randomWalks

hey zagg, how's it going?

I was curious about something, and I mean this in total sincerity.

where did you get the information that they are track to earn over $4 billion in profits?

Last year's earnings reports show tat they had at least that much of a loss, with income being at about $6 billion, but about $27 billion in debt, and 47 billion in long term debt.

In fact, that's probably the answer to your questoin.

I don't know about $4 billion in profit (though it doesn't sound unreasonable with quarterly sales around $16 billion), but I think that the reason they don't want to have 70, 000 employees is because they're running a gargantuan debt load, and there aren't many ways to eliminate that. (all ideological positions aside): if you eliminate the debt through selling off the company assets, you risk losing any ability to pay any employees.

That's just what it looks like from here, but, if you can help me figure out current information on profit, that would help make things clearer.

I think, without much ability to predict the future, that we may be seeing a rise in health care costs no matter where we work. Health care insurance providers have been reluctant lately to cover the risks embedded in insuring workers of any stripe. In fact, even very high paying executives have lately been paying for their own health care out of pocket, because the margins are so narrow, especially after the attacks on Washington and New York.

Anyway, this isn't a lecture, or anything. Most of those layoffs are voluntary, and retirement, and higher paying jobs, it seems. at verizon, that is.

It's an interesting development economy-wide. we do pay for everything nowadays. that's a great little plan: we pass the savings on to you! Or, so says the corporation. Ting! :)

Verizon Investory Resources has all of their recent financial statements. From Jan-March of this year, They had about 1.6 billion dollars in cash flow and 1.2 billion dollars in investments and operating costs, leaving 400,000 dollars in profit. But these documents are difficult to read so questions like this cannot be answered.

All of Verizon's financial statements are available as well.

Verizon 2002 net income via Hoovers Online. And they've said in both the Q1 and Q2 reports that they're on track to meet or exceed 2002 levels. Thus, the $4B estimate.

Moreover, even with much less profits there's no argument for concessions. I forget the exact estimate, but if you took Verizon's CEO pay + bonuses, that would cover the benefits costs for something like 80,000 of Verizon's 240,000 employees. (Only about 75,000 of the employees are unionized. That stems from the merger a few years ago that gave Verizon control of the company in the North).

I think, without much ability to predict the future, that we may be seeing a rise in health care costs no matter where we work.

Exactly. Unless we do something to fight that.

But there's absolutely been a big rise in health care costs everywhere. It's been at the heart of every contract negotiation the last couple of years. In non-unionized workplaces the increases are simply imposed.

Anyway, this isn't a lecture, or anything. Most of those layoffs are voluntary, and retirement, and higher paying jobs, it seems. at verizon, that is.

That's not really true. The people they tried to layoff a few months ago (that they had to re-hire after the arbitration hearing) all had three years or less experience. One of the demands in the contract is Verizon wants the right to layoff anyone with less than 10 years experience.

The way positions have been eliminated up to now is through the means you listed above. But going forward they're seeking the right to layoff huge sections of the workforce--something they don't currently have.

Oh. Here it is on Verizon's site. The net income line: $4.079 B.

David,

That's just the wireless division's results you linked. Verizon's got domestic, international, wireless, local and long distance.

Zagg, I agree that they shouldn't be laying people off, but Net Income and Profits are not the same thing. On the balance, they've definitely been losing money.

But considering the performance of the company, the executive compensation is absolutely outrageous. I've long that a 'maximum wage,' (of say, five million dollars) would be an idea that most Americans (regardless of political affiliation) could get behind. But it wouldn't help us towards a goal of abolishing all private property.

David,

Huh?

Net income does equal profit.

That's its definition last I checked.

Find on Verizon's balance sheet a line that says "profits."

It doesn't exist.

You're right that I linked to the wrong site, but net income is not purely profit. I don't really remember the details (go vegan might), but that number is more or less to deceive. The definition changes all the time, and it's usually much higher than actually profit.

But accounting aside, we agree. Check out their balance sheet, Verizon has $167 billion in cash & assets. They shouldn't be laying people off. If the service in NYC is any indication, they should be hiring 70,000 more people!

Did I hear my name? My memory from my Close Business Arrangements class is that "net income" or "profit" equals revenues minus expenses. Your expenses include salaries and other necessary expenses, so if you pay your top dogs enough money, your business can have no profit for the year.

and, to add to Go Vegan's point:

Many businesses are also undergoing one time expenses, charges that really cut into their bottom line.

It may be that Verizon is undergoing a government imposed charge, which they won't list in detail. It may also be that Verizon--and other companies--do not actually predict an increase in profit. I've been talking to some people offline about the business models being run in large corportations, as well as the end of the swell of re-financing and new home loans, and the bludgeoning going on in the treasuries, and most people have consented that we can expect this market to drop dramatically in August and September.

Now, from a business perspective, Verizon may be predicted to lose a ton of money in contracts and in sales. I am a betting man, by nature, and I would bet that this is true.

I would also bet that since yesterday and today the federal reserve pumped "the largest amount of money into hte economic system, EVER" on Wednesday and today, that the economists among us are predicting a complete reversal in investment in treasuries and bonds.

So many companies have huge debt that all this money pumped into the system is an attempt to erase that debt. If the Fed wasn't doing this to shore up the system, you can absolutely guarantee that the number of businesses going bankrupt and laying off people would be far greater than it is today. Just some food for thought...

Federal Reserve Board Money Pump

That's not what it's called, but that's what they are doing.

Yes, Doug, I get it.

You'd bet anything other than the idea that Verizon's execs are greedy bastards and that breaking the union is a strategy they're choosing to do ... not a necessity.

And, even if the company is not as profitable as it claims, again I see that your side is that it is better to extract concessions from workers rather than from execs who've pulled down hundreds of millions in salaries and bonuses and options in just the last five years.

I get it.

You are a sarcastic bastard, aren't you?

My point was, first, to ask you a simple question.

My other points were to bring some economic data into the mix.

And that's it. I thought it would be helpful to know that the fight is going to get a little more extreme. But you know that, don't you?

You've got your finger on the pulse. You are in the KNOW. You can't stand it when you bring only your side into a situation and when someone else wants to bring other data into it, or to extract more of a precise explanation into the conversation.

Man, why don't you just chill out?

But all the stuff you had in that last post was pretty much speculation. Yes the refinancing market has begun to crumble. But wasn't that utterly predictable? It was another bubble to begin with.

But what struck a nerve is that regarding Verizon you were guessing about "charges they won't list in detail." And you're "betting" on Verizon losing "a ton" of money on contracts. You're just throwing stuff out there that has a sole intent, it seems, to provide Verizon cover for the shit they are trying to pull.

It seems like your points in general are all about providing rationalizations for the cutbacks and attacks that are being mounted now. But these attacks are not an extension of the economic situation. It's all part of a systematic 30-year attack that we've been at the bottom of. This was mapped out a long time. It was a conscious strategy.

Business Week, Oct. 12, 1974 : "It will be a hard pill for many Americans to swallow--the idea of doing less so that business can have more.... Nothing that this nation, or any other nation, has done in modern economic history compares in difficulty with the selling job that must be done to make people accept the new reality."

But that's exactly what you're doing.

You're trying to sell the idea that we should do less so that Verizon--or whoever--can have more.

The tone of your remarks is that we should be grateful, for some reason, that only 3 million people have been laid off the past few years.

Your tone is that we should be grateful that the cuts aren't deeper. Your tone is that the guys on top are looking out for us little guys. Some of us have to take our lumps, gosh dang it, but overall, they're doing the best they can.

Well fuck that shit. This is not our crisis. It's their crisis. And we should not sit nicely and twiddle our thumbs because of an economic crisis they are responsible for. We should not be happy that there's less layoffs than there could be. It's pretty damned bad as is. It's the worst fucking stretch of job losses since the Great Depression.

A section of people got real fucking rich in the late 1990s based on pixie dust in one hand and millions of us working our asses off in the other while most of us stayed the same or even lost ground. And now the party is over and we're being asked to pay for it?

No. Absolutely fucking not.

I'm reacting to you providing a cover for that.

I'm pissed off by the fact that you seem not to be.

Be pissed.

I am doing none of those things that you list above.

If it pleases you, by all means continue to turn all data and information into

a. an attack against your interests

or

b. a sign that I don't care, I don't have compassion, I don't know what I'm talking about, I'm not trying to bring more information into what can be a fruitful discussion.

And please don't assume that you know what I feel or what I intend. You don't. YOu won't. I do not feel like sharing with the likes of you.

I guess one thing is true. I am trying to rationalize. I think it's helpful, not to give Verizon credit, but to peel back layers of the information to see what's there.

Not to occlude or to avoid.

Continue.

I agree with you 99%, zagg, but in that 1%, what I've been trying to say (but not clearly) is that those numbers are irrelevant. Even today, Verizon can make there profits out to be whatever they want, either by not expensing options or by driving up executive salaries (like go vegan said). There are thousands of other tricks (as I know you know). So that's why I'm saying that their Net income is not their real Profit. But definitely, they're robbing the poor to pay the rich. Even the act of laying someone off is an "expense" which could be a means to fixing their Net Income line item.

Gwen has inspired me to annotate my comments with CNN graphics. Here's one: Laying off workers for America.