While our friends and neighbors continue to die, fighting and killing in the name of a freedom that hardly exists anymore, corporate extremists around the world continue to pillage and plunder our economies unopposed, robbing us of what little freedom we have left.
Alcatel-Lucent, the world's second-largest telecoms equipment maker, said today it would axe 12,500 jobs or 15% of its workforce after posting severe net losses and a steep decline in sales in the fourth quarter.The Franco-American group, merged late last year, faces the immediate threat of industrial action over the redundancies, with French unions calling a strike for Thursday next week.
Alcatel-Lucent issued a profits warning last month and initially said it would axe 9,000 jobs, prompting a series of downgrades on its shares.
It made a net loss of €618m (£413m) in the final quarter of 2006 compared with a profit of €381m in 2005, with sales down 16% to €4.4bn from €5.25bn.
Pat Russo, the US chief executive, said the results were "clearly disappointing" after declaring operating earnings of €1bn for the full year compared with €1.4bn in 2005.
She said revenues this year would be up about 5% -in line with the sector.
Oh, boo-hoo - only 5% profit - what's a poor corporate terrorist to do?
Why - cut thousands of jobs, of course! Let the plebians eat the loss!
The group, whose US business almost went under during the 2001 dot-com collapse, said the new restructuring would save €1.7bn over the next three years - and cost as much to implement.
Am I the only one who sees something grotesquely perverse in this statement?
But some analysts believe the costs will be higher, especially as the job cuts may be even higher.
Of course, all these declared 'costs' are measured in their filthy, fraudulent, and corrupt dollars - not in the sweat, blood, and tears of all the families that will be destroyed in the process.
Alcatel-Lucent, which began life on December 1, also has unfunded pension and healthcare liabilities of around €5bn.
ARRGGHH!!!!
This is precisely the kind of corporate fundamentalism that is destroying our planet!!!
CORPORATIONS ARE NOT ALIVE!!!!!
THEY DO NOT LIVE!
THEY DO NOT EAT!
THEY DO NOT BREATHE!
Corporations are just corrupt figments of our collective imagination!
But, who's listening, right?
Analysts said funding could be hard, with a capital-raising exercice [sic] the most likely option.
Read: bond and interest orgy for moneylenders.
Jean-Pascal Beaufret, finance director, said that "the fourth-quarter does not reflect the benefits of the tie-up between Alcatel and Lucent and the growth potential of our company today"."We have suffered from tough trading conditions, namely in North America as many of our clients there are consolidating ... so when they merge they delay certain investments."
They're waiting for everything to become dirt cheap when they pull the financial rug from underneath US.
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