AT&T's Planning Yet More Layoffs Despite Tens Of Billions In Tax Breaks And Government Favors

from the Charlie-Brown-and-Lucy-football dept

Thu, Jan 10th 2019 6:22am — Karl Bode

Telecom monopolies have a pretty good racket going. They'll consistently demand all manner of tax cuts, subsidies, and other government perks in exchange for A: jobs that never actually materialize, or B: broadband network expansions that somehow never actually arrive. The nation's telcos in particular have received countless billions in taxpayer subsidies to expand their broadband networks, yet time and time again we've shown how they've wiggled out of these obligations, leaving huge swaths of America left outside of the reach of fast, inexpensive, competitive broadband (that's particularly true in poor urban and rural areas).

Yet somehow, we here in America never quite learn the lesson. Case in point: you might recall that in late 2017 AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson told anybody who'd listen that the Trump era tax cuts (which granted AT&T a $20 billion one-time windfall and $3 billion in extra cash every year thereafter) would create upwards of 7,000 new high-paying jobs paying $70-$80k. The CEO also tried to claim that as a direct result of the tax cuts it would be doling out $1000 bonuses to roughly 200,000 employees.

Funny story, but those promised jobs never arrived. AT&T did technically add some jobs, but they were of the dirt cheap, off-shored labor variety. In reality, union data suggests the company cut 10,700 US jobs in the year since Stephenson made his statement. This was on the heels of the 44 call centers and 16,000 jobs AT&T had already cut since 2011. And those bonuses? While employees did receive them, it was later revealed they had already been arranged as part of union negotiations, and had nothing to do with the Trump tax cuts. Even then, they accounted for about 7% of just one year of AT&T's new tax benefits.

Fast forward to this week, when insiders at AT&T informed me that the company is planning yet another round of significant layoffs at the company as it attempts to pivot from grumpy old telco to sexy new Millennial advertising company:

"A source at AT&T who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak publicly told Motherboard that company leadership is planning what it’s calling a “geographic rationalization” and employment “surplus” reduction that will consolidate some aspects of AT&T operations in 10 major operational hubs in New York, California, Texas, New Jersey, Washington State, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, and Washington, DC. A spokesperson for AT&T confirmed to Motherboard that it is planning to “adjust” its workforce."

AT&T downplayed the scope of the layoffs in my conversations with the company, but employees tell me they believe that as AT&T consolidates its network workforce in these key cities, a significant number of employees will lose their jobs if they're outside of this footprint and unwilling or unable to relocate. While AT&T informed me the layoffs would only impact a "very small" number of employees, we should be able to fact check that claim in a few weeks or months when the cuts are made official.

On one hand, you can understand that a company flush with antiquated copper landlines might need to streamline its roster as it refocuses on streaming video over wireless. On the other hand, this is not the future AT&T promised in the wake of not only receiving tens-of-millions in tax breaks, but the incalculable billions it stands to make courtesy of the attack on net neutrality and FCC authority. The moves closely mirror similar ones made by Verizon, which responded to the huge cash influx not with hiring or raises, but with a massive, 10,000 employee workforce reduction.

About five years ago even the Wall Street Journal was forced to concede that throwing tax cuts at giant telecom monopolies never actually nets the job and investment promises the companies and their well-lobbied lawmaker pals claim they will. Everybody knows these kinds of perks go right into executive and investor pockets, yet every few years we engage in this adorable little stage play where we pretend these kinds of telecom subsidies, tax breaks, and deregulatory favors actually aid the common good, despite the fact history repeatedly shows us that's never been, nor will ever be, actually true.

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Filed Under: favors, jobs, layoffs, tax breaks
Companies: at&t

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Greevar (profile), 10 Jan 2019 @ 6:33am

I think the simple reason this happens repeatedly is because they are only accountable to shareholders who don't care about anything other than a favorable quarterly report. These companies need to be held accountable to the stakeholders at large if they want to receive anything from the government. It only stands to reason that they should be obligated to adhere to conditions attached to every handout they get and face serious consequences when they fail to follow through on their end. Otherwise, they behave like spoiled children that get no punishment when they drop their pants and shit on the living-room rug.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2019 @ 6:38am

Best Government Money can buy .
It's America you expect the peasants
to stand up and revolt ???????
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2019 @ 6:41am

Re:
Yea need some Yellow Vests over here for sure .
I think there's around 800,000 or so free at the moment
but guess they would rather wait for someone else to do something less they have to do something for themselves
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2019 @ 6:42am

Knowing AT&T,they'll want more government funding to pay for getting rid of staff! And knowing how those in Congress have continuously took money individually from AT&T, they'll give it!
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Baron von Robber, 10 Jan 2019 @ 6:54am

Swamp the drain!
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Coyne Tibbets (profile), 10 Jan 2019 @ 7:14am

Trickle down
This is kind of like the final repudiation of "trickle-down theory," proof that nothing trickles down.

"You give me $10, I give you back $1," has never worked. The sick part is no one would fall for this in a face-to-face game. But greedy assholes managed to convince a generation of politicians that it would work.

Yet more proof that politicians are all idiots. If you needed any more proof.
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Baron von Robber, 10 Jan 2019 @ 7:20am

Re: Trickle down
Trickle down is really tinkle down.
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'Dirt-napper, 10 Jan 2019 @ 7:32am

Re: Hello, "Greevar"! Back after 30 month dirt nap!
And as characteristic of Techdirt's zombies, not a hint of two and a half year absence, let alone explanation.

That's because it's inexplicable EXCEPT as astro-turfing.

How many of the comments here are real? How long has this been going on? It certainly explains the uniformity of opinion.
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stderric (profile), 10 Jan 2019 @ 7:34am

Re:
AT&T in 2020:

Thanks to $1 trillion in tax breaks and government windfalls, we're proud to announce that we've managed to fire everyone. In fact, to meet our target we had to re-hire 10,000 former employees just so that we could double-fire them.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2019 @ 7:37am

Re: Re: Hello, "Greevar"! Back after 30 month dirt nap!
How many of the comments here are real?

For one, none of yours, AT&T fanboy.

Next time wipe the damn corporate cum off your chin, nobody needs to see that shit.
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Drunk Uncle Sam, 10 Jan 2019 @ 7:39am

Re: Re: Hello, "Greevar"! Back after 30 month dirt nap
TD nanny complains about the lack of comments, no one cares, no film at eleven.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2019 @ 7:42am

Re:
I have heard similar comments from the uninformed and wonder wth are they trying to do? What does the word revolt mean to you and why are the crowds in the streets not meeting your expectations?
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Drunk Uncle Sam, 10 Jan 2019 @ 7:46am

Corporate subsidies need to stop.
The only time government should help industry is when it is in the nation's best interest and that does not include the lining of one's pants with the hard earned efforts of folk who struggle every day while corporate laughs it up at lavish cocktail parties trading stories about how they screwed over the little people.
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Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 10 Jan 2019 @ 7:47am

Re: Re: Trickle down
Followed by a shitstorm washed down with more urine, where the liquid waste are the tax cuts and the solid wastes are the layoffs and lack of network improvement.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2019 @ 7:51am

I'm always against giving any company Tax cuts. It's not fair and unamerican. Everyone and every company should be EVEN. All paying the same percentage of taxes. Lower it for one, it should be lowered for everyone.

Everyone should pay the same tax rate and all the loopholes should be closed.
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David, 10 Jan 2019 @ 8:24am

Bad headline.

AT&T's Planning Yet More Layoffs Despite Tens Of Billions In Tax Breaks And Government Favors

There is no connection here. They owe it to their shareholders to make the most money. Cutting jobs is one way of making money. Telling the government lies and promises in return for money is another. They have nothing to do with each other as long as we are talking about job promises and not contractually mandated job guarantees or hard marketing pressure. And even those don't count as long as the penalties for ignoring either are less than the savings.

Unless you write down every promise and hit hard and consistently for each broken promise, there is no connection between the promises and the ability to make money. So there also should be no connection between the promises and government payouts.
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drkkgt (profile), 10 Jan 2019 @ 8:27am

Re: Trickle down
but it does work...for the politicians. There wasn't a need to convince them, they saw it first hand. Give tax dollars to the corporations and a portion of the money trickles back to the politicians via the lobbyists and donations.
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Baron von Robber, 10 Jan 2019 @ 8:30am

Re: Bad headline.
"They owe it to their shareholders to make the most money."

Mmmmm
"Serving Shareholders Doesn’t Mean Putting Profit Above All Else"
https://hbr.org/2017/10/serving-shareholders-doesnt-mean-putting-profit-above-all-else
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MathFox, 10 Jan 2019 @ 8:30am

Re: Bad headline.
I agree that government should enforce that promises are fulfilled. For some companies, AT&T would certainly be in that list, that would mean paying the subsidies after conditions are met.

On the other hand, why give them subsidies and tax breaks at all?
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2019 @ 8:42am

If the goal was for the money to be reinvested in the corporations, it would have been a tax deduction for the investments. Just lowering the taxes without requiring the investment, those results are as expected.
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PaulT (profile), 10 Jan 2019 @ 8:42am

Re: Re: Re:
Yet again, I have to note - in best case scenario according to his arguments, he's correct and he's just spent the last couple of years arguing with bots on a site nobody else visits. By his own criteria, the idea that he's knowingly spent week after week howling into the void is the best outcome he can hope for.

Even if he "wins", he utterly fails.
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Spaceboy (profile), 10 Jan 2019 @ 8:49am

Re: Re: Hello, "Greevar"! Back after 30 month dirt nap!
I go dormant for long periods of time. It's more likely that the ones checking post history have an agenda. But that's just me. Now excuse me while I submit my report to my Russian handler so I can get paid the $.003 for writing this response.
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Greevar (profile), 10 Jan 2019 @ 8:54am

Re: Re: Hello, "Greevar"! Back after 30 month dirt nap!
It's simple. I got bored with morons like you. I took a break. I felt a desire to comment on this because I hate corporations that shit on the public.
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Thad (profile), 10 Jan 2019 @ 8:59am

Re: Trickle down

Yet more proof that politicians are all idiots.

I...don't think it's proof that politicians who don't favor trickle-down economics are idiots.
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Greevar (profile), 10 Jan 2019 @ 9:03am

Re:
I disagree with that because I think that those who profit the most from society should also bear the most financial burden to keep it running for the benefit of all. More so, the investors that make obscene amounts of money merely because of the fact that they have obscene amounts of money to invest should bear the largest burden. Nobody who makes millions or billions has ever "earned" it.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2019 @ 9:17am

Re: Re:

Nobody who makes millions or billions has ever "earned" it.

Millions, maybe.

If you look at salaried jobs, among the highest-paid jobs is that of an anaesthesiologist, at about $112/hr. It's a job with life-or-death consequences and the resultant stress, which requires a lot of knowledge and continuous education, as well as professional liability if you get something wrong. I'd say that it's fair to put that kind of job at the uppermost tier of hourly earnings.

$112/hr 40hr/wk 52 wk/yr = c. $233,000/yr.

An anaesthesiologist could earn a million dollars in less than five years, and I would say that, yes, they've probably earned it. They took the time to get educated as a doctor, and then again as a specialist, and then they showed up for a stressful, difficult job, day after day.

However, it would take the same doctor almost 4,300 years for them to earn a billion dollars. Even if they worked a grueling 100 hr/wk, they'd need 1,750 years to earn that much.

So, while I agree that no one who makes billions has ever "earned" that money, I'd be a bit more generous about "millions."
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'Dirt-nappers, 10 Jan 2019 @ 9:22am

Re: Re: Re: Hello, "Greevar"! Back after 30 month dirt

It's simple. I got bored with morons like you. I took a break.

First, thanks for calling me merely boring and a "moron"! It's a lot better than usual.

Second, how did you identify me as "moron" unless you've been reading lately? And if so, how did you miss all mention of zombies and not know you'd look like one?

Anyhoo, A) I'm still here, but B) wasn't in 2016 when you quit commenting. So you'd no reason to leave, and no reason to have returned. Just another puzzle...

You don't actually explain, just attack.

I felt a desire to comment on this because I hate corporations that shit on the public.

Now this is substantive. Or is IF you include Google and Facebook in corporations. -- But Masnick is a blatant corporatist always defending surveillance capitalism, and says that corporations are "persons" having "First Amendment Right" to control the speech of "natural" persons on "platforms" (says that power is in CDA Section 230) , which obviously leads directly to you and me having no place to protest corporate power. So if you're not lying, then you necessarily disagree with Masnick. Or, more likely, you'll exempt Masnick's favored Google / Facebook as "good" corporations, which would point you up as actually just another corporatist and fanboy. I predict that you'll soon ardently support Techdirt, just like all the other zombies (there are dozens, IF anyone is new here).
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'Dirt-nappers, 10 Jan 2019 @ 9:32am

Re: Re: Trickle down -- Another 'Dirt-napper! 6 comments a year.
56 total in nine and a half years!

"drkkgt" like "Greevar" up there is just ODD for an "account. Only ONE comment in 2018. So here's another inexplicable except as astro-turfing on same page.

Anyone new should keep in mind that this is while Techdirt is visibly declining in number of pieces and interest, besides all of its piratey notions firmly over-turned in court.

Yet "accounts" keep resurrecting to be blandly supportive and never against Masnick's blatant corporatism.

So how many commenters here were/are real?
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James Burkhardt (profile), 10 Jan 2019 @ 9:33am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Hello, "Greevar"! Back after 30 month
1) you can read without posting, even read the comments. I post relatively rarely compared to the most prolific commentators, but when I do I get insightful pretty regularly, because the content matters, not how often I post.

2) Your arguements express a lack of understanding and nuance, which makes it impossible to debate you directly. "You dont conform to my view that google should be burned to the ground unless it hosts my child pornography collection, so you can't protest AT&T screwing over its employees" fails at every level of logic.
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James Burkhardt (profile), 10 Jan 2019 @ 9:34am

Re: Re: Re: Trickle down -- Another 'Dirt-napper! 6 comments a y
None of us. Not even the authors. You have spent your life arguing against robots. How accomplished do you feel?
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2019 @ 9:53am

Re: Re:
sorry to hear you only get your information from cnn and their ilk .
I guess if I also said "Tommy" you would say "who"?
Please stick your head back in the sand with your arse open wide for the shit they pound into you
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JoeDetroit (profile), 10 Jan 2019 @ 9:59am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Hello, "Greevar"! Back after 30 month
Personally I come here to read the articles & some of the comments. I rarely post.

But since you have this belief, with no evidence, that commenters here are not real, why do you come here?
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2019 @ 10:04am

Re: Re: Re:

So, while I agree that no one who makes billions has ever "earned" that money, I'd be a bit more generous about "millions."

What about something like penicillin, that's saved millions of lives? Even using a very low value of $1000/life, one could say Fleming "deserved" a billion dollars. (He didn't get it of course, and while modern tech companies act like their inventions are just as revolutionary, they aren't.)
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Bamboo Harvester (profile), 10 Jan 2019 @ 10:05am

Re: Re:
So you want to punish success and productivity while rewarding failure.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2019 @ 10:16am

Re: Re: Re: Trickle down -- Another 'Dirt-napper! 6 comments a y
Haven't you figured out yet that nobody likes you, almost nobody even bothers to read past the first sentence of your posts before flagging you and you never get any kind of agreement or traction for anything you post? Why do you bother? Are you a masochist or just stupid?
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2019 @ 10:17am

Re: Re: Re:
Was looking for insight into a serious societal problem,
got silly assumptions and juvenile retorts.

Not surprised at all that you do not care about anything but yourself.

There are many people protesting in the streets but you do not others to know about it? btw ... I do not watch nor read the Conservative News Network.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2019 @ 10:21am

Re: Re: Re:
Failure == not earning billions? You have a twisted view of the world. You equate "earn" with successfully bilking others out of their money. While it does take some amount of effort, "earning" billions is nothing at all like working a real job to take home a small paycheck.

There should be limits on personal and corporate wealth. And I say this as someone would would probably be impacted by such a thing.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2019 @ 10:22am

Re:
"All paying the same percentage of taxes"

Marginal tax rates are a simple concept but misunderstood by many, are you one of the confused.

In your words, why should the impoverished pay the same rate as a multi-billionaire? How does this make sense from an economic point of view?
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2019 @ 10:24am

Re: Bad headline.

They owe it to their shareholders to make the most money

This is a common misconception. Corporations have no obligation, legal or moral, to make more money. Failure to do so might result in a share selloff and possibly collapse the company but there is no requirement except in self-preservation.

Growing larger, making more money, etc. are all purely selfish actions. If the corp makes more the execs make more. That's all there is to it.

So yes, the tax breaks and the layoffs are related. They get the tax breaks by promising to create more jobs then, instead, once they get the money the eliminate more jobs. They lied and should be punished. The money should be returned to the public along with properly hefty fines.
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bongo houzi (profile), 10 Jan 2019 @ 10:34am

Re: Re: Hello, "Greevar"! Back after 30 month dirt nap!
you're a fucking idiot!
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2019 @ 10:38am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Hello, "Greevar"! Back after 30 month
No one needs to explain their posting habits to you. Your conspiracy is a joke.
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James Burkhardt (profile), 10 Jan 2019 @ 10:47am

Re: Re: Re:
So, the fun bit about our tax system is until the 1980's we had a 70% marginal tax rate. So we actually understand how companies handle this type of tax. And it isn't run away. Instead, Capital Expenditures become more favored, because large expenses help offset large revenues. So companies reinvest income in their businesses as a way to avoid larger taxes. (Contrast this with the notion that after tax cuts businesses reinvest the extra profits, investments which failed to materialize).

And at the worker level right now, companies punish success and productivity while rewarding failure. I know a manager who learned his new office employee (required to be at work at certain hours) did all his work properly and had significant free time that he used to play games. The manager wanted to fire him for playing games, or increase his workload without increasing his pay. This explicitly punishes the employee's productivity. He either does what his co-workers have done, and stop being so productive, or leaves, costing the company the highly productive employee. Why should our tax policy reward the success of businesses who do not reward the productivity of its workers?
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2019 @ 10:59am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Hello, Liar
Why must you turn this forum into a pit for your lies?
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2019 @ 11:01am

Re: Even worse
Spent his life losing arguements with robots.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2019 @ 11:02am

Re: Re: Re: Re: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Why not both?
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2019 @ 11:05am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Fleming performed a service to humanity, no question. And the end result of that service was worth billions, also no question. However, I think you're giving Fleming himself a bit too much individual credit by saying that he deserves full recompense for every life saved from penicillin.

For one thing, it's not like people hadn't been studying the antibacterial properties of the Penicillium fungus before Fleming left his window open and accidentally let his samples get contaminated with it. It's likely that someone else would have figured it out if Fleming hadn't (albeit perhaps somewhat later).

For another, it took a lot of hard work by a lot of other people to get penicillin from "This inhibits bacterial growth and is non-toxic but is unstable and hard to produce" (where Fleming left it) to "this is the drug we use as a first-line panacea for bacterial infections." Giving Fleming sole credit for all of those lives saved erases their work entirely.

Fleming put in a dozen years of his life into taking his fortuitous discovery, researching it, proving it safe, and attempting to make it stable for mass-production. And, yes, absolutely I believe he deserved to be better compensated for that work than he was.

But billions? No way.
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DannyB (profile), 10 Jan 2019 @ 11:14am

Why all the hate on AT&T?
In some sense isn't AT&T creating jobs by letting 10,000 people go?

More jobs for:
* hiring managers
* job recruiters
* people who write and mail unemployment checks
* people who work in soup kitchens
etc.
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PaulT (profile), 10 Jan 2019 @ 11:15am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Hello, "Greevar"! Back after 30 month
"Second, how did you identify me as "moron" unless you've been reading lately?"

Why would he need to log in to read?

"And if so, how did you miss all mention of zombies and not know you'd look like one?"

He probably ignored you because every time you whine impotently about zombies your posts are hidden from intelligent readers. Also, the only person he'd look like that to is you, and I presume he doesn't care what you think.

"Anyhoo, A) I'm still here, but B) wasn't in 2016 when you quit commenting. So you'd no reason to leave, and no reason to have returned. Just another puzzle..."

Try reading properly and note that he said "morons like you" and not specifically you. We sadly have more than one raging idiot to deal with here.

"says that power is in CDA Section 230"

STILL you have no idea what that section says or what is said about it here...
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Bamboo Harvester (profile), 10 Jan 2019 @ 11:31am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
No, not billions. Simple success.

Welfare-only recipients in the US are in the top 35% Richest People globally.
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Anonymous Monkey (profile), 10 Jan 2019 @ 11:50am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
We are the BORG. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile!
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Baron von Robber, 10 Jan 2019 @ 11:55am

Re: Re: Re: Trickle down -- Another 'Dirt-napper! 6 comments a y
You should move on. Because Mike has turned down your advances, doesn't mean there isn't somebody or something out there for you.
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Anonymous Monkey (profile), 10 Jan 2019 @ 12:01pm

Re: Re: Hello, "Greevar"! Back after 30 month dirt nap!
MMmmmmm... BraAAAinnns!!..... *drools*

O~o
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drkkgt (profile), 10 Jan 2019 @ 12:14pm

Re: Re: Re: Trickle down -- Another 'Dirt-napper! 6 comments a y
Yeah I am more a reader that one to reply BUT thanks for the reply.
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Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 10 Jan 2019 @ 12:44pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Maybe if you compare the dollar amount received against the cost of living in say Bangladesh, but not when compared to the cost of living in the US.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2019 @ 2:48pm

Re: Re: Re: Trickle down -- Another 'Dirt-napper! 6 comments a y
this is a blog... why would you want to repeatedly show up to a blog to read opinions of a guy you clearly don't like? it's futile at best to argue with the people that do like them.
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Vel the Enigmatic, 10 Jan 2019 @ 3:20pm

Re: Why all the hate on AT&T?
No, because they are laying people off and probably eliminating those positions. That's what it means to lose jobs.
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Coyne Tibbets (profile), 10 Jan 2019 @ 5:51pm

Re: Re: Trickle down
Would it make it all better if I had used the word "scum"?
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2019 @ 6:21pm

Re: Re: Why all the hate on AT&T?
I think you might have missed the sarcasm...
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That One Guy (profile), 11 Jan 2019 @ 2:15am

Re: Trickle down
"You give me $10, I give you back $1," has never worked. The sick part is no one would fall for this in a face-to-face game. But greedy assholes managed to convince a generation of politicians that it would work.

Yet more proof that politicians are all idiots. If you needed any more proof.

As pointed out by others, politicians bought it(and were bought) because for the companies and them it does work. The companies get more money, and in return they kick some of that to the politicians that gave it to them via 'donations'.

The politicians aren't stupid(on this matter anyway), 'merely' corrupt.
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That One Guy (profile), 11 Jan 2019 @ 2:27am

On the contrary, perfect fine headline
Yet somehow, we here in America never quite learn the lesson. Case in point: you might recall that in late 2017 AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson told anybody who'd listen that the Trump era tax cuts (which granted AT&T a $20 billion one-time windfall and $3 billion in extra cash every year thereafter) would create upwards of 7,000 new high-paying jobs paying $70-$80k.

When the company claims that if they get a multi-billion dollar tax cut(or several as the case may be, one single large, many ongoing smaller) they'll be hiring thousands of people rather than laying them off, it is absolutely relevant to point out that they got their tax cut and are getting rid of jobs in exact opposition to what they previously claimed.

That the odds of them being punished for lying through their teeth is basically zero does not make their action of doing so any less worthy of note and objection.
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Wendy Cockcroft (profile), 11 Jan 2019 @ 2:32am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Trickle down -- Another 'Dirt-napper! 6 comments
What's particularly amusing is his obsession over how many people post here. Assume it's true: people with far too much time on their hands post comments under other names. Okay, so what does that have to do with the price of tea?
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That One Guy (profile), 11 Jan 2019 @ 3:47am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
'I'm not babbling incoherently for years on end to a room full of people, I'm babbling incoherently for years on end to an empty room!'

Truly, they are the gift that keeps on giving.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Jan 2019 @ 9:17am

Nope, bad headline.
"Bad headline" means "bad headline" not "unmotivated article". The headline was "AT&T's Planning Yet More Layoffs Despite Tens Of Billions In Tax Breaks And Government Favors", and I explained why "despite" is a logic error. It should have been "AT&T's Planning Yet More Layoffs. In completely unrelated news, it got tens of billions in tax breaks and government favors in connection with unsubstantiated rumors about job creation". And I'd be fine with a subtitle of "let's make sure these two things are incompatible in future".

But a lot of people are paid a lot of money in order to sugarcoat that this is going to happen again. And again. And again and again and again.
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David, 12 Jan 2019 @ 8:50am

Re: Re: Re: Why all the hate on AT&T?
It's not like phone company support isn't doing its best to teach Americans lessons in sarcasm and absurd theatre.
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