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Details of MSFT's Antitrust Lobbying
An anonymous sent in linkage to "A new ZDNet article detailing new evidence presented to the judge presiding over the Microsoft anti-trust case. It shows that Microsoft made political contributions during last year's (well, 2000's) elections on a scale never seen before... over $6 million. As comparison, this is four times the amount spent by Enron.
It also reveals that Microsoft has been hiring every political lobbyist, and every law firm, with anti-trust expertise and putting them to work on unrelated projects- anything to make them unavailable to work for critics of Microsoft."
In South Carolina, one of the states originally participating in the antitrust suit, Microsoft contributed $25,000 to attorney general Charles Condon shortly before his re-election in 1998. According to the chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party this was the largest unsolicited donation ever received. Three weeks after Condon won the election, South Carolina withdrew from the antitrust case.
Hopefully this will get picked up by the AP or something. I mean this alone in most people should arouse serious feelings of mistrust for any company. Microsoft makes software. It shouldn't even be making *any* sorts of political contributions or anything. I seriously doubt that within three weeks the attorney general had suddenly decided MS wasn't violating any laws without persuasion
If, at the very least, this and the enron scandal should be a wake up call for americans to consider political party financial reform.
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Some weasel took the cork out of my lunch.
I believe Enron was mentioned for a number of reasons.
1. It has recently become a very well known entity.
2. It was also large and had lots of money.
3. It spent quite a bit of money lobbying.
4. It puts people in the mindset the article is looking for.
In this case, Microsoft had been challenged, but not yet convicted. Ever hear of a little concept known as "Innocent until PROVEN guilty"? Were this not the case, simply waging unfounded allegations against any person or company could (and likely would) impact that entity strongly for the worse.
Um, no, in the antitrust suit, Microsoft has been found guilty and that ruling has been upheld on appeal already. It is just the forms of remedy, the corporate equivalent of sentencing the convicted criminal, that is of question now.
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The President a figurehead? Surely you jest. Surely, watching the events of this fall, you've observed that G.W. has gotten every item on his wish list, just by draping himself in the flag. In fact, when I think about our post-WWII military record, it seems that almost all of our adventures have been spurred on by the executive branch and either rubber-stamped by congress, or snuck past them. (I'm thinking Vietnam, various adventures in Nicaragua, Panama, Haiti, Grenada, the Gulf War, the current conflict in Afghanistan, etc.)
I do agree about the childish partisanship, except that I get the feeling that it's all a ruse to distract us from noticing that common goal you mention. (lining their pockets w/ corporate money)
Man, you Libertarians crack me up.
You act as if the government is some kind of third party in our lives like a referee in a football game. Ostensibly, the government is us . . . "We the People." So by advocating the reduction of the power of government you're advocating a reduction of the power of the people. I take that personally as I am one of those people. The people of the United States of America are already on their knees bowing to the power of the corporation. Why would you advocate reducing our only means of defending ourselves from exploitation?
We the People!
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
Traditionally companies pay out dividends once they have grown into profitibility.
The reason that MS doesn't pay dividends is because Bill Gates is a major shareholder.
If they payed dividends, then Bill will have to pay a HUGE tax bill.
As a Libertarian, I have to respond: Libertarians are in favor of *moving* and *reallocating* government power.
Your argument that Libertarians are in favor of reducing power is simply incorrect.
I want my locally elected official to have the power that he/she should have as written in the Constitution. *I*, personally, want to power to decide certain things about my life, leaving the goverment out of those decisions.
As a result, these powers need to be taken away fro the federal government. This is not a *reduction* in power, but a reallocation.
The entire start of this thread was that if you reduce power to the federal government, you reduce power to corporations to bribe those same individuals. Your argument that we need a overly-protective federal government to protect us from those same corporations is exactly opposite to that thinking and the evidence pointed out in the original article.
As for everyone arguing that moving power to the states will only mean that MS will resort to bribing them - remember who it is pushing for a weak settlement (Department of Justice and the White House) and who it is pushing for more extreme measures (the states and the states' Attorney Generals). This is direct evidence against that claim.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman