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technology editorial

By Ali Vazirabadi

Although Honda Civic is known for its efficiency and small size, Mike Schlenza used it as a sleeping place, after he lost his computer network installation job in San Jose. Now he is happy to have a bed at Montgomery Street Inn Downtown San Jose.

As public tried to digest 777,000 layoff in the first half of the year, more layoff news hit the news services. Hewlett Packard and JDS-Uniphase let go of 22,000. Late July unemployment news signaled the worse might be over, as the 4.5 percent unemployment rate was expected to be 4.6 percent.

Close to 5,000 mass layoffs in April, May and June resulted to 584,000-job loss, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics. Layoff of more than 50 people in five weeks is falls under "Mass Layoff Event" category, per Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Lucent Technology let go of 16,000 people, as JDS-Uniphase matched that number with $50 billion loss. The Canadian Nortel Telecom also announced layoff of 20,000 people with more than $20 billion loss, while Cisco exceeded the 10,000 layoff. Earlier this year, Cisco pursued its aggressive plan in obtaining permission for developing a new campus in the southern part of San Jose. Many local residents, due to traffic and other environmental issues opposed this plan. Motorola also let go of 30,000 of its employees.

During the same period, as 3Com initially denied rumors of 20% layoff, shortly after, they let go 43% of their employees. Overall, 4,200 people were no longer allowed working at 3Com, including their former CEO.

According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, minorities still had much higher official unemployment of 4.5 percent reported.

In mid-June, San Jose Mercury News featured Carly Fiorina the new HP CEO, and questioned her leadership and how the HP has shifted from engineering and technical focus to sales and marketing. Shortly after, HP announced 6,000 layoff. Per Mercury News, during one Fiorina's HP plant visit, they had to cut trees, so her helicopter could land close to the building. Now it's not clear if any of the tree cutting crew were part of the layoff, or those who leaked the news.

In mid-August, Agilent that used to be part of HP also announced to cut 4,000 jobs. In the midst of the layoffs, Wells Fargo chief economist Sung Won Sohn fell in the "half-glass-full" economists camp. He believes that as more companies let go new jobs are created. He "estimated" 20,000 new jobs were created in June, not mentioning how far new jobs were from the lost jobs.

Irrational Exuberance Warning Shot
First warning shot was heard in 1996. At a congressional hearing, Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board made the "Irrational Exuberance" speech. With calm, clear and concise wording, he warned of overvalued stock market and its move from sound investment to uncharted speculation territories.

As part of my new employee orientation in August of 2000, VP of Marketing showed us Powerpoint presentation of company's future growth, as he kept checking his pager for updated company stock price. That day our stock closed at $35. Six months later I lost my job, along with 178 other people.

In July, same employer announced another layoff of 130 people. A week later, they filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Then, in early August, 282 more people let go. Middle of August 16 was set for company auction, to cover about $1 billion debt.

Amazon Time of the year
Another warning sign came in 1999. Time Magazine chose Jeff Bezos founder of Amazon.Com, an on-line book-selling warehouse, as Man of the Year.

Some of the historical Time Man of the year were: Gandhi (1930), Franklin D. Roosevelt (1932 and 41), Winston Churchill (1949), Mohammed Mossadegh (1951), Nikita Krushchev (1957), John F. Kennedy (1961) and Martin Luther King (1963), and then came Amazon.Com CEO.

Bezos' selection sent confusing invisible shock waves through the hyped and linked WYSYWIG of Internet industry, where many of them filled for bankruptcy. As Bezos kept laughing louder last February, it got the attention of SEC for his pre earning announcement 800,000 stock sell for $12 million. After the sell, Amazon announced a disappointing quarter.

Not far from Seattle, the media featured 20-year-old young Silicon Valley millionaires, who enjoyed their youth, as they applied Zap-It acne cream. And not to mention the grown ups fight like Oracle CEO vs. City of San Jose for after midnight landing at San Jose airport. Judge ruled in favor of Oracle's CEO.

Election 2000 Didn't Help
537 electoral vote more, 17,000 butterflies dead, and 500,000 popular votes short, it finally let the Justices make extra White House keys for the new tenant. Situation got so depressing that Al Gore grew beard. Some mentioned of his possible trip to Iran for a face-to-face meeting.

U.S. dollar is no longer supported by gold reserve, since it relies on the "good faith and credit" of American government. It appears, election 2000 lacked the "good faith and credit" for investors. Similarly, shortly after the Vietnam war, and conclusion of Watergate with a Fed-Ex Nixon pardon, both events helped trigger long term bear market in U.S. and around the world.

CO2, Missiles Missing Targets Not Helping Either
The nation ended the 2000 inauguration with no major celebrity showing up at the inauguration. One fearless celebrity was Chuck Norris of ÒEnter the DragonÓ movie, where Bruce Lee took care of him in the 90th minutes. Other celebrity was Bo Derek, who appeared in Woman of Desire, Hot Chocolate, Tarzan The Ape-Man, and finally in the Shattered Image. Soon after the election, as the nation began to leak its popular wounds, and reading Leo Buscaglia's "Living, Loving and Learning" book few times, the administration decided to cancel its subscription to ink-dried Kyoto agreement.

Then came $100 million a pop missile defense system test. The motive behind Congress funding was that a "rouge" nation like Iran might attack U.S. via not the regular "intercontinental" missiles, but by Two-Continents-Travel Missiles (TCTM). Although it is true that no such missile really traveled that far, while every nation brag about their missile is faster than others.

The scenario is that Iran fire one of its fuel-efficient homemade TCTM-747 missile to fly over Europe, and then it continues the long flight over Atlantic Ocean, where some airlines end up showing two movies to cover this long distance. Not to mention that the U.S. Stealth bombers had to be re-fueled two or three times before they hit Baghdad. Iran has been given mail-in university degrees that they successfully completed missile fuel-efficient development program.

I think U.S. Congress should check Tehran busses, where half of the fuel comes out of buses in thick Carbon Monoxide, before they moves an inch. Now Congress has been being briefed that Iran is able to send missiles all the way to New York City.

Last $100 million U.S. anti-missile testing that was supposedly hitting a rogue nation missile like TCTM-747 had to be glued with a beam-emitting device. The device was basically sending a message like "It's-Me- TCTM-747-Hit-Me-Here-Right-Here" coded message, so the anti rouge nation missile finally was able to hit the imaginary TCTM-747.

I'm not an attorney, but Iran could have a good case in charging missile-manufacturing companies "Iran" trade name usage fee, whenever they get funding justification for more glue and rockets. This is a very niche market, which has shown great potential to get funding, and now it is time Iran asks for its fair share of the proceed.