 'em a piece of my mind. I don't own any stock. I just own shares in about a dozen mutual funds and my wife's 401k is in about six more. Oh, and there's the 529 plan for my daughter who's a senior in HS and suddenly I'm down about 25% across the board. All because of the greedy stock holders. Just let me at 'em!
Last edited by overlander63; 11-05-2008 at 09:50 AM.
Reason: fixed quote
Sorry, someone brought to my attention a mistake I confirmed this. It is 600 not 6000 jobs being laid off.... But it still a bit....
SORRY>>>> I will try to get it right next time... I do make mistakes... SORRY>..
But This is still affecting those people, and down the road my brother says he will not be able to do all the work they want his team to do and thus less money for the company...
His team is working on the new Harry Potter game... Big seller...
But EA aside... I hope other companies don't do this.... I hope none of us get laid off... It would effect our camping life... Or make it a permanent camping life....
__________________
Jason
May you have at least one sunny day, and a soft chair to sit in..
Sorry, someone brought to my attention a mistake I confirmed this. It is 600 not 6000 jobs being laid off.... But it still a bit....
Jason, I changed the figure in your first post to reflect the corrected amount. 600 is still a lot, more than the total work force of many companies I've worked for.
Just a reminder to everyone about our "no politics" rule: I know it's going to be tough to respond in this thread without referencing politics, but please refrain from it. Any political finger-pointing will be made to go away.
You know I don't want to sound like I am belittling the situation, because any loss of jobs, particularly for folks currently or soon to be out of work, it's not fun. I too have been there myself. My brother works for national communications and entertainment company, and they are also axing many folks, including my brother's position.
Here is what is important to keep in perspective from the 1000' view.
The economy is similar to a pendulum and historically, at least for the past 3 decades that I have tracked (I was not old enough in the 70s and did no research beyond the 80s), the end of the decades have been slow (recession) and beginning to near mid next decade picks up. It did it in the 80s, 90s and now again in this decade and this one will again spill into the next decade as the others have as well. This particular recession (which I am still dumbfounded that folks could not bring themselves to say the R word 6 months ago) was exacerbated by the fact that deregulation was allowed to happen over the past 2-3 decades. It's not a Democrat or Republican only issue, bi-partisan actions caused the bank meltdown and as the banks went, so did credit, people's ability to buy cars, homes, and then oversupply of the housing market helped bust the real estate market, in the same way the tech bubble burst early this decade. Let's not even get into jobs moving overseas, which also has cause significant issues domestically as well, again allowed and not slowed by bi-partisan politics.
My whole point to all of this is that we go through similar issues every decade. Why on Earth folks don't prepare when there is a feast for the known coming famine hits is beyond me. Then folks act all surprised that we are here.....yet again! For the most part, it's just the normal flow of the economic pendulum. No one party or bi-partisan actions will stop the economic pendulum. No government will save us from every bump in the road. It is up to the individual to weather any storms that come by planning accordingly and if by chance the government can and does help, it's an added bonus. Too many times folks blame government and thought clearly both parties do shoulder some of the responsibility, it's always amazing to me how few folks (read not all) in this country take any responsibility and have these expectations of entitlement.
I know many folks from abroad......and as much as I love this country, as I am sure many of you do, every single one of these folks from abroad says nearly the same thing. These folks expect bad things to happen, we Americans complain when bad things happen. We have nearly everything we could ever want or need at our disposal, whey these other countries have significantly less. It really puts things into perspective, at least for me.
__________________
Computers manufactured by companies such as IBM, Compaq and millions of others are by far the most popular with about 70 million machines in use worldwide. Macintosh fans note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form. -NY Times 11/91
But it seems like Americans in particular, wait for the bad things to happen, and then hit the credit cards.
The American teachings are when you get into trouble, use your credit cards.
The banks love that philosphy.
But, when you get your next credit card statement, then the real truth hits home.
When you read that statement, most people will then say, "now what do I do?"
The only real answer, is like the boy scouts motto. Be prepared, up to and including financial planning, for the unpleasant things that can happen.
Will our plannings always be correct? Probably not, but never give up climbing that ladder to succeed.
We blame scammers, we blame fraud, we blame our city, county, state and federal governments, but the fact remains, that we, ourselves, cause many financial problems for ourselves.
Being laid off a job, is never pleasant, but as the old, old saying goes. never, ever, give up trying to succeed.
Life has it's ups and downs, and most of us have experienced both. Being positive, and wise, is the best medicine there is.
America, is still the land of opportunity, but sometimes those opportunties, are more difficult to find.
When the "international CEO" of the company says the shareholders are unhappy, I wonder where he gets that information? Is he making it up to bolster his argument? Is he figuring out a way he can get a bigger bonus?
These company leaders and financial wizards of the last several years aren't so smart after all, and they tend to do what everyone else is doing. It was a strange kind of fun to see Alan Greenspan tell everyone he couldn't explain why deregulation didn't work. Like sheep, these people are prone to panic and thoughtless statements.
For many years companies have followed the mantra that they must produce every better results every 3 months to satisfy "Wall Street" and blame it on the shareholders. They sacrifice long term planning and the company's economic health. They know when the system crumbles, they will have been rewarded anyway with overblown compensation. Greenspan forget about greed and stupidity of executive sheep. I am a shareholder and always vote against the management to let them know some of us aren't buying into this crap.
Sorry to hear about your brother, Jason. I hope we can get back to the corporate values of a generation ago where executive looked at the relationship between workers and employers and a two way street, a social compact that was based on the fact we are all in this together. Maybe given yesterday's event, we are going to get back to what I always thought were American values.
My brother has worked 7 days a week 14 hours a day even from home to get some games out... any bonus NOPE... I am meeting him in seattle with family this coming week, and he has an Interview with Microsoft... He will take it if it's good... He just can't stomach the way the company treats it's employees
I hope things get better soon... And my wife and I try to treat our 3 employees well....
__________________
Jason
May you have at least one sunny day, and a soft chair to sit in..
After the stresses, financial and political, of the last several weeks maybe this will help.
During this financial crisis in America a lot of people have sold off a lot of their volatile investments and are wondering where to put their money where it will be more secure than the stock market. Ive come across a great business opportunity that sounds like Airstreamers might be naturals to buy into since we are all so flush (at least that is the perception, right?) Anyway, back to the subject.
A group of my acquaintances, called simply, The Associates, are putting together a new operation. Their intent is to find a depressed area and establish a large cat ranch. They are starting small, with about one million cats. Each female cat averages about twelve kittens per year; skins will bring about fifty-cents for the white ones and a dollar for the black, bringing revenues of $18,000,000 per year. This averages out to about $60000 per day, excluding Sundays and holidays.
A good cat skinner can skin about 50 cats per day at a wage of $60 (8 hours X $7.50 per hour). They figure 800 people can operate the ranch so the net profit will be $12,000 per day.
The cat food will be rats, and they plan to start a rat ranch adjacent to each cat ranch. Rats multiply four times as fast as cats and if we start with a million rats we will have four rats per cat each day. The rats will be fed on the carcasses of the cats we skin. This will give each rat a quarter of a cat. You can see by this that the business is a clean operation, self-supporting and really automatic throughout. The cats will eat the rats and the rats will eat the cats, and we get the skins!
Let me know if you are interested and I will tell you more about our investment program. By the way; we are working on a method of crossing the cats with snakes so they will skin themselves twice a year. This idea has fantastic possibilities.
Gene
(My apologies to all you cat lovers out there!)
I would like a few shares of that,has to be better than the other promises
I`ve heard lately.PLUMBER DAVE
I find it interesting that in tough financial times that it's a GAME company that is doing well. Reports like this sometimes make me wonder about our priorities as a country/society.
And while I don't really doubt that these are tough times, there are days when I think "Is money really that tight, if folks can spend so much on games, recreation, etc?"
Dave
__________________ AIR #15800
"Wimpy" 1/2 ton 2002 GMC Sierra 4X4 Z-71 Gasser
2000 Safari SS 25'
I find it interesting that in tough financial times that it's a GAME company that is doing well. Reports like this sometimes make me wonder about our priorities as a country/society.
And while I don't really doubt that these are tough times, there are days when I think "Is money really that tight, if folks can spend so much on games, recreation, etc?"
Dave
I agree....and not that I think a teacher should start out at $70k/year, but it's funny that sports figures get paid on average $100k/yr and a fair number of them barely finished school, if they did at all.
So a teacher makes about $35k/year. Not bad until you try to raise a family with it....mmmm, play pro sports or teach the future generations.....I can't seem to figure out which is more important.
I know, I know, we all make choices.....
__________________
Computers manufactured by companies such as IBM, Compaq and millions of others are by far the most popular with about 70 million machines in use worldwide. Macintosh fans note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form. -NY Times 11/91
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