Come again?
Posted on 09/21/2005 9:18:39 AM PDT by Pikamax
FRANKFURT, Sept. 19 - A day after German voters split at the polls, tipping their country into political paralysis, Siemens, the industrial titan, announced Monday that it would cut 2,400 jobs in Germany.
It was the latest of several such housecleanings by German companies, underscoring the sharply divergent paths that German government and industry are taking as they confront difficult economic questions.
The election, which left no party with a mandate to form a government, is widely being interpreted as a rebuke to efforts to overhaul Germany's economy. Whichever party finally emerges with a workable coalition, experts say, it is likely to think twice about tackling the German welfare state.
Siemens, Germany's largest engineering company, said it had no choice but to make painful cuts. It is phasing out the jobs, in its computer-services unit, as part of a push to reduce costs by nearly $2 billion.
"Only successful companies create jobs and security," Klaus Kleinfeld, the chief executive of Siemens, said in a conference call with analysts and journalists.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Good pressure on the non government -- perhaps there will be a coalition with CDU, Free Democrats and ugh Greens. That makes exactly 50% a slim gov't.
With the possible exception of the medical base, the other military bases in Germany should be closed.
So by definition, if he is cutting jobs, thereby making others insecure--Siemens is unsuccessful.
Perhaps they should fire the exectives?
I'd volunteer to run the company into the ground for half of what he's making.
Full Disclosure: Carly Fiorina destroyed tens of billions of dollars of shareholder value as CEO of Lucent and HP. And she took home tens of millions in severance package. Goodness only knows what she'd have been paid if she really screwed up.
AGREEEEED! That should have happened YEARS ago. Leave the retirees access to Comm/PX and medical. All else is gone. I heard that Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia want those bases BAD! Nicer people and area as well.
Who wants to bet that Seimens, who recieves lots of fat subsides from the Schroeder government, didn't want to make this annoucement until after the elections to keep any of those workers from voting for the opposition or adding fuel to the fire to kick Schroeder to the curb by German voters.
Employees have hard time swallowing Siemens job cuts. Say they feel like they're just being spit out
You don't know the half of what Fiorina did at Lucent. There's the small matter of boxcars of circuit boards that Lucent had on their books as being sold. She had them put on box cars, and then parked those boxcars in the middle the desert somewhere so that they could show the inventory as being shipped.
The problem is that the heat in those cars got high enough to ruin every single product in those cars. This was just one example of pre-Enron book cooking at Lucent.
My source was very highly placed at Lucent. Saw it all first hand.
Siemens Shrugged...
Perhaps she should stand back and let Schroeder ride the country all the way to the bottom and that way she can be ready to take over when it finally gets through to the people.
And there are still people around who wonder why American businesses aren't competitive anymore? The business model is totally screwed up. Hard-working employees have their jobs offshored to Bangalore, have to train their replacements, and as a reward all they get is the gate. Yet CEOs run those companies into the ground and as a reward they get a few tens of millions to sock away. Somebody tell me something isn't wrong here. This cult of the CEO, the tendency to worship corporate fat-cat CEOs as God, has to go (especially among those on FR who seem prone to it).
My opinion is because German citizens are living in a parallel universe where the US IS the great Satan and their welfare benefits can go on forever.
"This cult of the CEO..."
Yes and yes.
I am not a fan of class warfare however nobody is worth million dollars a year. The problem is the incestuous nature of corporate boards which perpetuates the cult. It should be illegal for any executive officer to sit on the board of another company.
Agree completely. If you want to make the big bucks, fine, perform and we'll pay you.
If, as CEO, you don't perform, then you make zero. To me, that's incentive. Consulting companies is what I do for a living and most CEO's are quivering masses of incompetence. The answer to how to run their business can be on marble tablets found at the base of a burning bush, yet the CEO doesn't have the stones to pull the trigger.
VC's certainly understand the CEO compensation model - most demand that the business owner in question have a lot of their own money tied up in the deal. Nothing like having a wolf at your door.
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