NPR: Zombie Banks Feed Off Bailout Money

This morning on my way to work, I heard a radio story on Zombie Banks. What Chris Arnold had to say immediately rang true to me.

A zombie bank keeps draining bailout capital from the government but doesn't respond with any meaningful lending that helps the economy recover. The prevalence of zombie banks made the long Japanese recession of the 1990s especially painful.

More importantly, what do you do with a zombie? Do you give it money so that it will get well again? No! You shoot it in the fucking face! I am glad that nationally there are finally economists realizing that these gargantuan financial institutions do not need more money. They need a head shot.

IBM shipping jobs abroad (and workers too!)

IBM is now offering laid off employees in the US and Canada jobs in India, Nigeria, and Russia (source). I particularly like this:

Only "satisfactory performers" who are "willing to work on local terms and conditions" should pursue the jobs, the document says. IBM would not immediately confirm if it means that the workers would be paid local wages and would be subject to local labor laws.

Lee Conrad, a spokesman for Alliance@IBM, had the following to say:

IBM not only is offshoring its work to low-cost countries, now IBM wants employees to offshore themselves... At a time of rising unemployment IBM should be looking to keep both the work and the workers in the United States... This is unacceptable to the Alliance and we are pursuing this by asking our members and all IBM employees to contact their political representatives to demand an accounting and transparency in job cuts and offshoring from IBM

Perhaps every worker at every Fortune 500 company should contact their elected officials, as this could happen to any one of them.