So what does America do for the workers who get screwed?

[Le Jacquelope]

These employees didn't have a choice - what were they going to do, work for someone else who wouldn't even have hired them? These jobs don't exactly grow on trees.

Maybe we should bail these workers out as well as the companies?

http://www.clusterstock.com/2008/9/99-of-lehman-s-leh-employees-about-to-get-royally-screwed

99% of Lehman's (LEH) Employees About To Get Royally Screwed (LEH)
Henry Blodget | Sep 11, 08 10:54 PM

Like other Wall Street firms, Lehman Brothers (LEH) pays employees partially in stock: anywhere from 10%-60% of annual compensation comes in the form of shares and/or options. Now that Lehman's stock has dropped to its lowest level in more than 10 years (with a drop the rest of the way possible), most of the value in those equity grants has disappeared.

The Wall Street Journal estimates, in fact, that Lehman's employees have collectively lost $10 billion. This is painful. What makes it even more painful is that most Lehman employees had absolutely nothing to do with it. As at Bear Stearns, Lehman's implosion was the fault of a tiny group of folks:

* Senior managers--especially Dick Fuld
* Risk managers

That's it. Everyone else at the firm did their jobs.

The small group of employees that destroyed the firm basically made two mistakes:

* They took way too much risk (loading the balance sheet up with assets that have since plunged in value--and borrowing too much money to buy them)
* They were way to slow to respond to the downturn.

These mistakes sank the Lehman ship. Those who made the mistakes are paying a huge price (Dick Fuld, for example, has lost about $650 million). But unlike the rest of the firm's employees, they could have headed off the disaster. They didn't, though--and now, 24,000 other employees are going down with them.

 

[DarlingVivacia]

Well it will start as it began: public/private (cough) partnerships. The gov't will meet with some still wealthy individuals (think the B's: Bloomberg, Buffet, Bill, Brin) and ask them to kick money into some sort of foundation/fund that can be used to retrofit the infrastructure of our aging cities. And the retrofit will focus on green solutions. Think installation of solar panels and green roofs, redesigning subways systems to be more energy efficient etc. The work will take a lot hands and will provide many many jobs.

At the same time these displaced workers are going to need emotional support, what with their way of life having changed dramatically. So the government will offer tax credits to independent workers in the healing services (massage therapists, social workers, acupuncturists, psychologists). These folks would probably offer their services anyways, but this way the government can recognize their efforts and in doing so VALUE the kindness of others and the spirit of volunteering.

These efforts will need managers, designers, strategists, scientists, accountants in order to function effectively.

A beginning maybe. Idle hands is idle hands...

 

[Magistermilitum]

This is what happens when the guild system is abandoned. Instead of proud, well-paid, united craftsmen, we have unskilled, underpaid, unprotected industrial workers.

 

[Liar]

These employees didn't have a choice - what were they going to do, work for someone else who wouldn't even have hired them? These jobs don't exactly grow on trees.

Maybe we should bail these workers out as well as the companies?

http://www.clusterstock.com/2008/9/99-of-lehman-s-leh-employees-about-to-get-royally-screwed

1. Did Lehman get bailed out? I thought they weren't.

2. In those companied that DID get bailed out, FM & FM and what else, what did the bail-out mean? I thought it meant that the company kept on running. Including keeping employees to run it.

So what do you mean with the thread title? Employees lose their jobs all the time, not due to them being bad workers, but because of bad management decisions. HP just downsized by a gazillion people. Because of failed market and competition assessment, mostly.Same thing, pretty much. A few executives and a small group of "experts" were incompetent, so HP didn't respond to the changes in the market quickly enough.

So your question is not about Lehmann Brothers. Not really. But about a social safety net for people in general who lose their jobsl. And what WOULD you want America do for workers who get screwed? Pump in coprorate welfare into every company that is forced to lay off employees who don't deserve to lose their jobs?

 

[Le Jacquelope]

1. Did Lehman get bailed out? I thought they weren't.

2. In those companied that DID get bailed out, FM & FM and what else, what did the bail-out mean? I thought it meant that the company kept on running. Including keeping employees to run it.

Ah, actually I meant the CEOs get bailed out by their golden parachutes. I went a little too far to achieve brevity.

I'd be in favor of forfeiting ALL their pay in this situation and giving it back to the employees.

So what do you mean with the thread title? Employees lose their jobs all the time, not due to them being bad workers, but because of bad management decisions. HP just downsized by a gazillion people. Because of failed market and competition assessment, mostly.Same thing, pretty much. A few executives and a small group of "experts" were incompetent, so HP didn't respond to the changes in the market quickly enough.

The reason I'd be in favor of stripping them of their wages is leaving the employees out in the cold means they will spend almost nothing back into the economy as a result. That stimulus package did hold back the blood tide for a bit; this would be about the same thing for those workers.

So your question is not about Lehmann Brothers. Not really. But about a social safety net for people in general who lose their jobsl. And what WOULD you want America do for workers who get screwed? Pump in coprorate welfare into every company that is forced to lay off employees who don't deserve to lose their jobs?

I say we would form the safety net from the CEO and board of directors' paychecks.

 

[xssve]

I was thinking the other day that if I had been an analyst at Lehman or any of these other companies, I'd have already been fired long ago - I expected a meltdown in the mortgage market a long time ago, and I would have mentioned it, I'm quite sure, and I sincerely doubt this sort of "negative attitude" would have, or was encouraged at any of these firms.

I only wonder why it took so long.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

I was thinking the other day that if I had been an analyst at Lehman or any of these other companies, I'd have already been fired long ago - I expected a meltdown in the mortgage market a long time ago, and I would have mentioned it, I'm quite sure, and I sincerely doubt this sort of "negative attitude" would have, or was encouraged at any of these firms.

I only wonder why it took so long.

A lot of chicken littles, big and small, are being vindicated this year. I was also one of them.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

What did the employees at Enron get?

What about the retirees who had Enron stock?

What about the people who'd invested their life savings in WorldCom, the Bernie Ebers bubble?

There's an ethical problem here. Ideally, if you're going to share in a company's profits, you have to expose yourself to a company's risks too. In reality, an employee has no real choice in the matter. He can't tell the CEO they're over exposed in the subprime market.

As things stand now, the worker is quite simply screwed.

 

[Liar]

Ah, actually I meant the CEOs get bailed out by their golden parachutes. I went a little too far to achieve brevity.

Alrighty then. The but the government is not giving the CEOs squat. The CEOs are skimming that off their companies. Fairly or unfairly so, involving the goverment in the question gives it a dimension it really doesn't have.

Maybe you should ask instead: Can and should we ask more in terms of social resposibility towards laid off employees from the employers?

And then also: How do we ask that of a company that just imploded?

I say we would form the safety net from the CEO and board of directors' paychecks.

A nice thought, I agree. But a handful of exec parachutes is pretty damn marginal compared to the lost wages of 25 000 employees. It looks bad, and is ethically questionable. But "Robin Hood"-ing it would be more of a symbolic gesture of fairness than any tanglible help for the laid off workers.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Alrighty then. The but the government is not giving the CEOs squat. The CEOs are skimming that off their companies. Fairly or unfairly so, involving the goverment in the question gives it a dimension it really doesn't have.

Maybe you should ask instead: Can and should we ask more in terms of social resposibility towards laid off employees from the employers?

I say we should. Failure to do so puts more of the burden of supporting these employees on the taxpayers. Or dealing with the businesses that close down when employees buy less.

And then also: How do we ask that of a company that just imploded?

Like I said, tap the CEOs. Or start making them contribute to an "implosion" fund ahead of time when they reach, say, 500 employees.

A nice thought, I agree. But a handful of exec parachutes is pretty damn marginal compared to the lost wages of 25 000 employees. It looks bad, and is ethically questionable. But "Robin Hood"-ing it would be more of a symbolic gesture of fairness than any tanglible help for the laid off workers.

Consider it a fine to the CEOs for the economic damage they are causing.