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Microsoft's $40 Billion On Hand
eMilkshake writes "CNN/Money magazine report here that Microsoft has more liquid reserves than 'Ford, ExxonMobil and Wal-Mart have combined' and 'enough to buy the entire airline industry -- twice. Or all the gold in Fort Knox, four times over. It is enough to buy 23 space shuttles or every major professional baseball, basketball, football and hockey team in America.' This is thanks to (according to WinInfo Update) the fact that 'Microsoft handles its investments with an inhouse software application called--seriously--the Catastrophe Hedging Program 2.5.' I wonder what I would do with $40 billion?"
If Microsoft declares a dividend, the shareholders have to pay taxes. If they hold the money in reserve, they only pay taxes when they sell.
I would fund a project to get us to Mars with that much money.
-- Cheers!
Catastrophe (Hedging) Program
:)
I though this was the code name of their last OS!
667 The Neighbour of the Beast
Breaking News!!!! Extra Extra!!
Microsoft Rich! Really Rich.
Who'd have thunk it..
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
Ralph Nader pointed out that the money is a sort of a n "illegal tax shelter" for very rich people such as Billie Boy, Paul Allen, and Steve Ballmer.
S
So that was the motivation... to get a better price!
We all really HAVE been paying too damn much for Windows. :P~
With that much money you'd think they could buy a decent operating system
"Can't sleep. Clowns will eat me"
Why did I feal it necc. to post this???? I gotta run some neural garbage collection, soon.
Before I part with'em: two pennies weigh ~4.996+/-0.014g, have a zinc core, and the face of Lincoln. You can keep 'em.
Ale and Whores...
Man, if I had that kind of cash sitting around I'd be tempted to buy the DOJ. Oh, wait....
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
Since Microsoft wants the Government to go away and do business as usual maybe Billy BOy should have his company help pay the national debt oh. 30 billion of it off =]
So M$ DOES get a nickel for everytime Windows crashes...
Karma whorin' since 1999
them to pay off my truck?
hint-hint MS?? I do support your products.
D~y
Hell No!
Rapid Nirvana
Let's see....
He can buy:
* Twenty B-2 bombers...
* 250 Congressmen...
* Or one outfielder for the Texas Rangers.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
If I had $40 billion, I would leverage all of holding to force people to use my sub standard products, there by forcing a monopoly on to the world. DAMN, they beat me to it.
That OEM copy of 'doze 2k you filched from work for your girlfriend's laptop really *hurts* those poor, poor, Redmond urchins that have to spend sweatshop-centuries at industrial keyboards. How could you be so immoral?
- undoware.ca
Did you know that it is illegal for a public company to have that much on hand and not pay dividends to shareholders?
Apparently there is some murkiness to get around this for Microsoft. The reason they don't want to pay dividends are the huge tax implications for those that are own massive amounts of stock (read: Bill Gates, Steve Balmer...)
So how many senators could they get for that?
B-3 Spirits are mouy more expensive than F-117 Nighthawks...
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Whats the use of holding on to so much money? So much could be done with that $40 billion. Even if Gates spent 75% of it, I doubt he or MS would be in any kind of shortage of cash. So why not sink that money into doing something useful? Donate some to NASA since they seem to be short of money. Or even just sink it into improving their own products. What is the use of having all that money though, if its not going to be used on anything? There is so much that could be done.
And yet all I see are house ads. Why?
Catastrophe Hedging Program 2.5
now tell me this thing runs on a Unix and Ill be happy for the rest of my day...
(i dont think MS is stupid enough to let their money be managed by a Win32 software)
Fabio - Sumare/Sao Paulo/Brazil/South America/Earth/Solar System/Milky Way/Universe
http://www.morroida.com.br
Doesn't matter how many billions they have. They still won't stop a free OS like Linux from gaining in usability and popularity. The decline and fall of Microsoft has begun.
Don't think about the billions they have now, think about the billions they are losing because of those greedy poor grade schools who are allegedly not using properly licensed donated PCs.
So how long will it be until we see a Microsoft sponsered sporting team? Oh boy, I cant wait to see the Colorado Avalanch taking on the Redmond Blue Screens of Death.
If it won't boot, Fsck it!
That Geforce 3 you bought last year for $400 is now worth $100. Its like that in all of the tech industry. If that sort of thing extends to the rest of the economy, having huge reserves of cash on hand makes a lot of sense. Because of deflation, that sort of liquid reserve effectively grows above and beyond any bank interest. Of course if they are betting wrong, and we end up with inflation, its an incredibly stupid move.
"My head hurts, My feet stink, and I dont love Jesus." -Jimmy Buffett
How the hell does Congress justify a corporate welfare bailout of the airline industry to the tune of twice the value of the entire industry??
Before I part with'em: two pennies weigh ~4.996+/-0.014g, have a zinc core, and the face of Lincoln. You can keep 'em.
One of the key roles of corporate management is to wisely reinvest whatever money the business generates to fuel ever-increasing profits.
If they continue reinvesting and they continue making a profit, will they eventually own all the money that exists in the world leaving nothing for others?
If you're religishitty, KILL YOURSELF!
Don't ask me why, but somehow I've got a hunch that Castrophe Hedging 2.5 runs on FreeBSD.
Give it all to Longfellow Deeds, silly.
I belong to the ______ generation.
A firm which has 40 billion is not paying any tax !!!! can you believe it ? You should because that is capitalism and its newest and most sophisticated form called microsoft.
http://www.nasirudheen.blogspot/
The same thing I'd do with $1 million............ two chicks at the same time. ;)
- Tempestdata
Q: How are all these liquid assets held? Gold? Deposit accounts?
A: Mostly greenbacks, some gold and other precious metals. It's all held in a gargantuan bin, several city blocks on a side, with a giant dollar sign on the front. Bill likes to swim in it.
Q: The bin, I assume, is heavily secured.
A: Surprisingly, no. MS Security is quite porous, considering the massive resources available to it, and is often compromised by sub-literate ex-cons and bored underachieving teenagers (including, purportedly, Mr. Gates' own nephews.)
Q: Isn't he afraid it might be stolen?
A: Occasionally, as mentioned, thuggish dog-faced brutes will attempt to break into the bin. However, what Bill really worries about is that some practitioner of the dark arts might infiltrate his mansion and steal the first dime he ever earned - the magical powers of which are the only thing that keeps MS successful in spite of the low quality of their primary product.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Ergo, I wonder if Catastrophe Hedging Program 2.5 ever has a catastophic error. Better question - does this program share any code with Microsoft Money?
Schnapple
I thought 640KB was enough for anyone. Silly Gates.
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
Checking CNN.com financial reports
5,415,222, 000
outstanding common shares. The $40 billion is only then $8 per share before taxes. MSFT is currently trading at aroung $50/share.
This ignores preferred shares, outstanding options calls, taxes and other splits including claims from outstanding lawsuits.
Two chicks at once.
'but the Catastrophe Hedging Program 2.5 kept telling us to short MSFT. After a while we determined the recomendation was in fact correct, and have therefore gone with SUNW and IBM.'
Is it featuring a bug that doubles my money ?
Where can I buy it ?
-H4NZ0-
'enough to buy the entire airline industry -- twice.'
Every major company will buy itself an airline. And then, airlines will truly be like OSes.
;)
Id employ a bunch of kiwis to go out and irrigate starving countrys, and teach the peoples how to grow tucker. And then you could grow and eat lots of rock melons ( the ultimate post doobie fruit ) and try and compile as much of the world to a relaxo state as possible :)
:) )
Be nice to upgrade my 56k modem connection too ( although the 386 gateway would have to stay
....absolutely nothing! B-)
Does this mean that if Windows wants to compete with Linux by giving it away for free, it could? I mean really, they could give Windows away for free for like 5 years or something and crush anything else out there. Kinda like they did with Netscape.
Not that I think it would ever happen but it could theoretically.
Enough money to crush the DMCA's backers and eject the politicians responsible for it.
I'd call that a worthwhile hedge against bad times.
Are we out of regular Microsoft-bashing topics now or what? It kind of reminds me some evironmentalist demonstrations in Seattle and Redmond last year. The lamp-posts in the city were full of flyers that invited people to march through MS campus because:
a) Hi-tech industry pollutes the world.
b) It is really immoral to be as rich as billg.
c) MS has driven up the cost of real estate in the region, so poor people can't buy houses any more.
My point is that maybe people should try to find somewhat better arguments than hey, they are rich, therefore evil.
When men used to be men
this article and this one are the best I could find, but I think there is an even more similair one out there. Notice that the cash estimates aren't all the same. maybe its a poor Katz estimate in that other one...wouldn't be so bad if it was rounded, but $30B vs 40B$ is a lot
this sig is deprecated
They need to get together and come up with some good fuzzy math that shows how Microsoft will burn through that $40 billion in a week and make the DOJ irrelevant. Then we can all go home.
Bleh!
They currently report 4-7 billon a year profit.
When they can no longer report employee stock options as income... 17 billion dollar annual loss.
At that rate 40 billion dosn't last very long.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
I said it before, and now this confirms it, Gates really can make More money than Jesus at a promisekeeper's convention.
It's a pity that Microsoft doesn't do a little more with their money than sell shit at top dollar. But, perhaps it's a Geffen Good, type thing. No fucking joke: start selling Linux at $99 for an install, and maybe the fucker will skyrocket.
Oh, for the days when huge corporations like Michelin did nice things. Says a French citizen, who grew up in Clermont-Ferrand (home of Michelin): "They subsidized the schools, busses, gave their workers bicycles, and helped fund the hospitals." But that was a long fucking time ago, and now it's all about fucking money. Ye, gods, though. How much fucking money does a place need? That's just irresponsible. Maybe I'm just some fucking yahoo, which is most likely the case, but it seems like one has a fucking obligation to be less of an asshole when one has the money to rule the world.
It seems I remember reading somewhere or some such thing that since they were able, Microsoft has always had enough liquid assets on hand to operate for at least one year with zero profits. In other words, they could freeze raises and new hiring and give their products away for an entire year.
THAT is a scary proposition for potential competitors. If you ask me, given that kind of ability to weather bad times, Linux (or some other such free model) might be the only OS that stands a chance at dethroning them completely.
I know what Bill Gates is doing with 40 billion dollars hoarded up! He's gathering the funds to build his unholy army of cybernetic robo-nerds who will overthrow the US and turn it into Gatesekistan! All he needs now is the technology to prevent these cyber-warriors of doom from blue-screening every ten minutes!
Just think about how many copies of Linux that much money could buy.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Everyone else has been funny, so I'll bite on the question:
If I had $40 billion in CASH, an infallibility complex, and a slowly-dawning-realization that a) I'm not going to be able to take it with me and b) everyone doesn't love me as much as I think they do I'd sure use that money for something significant.
I don't mean "feeding the poor" significant. They'll forget it tomorrow. I mean like building the first moon base, or a space elevator, mine the first asteroid or some such thing. Be the person that really sparked civilian development in space, and you will be remembered forever (besides doing a good turn for humanity in the really-long-view).
My $0.02, so that leaves room for another 39,999,999,999.98 more good ideas.
-Styopa
Fentom Quackshell ( I think that last name is right) will protectit. Blaberingblaberskites!!!!!!
-"Those who fought today will die tommorow."-
I would like to see what kind of bug list and change log the Catastrophe Hedging Program has. I'm sure people would be fired for a rounding error or misplaced decimal. I could see Bill Gates face while using the program to handle his finances and get a blue screen before he could hit save.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
Haven't they been around more than just 38 months? How long have they been making this much? Seems that either the number is wrong, or they should have more than just $38bn . . .
Here's
a good answer at Sherman's Lagoon...
Cheers !
From the article:
At Microsoft's sprawling Redmond, Wash. complex, the word "slowdown" is being openly discussed, casting a chill over the world's largest software company.
Well maybe if they didn't force a new OS/office suite/server suite down everyones throats every couple of years, which has twice the crap that no one wants built in, and is twice the cost of the previous version, maybe the slowdown wouldn't be so severe.
To think they have all that money and still charge outrageous prices for their software as compared to what it costs to manufacture...unbelievable!
I don't think these are good metrics at all, what about how many Linux kernals you can buy with it? Wait, that divide by zero is a problem for that calculation. Hm, then perhaps we could put this in terms of iPods or a beowulf cluster with x nodes.
iPods: 72,727,273
beowulf cluster nodes: about 450,000
Now that's a lot of mp3s. Or a lot of processing power.
They're not using MS Money for that?
Dividends are stupid. If Microsoft decides it has more cash than it needs and wants to provide shareholder value with the money (possibly with the federal government threatening to tax the "excess" cash reserve), then a stock buy back makes much more sense than a dividend. In theory, both provide the same value to the shareholders, but a stock buyback provides capital gains instead of income.
So even if the government decided to enforce the tax on "excess" cash reserves, there would be no need for a dividend.
Uh oh... we all know no Microsoft product is usable until version 3.0.
This needs to be repeated over and over again because many people do not understand it. Corporations do not pay taxes. Corporations collect taxes.
Here's how it works. A corproation is a legal entity designed to make money. It has a list of expenses and a list of revenues. One of those expenses is "taxes." When the government raises taxes on a corporation, the corporation has to make up for the higher costs. It does this by increasing the price of its products or services. I.e., the consumer has to bear the brunt of the higer cost of the corporation's tax. I.e., the corporation is merely a tax proxy for the government.
All wealth in the country is held by two groups: individuals and government. People talk about "Microsoft's $40 billion," but Microsoft is owned by individuals. It does not exist without the individuals who make it run.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Thing is, if MS stuck 40b in a bank account somewhere - or anywhere doing anything that earns intrest on it, wouldn't they eventually bankrupt the world? If they could pull, say, 10% intrest on 40b, that's 4b per year starting off. It'd only be a matter of time before the rest of the world was paying microsoft (in intrest alone not even counting actual products and services) and all the banks would go 'bankrupt' as MS drained them of their monies.
http://www.cptech.org/ms/rn2bg20020104dividend.htm l
Glad to see that CNN can only took a couple months to write about it!
Mr. Nader's letter on the topic was the first I read of this topic.
Your tasteful noseless smiley belies your poor character as indicated by your plebeian taste in liquor.
For those who are wondering, the answer is "yes".
The question is, "will one ever be able to obtain an easy to use and open source tool for removing excess noses from smileys?" Stay tuned for more info. Such a thing does exist, and will hopefully be publicly released soon, though beta versions have been floating around slashdot for a few days now.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
he could buy the world a Coke(tm)!
(and teach it to sing in lockst^H^H^H^H^H^H harmony!)
I bet they have their own Washington polies in their pocket, including one in 'W's cabinet.
Actually that's a unfair bet because I already no that.
nt
God spoke to me
"near-monopolistic"? I believe that it's been proven and upheld in appeal, that not only are they a monopoly, but they're an illegal monopoly.
Why is it that every single financial analyst and financial advisor or management group seems to be perpetually apologetic to Microsoft?
Hello! Finance world! They're guilty. I'm sorry that it hurt your portfolio. But even if it did hurt your portfolio, the only one to blame for that is yourself. You invested in them and took the risk of trusting your money to their business practices. Trying to justify their business practices in order to reclaim your stock value is morally corrupt. Accept the facts, take the loss, and move on.
Sheesh.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
Let's look at this company for a short second...it certainly didn't have any where NEAR $40B in the bank in 1995, just prior to Win95 being released. Win 3.1 pretty much ruled the roost; and IBM was desperately trying to released the stranglehold that MS had over them due to the (favorable) DOS licensing. Microsoft was very powerful, but at that time Office hadn't yet driven EVERY OTHER competitor out of the market, and the Internet wars hadn't even kicked up yet. But there is one indisputable fact: the trend had been well established in the American (nee World) consumer mind that Intel/Microsoft was a standard and compatibility with that system was absolutely mandatory.
So, 7 years later, Microsoft made Bill Gates the richest guy around, had TONS of cash sitting in banks, runs competitors into the dirt, and basically laughed off US Gov't legal action--several times! This has to be about as clear as it gets that Capitalism as we understand it is an incomplete model. Previously in history, mega-wealth like this was built on the backs of slaves--the railroads, for instance. But not Gates'. There were no slaves...merely consumers. One could argue that this is truly "Capitalism at its best!" for certainly it was Capitalism that provided Gates with such wealth. Only that is a short sighted thought, considering it is Capitalism that ALSO states that in such a market competitors should have been clamoring to compete! And I REFUSE to believe that DOS/Win3.1/Win32 was absolutely the best, most marketable product during that period...okay, it may have been the best, but was it "97% of the market" best? I just don't believe so--I mean look how quickly Linux has stormed the scene. Are we to assume that NO ONE else but Microsoft was so astute at making operating systems until some kid sat down at his PC? Something just DOESN'T make sense here.
So what dynamic about Capitalism are we missing? What overlooked problem could explain a seemingly complete breakdown of basic competition? Or, can it be explained with what we already know? Personally, I look at Microsoft's accounting tactics. But of course they really didn't start until AFTER a pretty good amount of money had been made. I then look at the role of the US Government in making Billy G. a gazillionaire...after all, think of all those government agencies sending YOUR tax dollars to Redmond. Of course the relationship doesn't end there--military contractors would conform their systems to the Gov'ts, and state and local gov'ts would do the same. It is nearly like a viral chain of Microsoft infection. And all the while, we were supporting government research that could have/should have been capable of creating an open source operating system.
So is it the infamous Keynesian "invisible hand" run amok that created this? Does any one have a GOOD idea as to how much money Microsoft has profited (taking into account the top-down, hierarchial spread of influence) off the US Government since 1990?
Given my newfound respect for the dynamism and aggressiveness of true Capitalism, I refuse to call Bill Gates a Capitalistic success story...to do so would be to forever sully the greatness of the fair-market system.
Scott
"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."
I'll bet Microsoft plans to use the money to develop some compund of gold that is liquid at room temperature for Gate's swimming pool.
Either that, or they're going to repave One Microsoft Way real fancy-like.
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
They should declare victory, distribute the loot to shareholders, open the source code to the public and dissolve the company.
Your $400 GeForce 3 is now worth $100 because of depreciation, not deflation. Deflation has nothing to do with it, and it's highly improbable that we would see a deflationary economy any time soon.
Or you could do the math correctly, and realize that they could only give everyone in the US $142.
pooptruck
MicroSoft security and all the gold in Fort Knox. Good thing they can buy it four times...
MicroSoft reliability and the entire airline industry. Good thing they can afford an extra one...
All those sports teams, but not as popular as Solitaire.
On the other hand, 23 space shuttles would be cool.
Hmmmm... I wonder if programmers/employees working on that "Internal software" use its advice for their own private investments...
- Tal Cohen
When any firm chooses to hold cash rather than reinvest, it's a clear signal that the firm is not optimistic about its business outlook.
That $40Bn could have been spent on developing new business (improving XP, etc), but apparently, the expected return there was worse than cash, which is particularly bad in this interest rate climate.
To use an analogy, consider this cash holding as a huge 'escape pod' for the death star, which is drawing resources away from building more planet-crushing lasers.
If MS believed in itself, it would invest in itself.
--
Long-term effects of Bush deficits
"...I wonder what I would do with $40 billion?"
... send the /. editors back to 3rd grade spelling classes?
here's a guess
So thats where all of enrons money went :)
madness takes its toll please have exact change
...they might be able to influence elections!
Perhaps buy a new video card?
40 billion tacos!
--JonnyBlog
"Wonder what I would do with" the money...but rather What WOULDN'T I do with the money? Just think about it. If you had 40 BILLION dollars, why, you could buy Microsoft and shut them down!
You keep going until you die..."Me".
to comply with Consent Decrees, or to consider playing it's game on an even ballfield with it's opponents. very sad.
I wish I had a beowulf cluster of that!
Link.
(Hey hundred plus posts and no beowulf post?)
I wonder what I would do with $40 billion?"
Buy microsoft and open source the entire codebase maybe? Better samba compatibility, fix TCP/IP stack problem, not to mention the bugfix/security issue patches. Just a thought. i
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Was I the only one who read that as "Microsoft's $40B Hard On"?
Damn. It's too early. *goes to get his coffee*
40billion would go a long way towards that goal. That would be the ultimate "fuck you" to Osama and his gang of thugs. Take the richest, most capitolist company out there, and have them build "The Microsoft Towers" where the WTC once stood.
Here's how it works. A person is a legal entity designed to make money. It has a list of expenses and a list of revenues. One of those expenses is "taxes." When the government raises taxes on a person, the person has to make up for the higher costs. They do this by increasing their demand for wages. I.e., the corporation has to bear the brunt of the higer cost of the person's tax. I.e., the person is merely a tax proxy for the government.
Ok, so which is it? Do "corporations" pay taxes, or do "people"? Well, the answer is both. When the government raises taxes on either people or corporations, they both end up paying some of the tax. Who pays how much is determined by market. Rarely does the tax translate entirely into either higher wages or lower profits.
Another myth is that taxing corporations causes "double taxation". The government taxes most transactions, you can just as easily argue that taxing people is "double taxation".
Since corporations are legally a "person" and can own property, they need the protection of the national defense, and they use the nation's infrastructure, etc. there is no reason they shouldn't pay taxes. It could be argued that it would be fairer if we taxed both people and corporations exactly the same and instead of taxing only some transactions, we tax all transactions the same.
SPF support for most open source mail servers can be found at libspf2.
At $8 per share is it enough to cover the discount on all the share options given to staff? What happens when people start cashing in their share options? Will MS have enough cash to meet the demand?
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...Money can't buy you love.
I first read about Microsoft hoarding cash several years ago. Back then, the figure was at $6 billion, and it was said that Microsoft was trying to keep enough cash on hand to run the company at its current level of production without any gross income for a period of one year. I'm not very business-minded, but it sounded like an ambitious insurance plan (thus the term "Catastrophe Hedging") and I didn't think much more about it. Thirty-four billion dollars later (and another billion every month), it sounds like Microsoft might be having more than simple "Catastrophe Hedging" in mind. All this talk about dividends and tax-evasion sounds suspicious, and I'm sure eventually somebody will have to answer for that pile of cash.
All companies have to pay out dividends eventually, otherwise the price of the share would be zero (since the price of the share is basically the net present value of the the stream of expected dividends).
The value of a share of stock is whatever people will pay for it, same as everything else. There are a lot of factors going into that, but I think anyone who follows the stock market would agree that the prime determinant of a share price is far more random than the one you suggest. The amount someone will pay for stocks today is related to how likely they think it will be that the stock will be worth more tomorrow. (i.e., I'm paying $15 a share because I think I will be able to sell it for at least $16 a share sometime in the future.)
It has little or nothing to do with dividends or anything else related to how much money the company has on hand, or even whether it's turning a profit. If it had much at all to do with those factors, there would be no way to explain the share prices that dot.coms were hitting during the last decade. I don't think it was exactly a big secret that most internet firms are considered fiscally fit if they succeed in having a net profit somewhere in the area of zero.
"...or every major professional baseball, basketball, football and hockey team in America."
'Tonight's matchup is between the Windows Devleopers' Rams vs. the Security Steelers. Should be an interesting game, though the Security's defense has been sorely lacking this season."
If you can't beat them, embrace and extend them.
I hate microsoft with a passion that cannot be expressed in mere words. In fact it can really only be expressed with thermonuclear weapon explosions in Redmond.
But...
I remember in econ 101 we had a talk about Corporate expenses, and how "assets" is a tricky word. One year a corporation could have $1 billion in liquid assets. The next year, due to perhaps a sales slump, they could be bankrupt or laying off their workforce.
Put it this way, you have a house that is valued at $100k. You have a car that is valued at $20k. Your yearly expenditures are about $60k. You have $20k in the bank ($140k in total assets, $20k in liquid assets). At the end of this year you're sitting pretty with $20k in the bank. Now you loose your job, and start working at McDonalds. Your yearly income is now $20k. You now have a problem. In order to remain solvent you will have to reduce expenses and possibly sell assets, but this takes time (how long to sell that house and remove the mortgate? a year?). This $20k you saved now seems rather paltry doesn't it? You'll eat through it in a few months.
To see how rich MS really is, you need to see how much they pay every year (exclude "one time costs" for now). If they hit a slump, which happens, this is how much they'll owe the next year. $40 billion doesn't seem so much compared to that.
...and I ran Microsoft, I'd build my own little DoD. $40 billion would go a long way to giving me some pretty sharp teeth.
Then I'd declare my sovreignty and dare the DoJ, etc., to do its worst.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Perhaps the secret "catastrophe" against which the legendary "Catastrophe Hedging Program 2.5" is "hedging" is the sudden cessation of cruel and unusual punishment as the ultimate power of the United States. How one hedges against such "catastrophic" losses is interesting to contemplate. Does, for example, Balmer have a pop-up web-cam viewer with CHP2.5 that gives him instant views of the prison "turf" of the most vicious and infectious prison gangs money can buy -- just to ensure they are "doing their job" for the Federal Reserve, IRS and M$?
Seastead this.
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if you had 40 bill you wouldnt do anything selfless youd just make sure you are remembered.
ok
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Let them feed all the starving people on Mars !
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
There is no law saying that a corporation must pay out dividends. Some corporations pay out dividends as a matter of policy, some don't. The difference is that the extra cash held onto by the corporation enables it to reinvest that cash into additional internal projects in order to increase the company's value (and therefore share price). The idea behind this is that the company feels that the cash can be put to better use by the company than by the shareholder. Besides Microsoft, Berkshire-Hathaway comes to mind. This model DOES work and value added to shareholders is reflected in increased stock price.
Of course, the shareholders don't have to accept this and can choose to take the cash now instead of later, either by holding a vote among present shareholders or by choosing to invest elsewhere.
One of the factors an investor considers is if a company pays out dividends. Ultimately, it comes down to a personal choice based upon the investor's expectations.
There have been papers written on this subject, usually asking the question: "Do dividends matter?"
Dividends are taxed as ordinary income, while capital gains are taxed as, well, the capital gains rate(usually at a lower, flat rate than ordinary income).
As for a shelter shielding Microsoft from taxes, their own financials reported a total income tax expense (2001) of $1,288,000,000 US Dollars. If they have a tax dodge in place, it AIN'T working.
Regarding that $40 Billion in cash holdings. Holdings are not taxed. How would YOU like it if you were taxed based on what your bank account held? You may be taxed in interest received, but NOT on the principle amount.
when time has come, even the greatest of all empires fall.
You're partially correct. Corporations can not elect representatives. They buy them.
funny munging
No really. The "capitalism makes everyone do well" theory just doesn't hold water. It is true that capitalist economies have a tendency to be more efficient (note: that has NOTHING to do with equity), but the argument that capitalism feeds starving masses can't explain what happened in Russia or Nicaragua when they abandoned socialism or explain why a country with a per capita GDP as small as Cuba's can have life expectancy or infant mortality rates on par with those of the United States and other countries with highly developed capitalist economies.
Make a decent OS.
Billy Gates is perfectly poised to become a James Bond villain. With that kind of wealth, he could built an orbiting space laser or underwater city or whatever.
Think about it.
Peter: "What would you do if you had a million dollars?"
Lawrence: "I'll tell you what I'd do, man, two chicks at the same time, man."
Peter: "That's it? If you had a million dollars, you'd do two chicks at the same time?"
Lawrence: "Damn straight. I always wanted to do that, man. And I think if I had a million dollars I could hook that up, cause chicks dig a dude with money."
Peter: "Well, not all chicks."
Lawrence: "Well the kind of chicks that'd double up on me do."
Peter: "Good point."
- Office Space
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
That's how Microsoft can afford to outfit all of it computers with Window$.
--
Does it kill you that I'm a Karma whore?
I wonder what I would do with $40 billion?
You VA guys had $15 billion in market cap at peak. Plus a sizable hunk of cash. And what did you do with that? You blew it.
Say that everybody in the US was injured by microsoft's abuse of monopolistic powers, and award all citizens 153.25.
:-)
153.25 * 261mln = 40bln...
Where is my check?
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
I'd buy one hell of a great week in Vegas for every employee and throw in a week at the Mustang Ranch for any that wanted it. Let's face it. For the stereotypical geek it may be the only chance they get to get laid...
-Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
You said the words "Ralph Nader." The simple use of those two words made me sick to my stomach, almost to the point of ralphing. Immediately after that, you told the read to follow that urge and go ralph. How thoughtful....nauseous feeling gone! Who needs the antiquated finger-down-the-throat method when you have good old Ralph Nader around to make you physically ill.
Little Red Corvair
Microsoft has a market cap. of nearly 1 trillion dollars. Is windows the companies only true cash cow worth 1 trillion dollars? Russian GDP is less!This is ridiculous. Today microsoft makes am huge amount of money not in software but by doing what Merryl Lynch does. They speculate on everything from DRam prices to whether to options trading to buying foreign tech companies. They aren't just in the software business anymore. This is why I wouldn't buy the stock no matter what. Eventually people will realise that this isn't a software company anymore, but a ENRON who uses its leverage in the PC business to influence DRAM prices, PC prices and destroy competition. Enron did this in the energy business until they were just to over leveraged and destroyed themselves. Gates and Company are too careful for that, but it's essentially the same business strategy. Thats why microsoft doesn't deserve its insane valuations!
NM
40 billion dollars will buy the entire airline industry twice over, but it will only buy 23 space shuttles? Wow, does that include the costs involved in launching and manning it? Maybe it would be a better idea to give 1 billion people $40.
Okay, this is a troll, but I'll bite.
I've been fighting Microsoft for over a decade now. I've held my tongue and didn't say "I told you so" when everything came out about them in the antitrust trials.
Microsoft broke the law. No if, ands, or buts. No two ways about it. What they did is illegal.
And the really disgusting part is, they don't even care or want to admit that they are wrong! They're delusional! But you know what makes me even more sad and angry? People like you who go "oh, well, they're just a company trying to make money, so that's okay" and blithely forget that Microsoft would kill you and everyone you know if it meant they could make another nickel in profit.
Bash Microsoft? You bet your ass I will.
I wonder what I would do with $40 billion?
Make 2000 trips into space on a Soyuz rocket?
That could get a good chunk of the Redmond campus off the planet...
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A brand new double-wide, a corvette and a shitload of crank.
-- Knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley
After reading your linked comment, and seeing the moderation on it, the only thing I can say is to echo another AC and say :
I love you, Profane_Motherfucker!
Yeah, I'm a troll or whatever.
However, this is seriously OLD news. I read about MS's cash reserves about 1.5 years ago in the Boston Globe.
Granted, it may be just envy (I'd love to have $40B sitting in my company's account... I'd need a company first, though), but it gives me one more reason *not* to buy anything that has that Microsoft logo on it.
Linux, here I come! Now if I can get a hold on all that compiling...
The companies are controlled with totalitarian methods. If they grow so big they can represent a danger for the society in which they are born.
Being unemployed as I am and quite poor, if they offered me some of that money I would sing and dance the company tune and attack open source with all my might (whilst secrectly hiding a Linux box at home in the cellar). I mean this is what poverty does to one, right? And that is Microsoft does to poor people, right?
.Net, Subscription model) sonner or later they would max out and growth would flatten or drop to near to zero. What would they do then? Would they then lobby politicians to start a Microsoft tax or make it a criminal offense not to have a PC in every house running Microsoft Windows XXXXX?
On the serious side, I suppose that reading something like this depresses me, because it seems that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, although I suppose a string of bad luck and or court cases could quickly deplete much of those cash reserves. But I don't think anyone seriously expects that ever to happen. The only thing I wonder about is in a theoretical model when Microsoft has bought everyone out and has absolutely no more competition (having successfully lobbied, bribed etc politicians into outlawing open source), How do they continue to grow?
Even if they were successful with all their initiatives (Passport,
This isn't meant as flamebait but as a question, given that the subscription model is probably a means to generate revenue and is not a real necessity.
what i dont understand is why they don't use that money to hire *real* programmers and make a *stable* os that doesnt take 256mb of ram.
get an army of asm programmers and recode windows from scratch.. just for fun.. i would if i had that much money...
Anybody with any sense is going to shy away from going up against MS in any significant sense. If you have a world beating idea in the OS arena, the best you can do as a new entrant is to be bought up by the beast from Redmond. Your chief developers? They can be identified by PIs and their salaries quadrupled by MS. Publicly traded? You can't fight 40B in a hostile takeover. Privately owned? Can you afford to go up against Microsoft legal if they simply steal your ideas?
Big war chests deter competitors, like large militaries deter invasion.
This is Microsoft's version of peace through strength. I don't believe that it's a strategy that is consistent with behaving within the anti-trust laws.
Many religious individuals tithe a _gross_ ten percent of their income. Is Bill giving away ten percent of his income? Oh, you "mean more philanthropic than any other" among people who have made money their religion.
Sure, among the rich, he's generous.
I have heard that if you look at the statistics of financial donations, on average those in lower income brackets give more as a percentage of income than do those with higher incomes. (Can anyone help me source the stats for this? I admit I don't have a good citation.)
I'm less impressed than I might be with BillG and Microsoft, especially considering the social consequences of running an extortion racket against public schools.
It's easy to get a camel through the eye of a needle, if you puree it first.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
Microsoft's enormous cash reserves may constitute an illegal tax shelter. See here and here for more details.
2!! Count'em 2!! Small Office licences of Windows XP Pro and Office XP SOHO!!!!!!
*imagine... being able to AFFORD software... wow*
Find Escorts, Strippers, Massage Parlours, Swingers
Well, there's your problem. Since when has the stock market been played for the long term?
Nope, no sig
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these
Live today. Tomorrow will cost a lot more!
Then you could feed the hungry.
Capitalism is not about equal distribution of wealth.
Freedom has nothing to do with wealth.
Its about control of resources, using capitalism, the rich control the resources even if the resources are unlimited.
You could use 40 billion to build robots, nano technology and GM foods which would make feeding the hungry an easy task.
Robots would grow GM foods, then the GM foods would be gathered up and distributed.
Distribution would cost alot of money but 40 billion is enough to do it.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Right now our capitalism rewards big companies instead of small ones.
Many small companies are better for the economy, than a few big ones who consume all the resources and dont give back.
Small companies have to give back through competition because if they dont another small company is right there to take their place.
Big companies however are bad for capitalism. Monopolies especially.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Food has a price.
Thats what happens when you have alittle too much capitalism.
Capitalism and alot of people starve, or Socialism and no one ever starves.
Food has a price, and when the US dominates capitalism with big busineses (I think the size of companies should be limited as well as the scope, mergers should be illegal as well)
little companies cant compete with mcdonalds. companies in china cant create their own microsoft like company to make an OS.
You see?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The good thing about Communism and Socialism, success is shared.
If theres a bill gates in your country, everyone lives better not just bill gates.
If we were communism, or socialism, we'd all be living better for this reason
People would still need us to buy their software from, their computers from, windows would still sell.
Instead of 60 billion being in the hands of bill gates and 40 billion in the hands of microsoft.
This money would be more evenly distributed.
Capitalism is just not going to be useful after we get to a point technology wise
Tell me what good capitalism is, when theres no jobs left? Once we have robots and nano technology, what labor can the average person do?
Prepare for collapse unless everyone wakes up tomorrow as a scientist
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
...you're saying there is nobody in a capitalist country that ever goes hungry?
You might want to rethink your logic.
Yes, it's stupid in the long run, but in the short term, it's basically a fool's market - you'd be surprised just how many companies don't pay dividends now, and don't plan no paying them in the forseeable future (read: most tech stocks).
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
And the truth about the USA is, it wasnt built by capitalism, it was built by slavery
COMMUNISM built the USA!!! Yet capitalism takes all the credit.
Its kinda funny how the USA is built off of Communism, yet everyone expects to be able to build a country from capitalism when its never been done.
NEVER. Every capitalist country was built from slavery, including england and australia.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Twenty-four space shuttles.
A dinosaur.
The entire airline industry - three times.
Magic beans.
Lack of food isnt why we dont feed them. Its not that we dont have the food to feed people on earth forever,
And with GM technologies, if we wanted to, we could grow giant sized veggies and use robots to do the farming work, and ship that over to all the third world countries.
The problem is, no one wants to feed the third world countries, it would require money to build the robots and create GM foods.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Currently running in favor of corporations. The donating of corporate cash to political committees or spending on issue ads, is currently considered protected free speech by the courts. This of course requires the courts to consider corporations entities with the legal standing of people, a legal fiction granted by the Supremes in an 1886 creative reinterpretation of the 14th amendment (written to protect freed slaves) that gave corporations most rights of humans under the law and constitution.
Heh, makes me wonder what sort of citizenship laws congresscritters will pass for silicon-based intelligent entities (that will probably, initially, be owned by corporations.)
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
The fact that they have 40 billion isn't the part that is impressive, but rather the amount of money they earn from interests alone.
At a rate of 4.5% (a little below average savings account rate), the will earn 1,800,000,000/year (1.8 billion/year) that is 4,931,506.85/day (4 Million/day) that is 205,479.45/hour that is $3,424.66/min. Think about that. In the time that it took me to type all this, they just made another $7K. Just for doing nothing.
When you are able to do that, you can spend as much money into anything regardless of whether it will succeed or fail. Or they can pay all there lawyers and not even see a dent in their stockpile.
_______________________________
"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
Put a down payment on the US national debt.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
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if bill gates got into a car accident and died?
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Which reminds me of the movie The Jerk. Think Bill would write all the checks personally, like Navin did?
"Pay to the order of Mrs. Wilbur Stark, one dollar and nine cents!"
News for the CFD community http://www.cfdreview.com
You can buy a lot of judges for that much money and have change to pay off a senator or two.
...buy APPLE COMPUTER and put them out of their misery!
--
Ask the Ya-Hoot Oracle Anything!
What's the best way for a software company to boost their liquid assets? Start pressing out more cd's. Each cd of, let's say, Microsoft Small Business server costs around 1800$. The actual cd costs about 5 cents. So if MS wanted to increase their liquid assets they just print out a couple 100,000 of these cd's and tack it onto their total worth. Then their investors will stay happy knowing the company their money is in is worth a zillion dollars.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Yeah, yeah everyone has said, but really, how often do you think Bill thinks about buying a country? I don't really think he thinks about spending his money extravegantly. He's already said that he's *only* giving his children $1M or something, and that the rest of his money is going to charity.
---
"To know recursion, you must first know recursion."
MS could buy back all of Mr. Gate's stock. Talk about an exit plan.
Microsoft and big companies like it who let 30-40 billion dollars sit in the bank, create recessions.
You know, Microsoft and others could be creating recessions on purpose to make the market hostile for the competition, did you ever think of that?
Just establish your monopolies, then sit on top, try to suck in as much money from the economy that you can, then hold it in a bank, when a recession begins to start and companies begin dropping like flies, you continue sucking more money into your bank.
Reccession happen not because companies dont pay taxes, its because companies arent spending.
Tax cuts wont make them spend, thats as pathetic as trying to give a dollar to everyone on earth to save the economy of the world.
Bush used it to get in office, thats it.
The solution to the recession isnt to do tax cut after tax cut, its to literally FORCE microsoft to spend its money, and not just Microsoft but AOL and all of these other companies which have monopolies or not enough competitition.
Economies do well during the most competitive periods, once monopolies establish themselves, its all over.
We need to outlaw monopolies, and control the size of companies, we should also make it illegal for companies to save more than a certain amount of money.
Microsoft should not be allowed to have 40 billion dollars sitting in the bank, that DOES have a HUGE impact on our economy, 40 billion dollars is biggger than the movie industry, the gaming industry, the airline industry combined.
Think about the effects this has on our economy, think about how many jobs 40 billion dollars would create, it would create hundreds of thousands if not millions of jobs!!!
Now think about all the other companies who have too much money sitting in the bank and all the jobs their money would create if they were FORCED to spend it.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Quoth The Red Hot Chilli Peppers - "Give it away, give it away, give it away now."
i seam to remember reading somewhere that billg liked to have enough cash on hand to run m$ for one year with zero revinue comming in.
Most solvent companies have the potential to pay a dividend, somewhere down the line. However, investors are often willing to forgo the dividend in exchange for a high rate of growth. Presuming, I suppose, that if the growth ever reaches its limits, the company will start paying dividends to maintain the stock price.
However, I think the definition of "potential" can be pretty weak. After all, how many ridiculous stocks were kicked up to astronomical heights by overzealous investors? People don't always behave rationally.
You seem to have have no grasp of economics. Splits are used to keep the price of a stock
withing a range that investors can afford. If not for the splits a share of M$ stock would go for many thousands and very few investors could afford a round lot of 100 or 1000 (which most brokerage commisions are based on). Splits don't equate to dividends at all, however. On the day your stock splits you simply have 2 (or N) times as many shares but each share is worth 1/2 (or 1/N) of what it was before the split.
A person is a legal entity designed to make money.
What gives you the power to decide what persons are "designed" for?
Your premise is flawed.
Ok, so which is it? Do "corporations" pay taxes, or do "people"? Well, the answer is both.
Incorrect. Individuals pay taxes. Corporations collect taxes on behalf of the government. The money that government gets has to come from somewhere. Whether or not one individual is trying to get more money to pay their higher taxes does not change the fact that, ultimately, money goes from individuals to government.
Since corporations are legally a "person" and can own property, they need the protection of the national defense, and they use the nation's infrastructure, etc. there is no reason they shouldn't pay taxes.
What's the point? They don't pay taxes. They collect taxes.
It could be argued that it would be fairer if we taxed both people and corporations exactly the same and instead of taxing only some transactions, we tax all transactions the same.
Since when was taxation about making things "fair"? It has much more to do with money and power than it has to do with any humanitarian goal. To think otherwise is naive.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
I wonder what I would do with $40 billion?
Duh! Give it to the stockholders! It's theirs, not yours.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Mabye with the revenue they're making, Microsoft can solve the Frog Plague problem......
:)
How about making the Frogs use a Microsoft OS? That will eliminate them!
Well, hell. Then let's get some of that Capitalism and Freedom down to Alabama and up to rural New Hampshire. 'Cause there are hungry folks there, too.
Maybe the problem is simply that Capitalism and Freedom just don't do a very good job of distributing themselves...
The model that I would suggest is not that book value and net income determine stock price and sometimes popularity determines stock price, but that book value and net income determine popularity, which determines stock price. It just seems like a far more parsimonious model. . I guess I failed to make that point clear in my previous post.
I wonder how much of that cash is committed over time to buying shares at market price to cover their outstanding employee incentive options. I'm with Alan Greenspan on this one; those options need to be covered in the financials.
--Andy Hickmott
Thundercats was the best cartoon of the time.
An in case you're wondering (I know I'm not), if you accidentally mis-spell it as "Thudercats" in google and are feeling lucky, you get erotic thundercats art. Mmmmm....Cheetara...
Last post!
You know, Microsoft and others could be creating recessions on purpose to make the market hostile for the competition, did you ever think of that?
The idiotic idea of one company being responsible for something as complicated as a recession certainly did not cross my mind.
Reccession happen not because companies dont pay taxes, its because companies arent spending.
Where is the economic data to support this?
The solution to the recession isnt to do tax cut after tax cut, its to literally FORCE microsoft to spend its money,
We need less taxes and government regulation so that entrepreneurs are free to create jobs. This can only happen if there is true competition in the marketplace. This is why I support antitrust laws. (Enforcement is separate and much more difficult issue.)
Microsoft should not be allowed to have 40 billion dollars sitting in the bank
So how much money should they be allowed to have? Please be specific as to how much government regulation is required here.
Now think about all the other companies who have too much money sitting in the bank
How much is "too much"?
I suppose you think they're being "greedy."
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
True true! I wish I had mod points, my brave AC poster, for your message screams out to be modded up! Both the content (100% of gross annual income paid out) and the tone ("philanthropic cock size comparison" indeed!) put a smile on my face.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Just about every Major Insurance Company in the US in order to operate, has at least that amount of cash on hand.
Get a free ipod.
Catastrophe Hedging Program 2.5?
If a catastrophe is ever to strike them, they better hope that now is not the time.
Everyone knows that Microsoft applications are completely unusable prior to version 3.0...
Okay. Suppose I have $40 Billion in the back and decide I would like to buy every professional sports team in the US. How does my bank deal with that? I mean, it's not like you could ever have access to $40 in a single withdrawl. I suppose they have many banks and many accounts...
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
I believe the fundamental problem here is not that consumers are stupid, or that the government is making bad choices, but that they simply have not had enough information to make intelligent choices between competing products. Big corporations go out of their way to hide less-than-positive facts about themselves, and spend giga-bucks on giving themselves a good image in the public mind (advertising + influence on the media) so that alternatives like the local diner, the local independent gas station, the "unknown" music band, and of course OSS software, are never considered seriously by the general public.
But this is the information age, right? Shouldn't the internet provide us mechanisms to get the information we need to make intelligent choices about such things? I don't think we are inevitably doomed to be dominated by a small number of very powerful corporations, but we have to find models (Napster and company? Ebay?) for a new way of finding more options than the familiar names we are bombarded with through the media.
Energy: time to change the picture.
Commentary from inbred socialists about the 'evils' of the capitalist system. Ohhh the iniquity of it all....
Needless to say if the US tax system didnt tax dividends twice and took a more enlightened apprach as other countries do to owning shares, MS would not be sitting on this nest egg.
Curmudgeon...
[Cue negative moderation.....]
scrooge's money bin is mostly filled with gold pieces, $20s i assume. he has very few bills in the bin, although plenty on hand elsewhere. makes sense, $20 coins in the long run take up less space than bills. don't you ever watch the reruns?
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
I think the reason why Microsoft has US$40 billion on hand is the fact that it gives the company a huge financial cushion to weather financial downtowns and more importantly give time for Microsoft to properly develop its products.
For example, consider the Xbox gaming console. Microsoft can afford to lose money on this system because it has the cash reserves to nuture the system to success. This is where companies like Sony and Nintendo have potential major downsides--one misstep and either company will end up hurting financially BIG TIME. In fact, that's what did in Sega as a console manufacturer.
Also, Microsoft is able to afford to do serious research into computer interface design; after all, the polished feel of modern Microsoft products for the most part is due to the many thousands of hours spent in Usability Lab to develop the look and feel of the product. And you wonder why both Gnome and KDE borrows a lot of interface conventions from Windows....
While other high-tech companies have fallen flat on their faces since the spring of 2000, Microsoft continues to chug along well.
But it shouldn't stop there. There should be expert knowledge extraction processes to combine, mine and discover new facts within that data. This new data could be reviewed by some system to insure correctness and added back to the knowledge base. At this point the catastrophe recovery system could start paying for its existence. I see this as the next killer app.
Finally to truly be a catastrophe recovery system for humanity it would need lesions and tests to teach people from the grade school level up. However such a system would be too important to be the property of some corporation or in some propitiatory format but would need to be in a self descriptive format that even an alien visitor or out-of-the-woods aborigine could deduce and utilize.
While this may seem a far fetched catastrophe recovery plan I think whoever is in charge of such a thing would be sitting pretty when ever there actually was a disaster. Who would you try to ensure survived if not the one's you depended upon to survive. And as it would have use by both civilians, researchers, and government agencies in times of need and in times of plenty it might be quite profitable as both a private enterprise and a developed and developing government subscription. Something the U.N. might think about.
Gees this is better than the cigarrette industry. They really ought to be fined down to size.
Eat at Joe's.
Your distinction between "pay" and "collect" is meaningless. Let's keep it simple. Both companies and people have sources of income and expenses. When the government applies a new tax, both people and companies have a new expense. They will either try to decrease another expense, increase their income by charging more for the goods and services they create or end up with less savings.
Money doesn't "ultimately" come from anywhere, it cycles through the economy. Sometimes it is in the possession of individuals, sometimes by corporations and sometimes by the government. If you are going to argue that money only has meaning when possessed by sentient beings, which corporations are not, then you will have to argue that it isn't meaningful to talk about the government getting money either. Your statement then becomes "taxes are paid by people to people", which is true, but not very useful.
When taxes are placed on one part of the economy, that part of the economy is rarely able to shift all of that tax onto the other parts. If you shifted all the taxes from individuals to corporations, the profits and investments of those corporations would go down. That, as far as I'm concerned, means that the corproations are "paying" those taxes. If you shifted all taxes to individuals, the their disposable incomes would go down. That, as far as I'm concerned, means that the individuals are "paying" those taxes. In either case, there is less money on the next stage of the cycle. When corporate profits go down, it means that shareholders have less. When disposable income goes down, it means sales to consumers will go down. Whether it is better for economy in the long run to decrease profits or decrease disposable income is not an easy question to answer, but that is a seperate question.
SPF support for most open source mail servers can be found at libspf2.
Jesus H Christ in a flaming Tar Barrel! Is this what passes for economics knowledge in the US these days ? You are so completely and utterly incorrect on so many counts.
Curmudgeon
Government employees are also individuals. Tax dollars don't magically disappear when they go to the government, they get cycled back through the economy. The money many not be cycled through in the most effiecient way, but that is a seperate issue.
SPF support for most open source mail servers can be found at libspf2.
two chicks at the same time
-no broken link
The classic example of wealth is a man stranded on an island. He must attend to his basic needs (hunting/foraging mostly) for most of his day, but can set aside a little spare food. In this most primitive scenario, the stored food (we'll pretend for the moment that it won't rot) is his wealth.
He can consume his wealth unproductively (by taking a day off) or by saving up food and then using the time he would be hunting to, say, make a better spear. If he invests his spare time into productivity, he can hunt faster, and generate more 'wealth'. Once he has stored up enough food to, say, not hunt for a month... maybe he can build a farm and increase his productivity again. Note that currency is not involved here in any way.
In a more complex example, you have a barter system, where each citizen specializes into something. People working exclusively on one job become better at it than generalists. This allows the society to create more goods per hour worked (productivity again). People can trade their goods for other goods. In very general terms, the cobbler can work a week on shoes, and then sell those shoes for enough food to eat for two weeks. The farmer who buys the shoes can focus on farming and can, in a week, generate enough food to feed himself and, say, three other people. He can trade his food for the goods they produce. The overall standard of living rises sharply.
The next development is some sort of currency. In the Austrian school of economics (which seems much more intelligent than other sorts I've looked into), money is simply the most marketable commodity... the one thing that people, in general, will be most likely to accept. On our world, that happened to be gold and silver. This was a HUGE advancement because it allowed the storage of wealth in a way that did not decompose. If someone worked for a long time, they could store up enough money to invest into large things that made big changes in productivity. This also made the process of trade itself much faster, because people didn't have to spend time finding someone who wanted their chicken in exchange for shoes.
The next major development was 'token' money, where gold and silver were stored in a vault someplace (which is convenient, because they are heavy) and lighter, smaller coins, or pieces of paper, were issued to indicate ownership of a portion of the gold.
This is where things start to get complex. The use of tokens to represent gold allowed the issuers of tokens to play games they had never been able to do before. Someone must have thought... 'gee, I have 1000 ounces of gold in my treasury, I could probably issue 1100 tokens, because they're not going to want to withdraw all their money at once.' This was a VERY BIG DEAL, because for the first time, 'currency' (tokens) became DIFFERENT FROM wealth (the most marketable commodity).
Over time, the amount of gold held in reserve became less and less. This resulted in huge multipliers in the amount of currency circulating. If you have a 10% reserve ratio, for every ounce of gold you take in, you can issue tokens for 10 ounces of gold. Our banks presently are required to hold something like 3% reserves, which means that currency is multiplied by 33 1/3 times.
Now we're getting into an area where I understand less, and where even experts disagree, so take what I say from here as partially fact and partially opinion. The above is pretty much all solid fact, but it gets murky from here.
The rise of fractional reserve banking was a huge change in economics, but it has been a mixed blessing. It allows the economy to expand at a much faster rate in good times, but when things go bad, it appears to make contractions much worse. When bankers see that the sun is shining, they tend to lend more, thus creating more currency (and the APPEARANCE OF WEALTH), but they *do not* create wealth in so doing. In essence, they themselves are borrowing against future production. By issuing new debt, they allow things to be built that otherwise could not have been afforded. This devalues the currency to some degree, and also tends to encourage the building of things that are marginally profitable. The bigger the boom, the more demand is magnified, and the more things are built that cannot be sustained in lean times. (malinvestment)
Eventually, either due to the malinvestment or due to other outside shocks (wars, for instance), times start to get harder. The banks become worried and lend less. The lowered availability of money removes currency from the market, making it more precious. This tends to make people spend less, and increases the risk of defaults on other loans, which in turn reduces the money supply even more. Thus, just like the boom was magnified, so is the bust. Businesses that would be perfectly profitable in 'normal' times can and do fail in 'busts', which destroys yet more wealth.
Eventually things start to look rosy again, the bankers do more lending, and another boom cycle ensues. The overall heights of the booms and busts are limited, primarily by the percentages required in fractional reserve banking. The commodity underneath the tokens restrains the worst of the potential excess; it keeps the economy on relatively honest footing.
Overall, it appears that fractional reserve banking seems to have more benefits than drawbacks. It also makes the bankers one hell of a lot of money (wealth, not currency!), so they have pushed hard for the practice to continue.
However, there has been a major change, quite recently by economic standards:
In 1971, Nixon took us off the gold standard. This set off a confidence crisis in the dollar, and the 1970s were a very unpleasant time. It is probably no coincidence that personal income peaked in the early 1970s, and has been on a steady slide downhill ever since.
What replaced gold? Nothing. Literally. The Federal Reserve could now create bank reserves by waving their hands. There was no limit on the amount of currency they could create; there was no fundamental check-and-balance there. The 1970s were a very un-fun time in the economy.
Starting in about 1980, Volcker restored confidence in the dollar by restoring the Fed to fiscal prudence. He did this by reducing the money supply growth rates to reasonable figures and by jacking up interest rates to the moon. Throughout the 80s, we had a pretty stable currency.
However, starting in the early 90s, the Greenspan Fed has been wildly profuse in its generation of currency. Anytime we have had a problem, it has just opened the spigots and let the money flow. Note that this is not related in ANY WAY WHATOSOEVER to actual wealth. It is just currency.
Because we were globalizing for the first time, there was an endless appetite for dollars overseas. This let Greenspan print money like mad without seeing many signs of inflation. (which is generally considered to be consumer prices going up, but this is a bad definition.) Instead of CPI gains, the inflation went into the stock market and, now, into real estate. This kind of inflation is seductive and terrible; it does enormous damage to an economy, while everyone LOVES IT and wants it to CONTINUE.
In essence, by taking us off the gold standard, Nixon has removed one of the fundamental checks on the power of the banks. As a result, the boom we had was titanic, extraordinary -- the biggest boom in the history of the world.
Likely outcome of the bust left as an exercise for the reader.
I would try to buy out other companies that showed any signs of innovation. Oh wait...
I'm happy to have been corrected about Bill's generosity. I was wrong.
The rich do many things besides "capitalize on those beneath them" and I didn't mean to imply otherwise. There are many good and generous rich people. There are many who make great contributions to our society.
Or we could talk about corporations with the rights of individuals but without the responsibilities. Shall we talk about what SLAPPs do to law? How about money = speech?
The rich have the most assets, so of course they pay the most taxes. This is, as you said, irrelevant to a discussion of philanthropy.
I'm glad that he has intimated truly fabulous generosity. I even believe it likely he will carry through on that intimation.
I'd like to see him encourage his company to behave in a lawful and responsible fashion, as I suggested before. I realize that is a lot to ask.
Regarding your judgement of my example of a ten percent tithe: While I have no love of religon or churches, I'd rather see people regularly make a contribution that they feel is meaningful. Besides, revving up a large fortune based on ten percent of anything (other than a larger fortune) is unlikely. That ten percent will not be the distinguishing factor in most cases. I do think a lifetime of philanthropy differs significantly from a later gift, but I am glad to know that he is so generous, and in the end, the money comes out comparably.
And to the other (totally different) person who after correcting my error, asked if I still wanted a dick-size competition: No thank you, and thinking this is about penises says more about you than you would like.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
You're right. I'm wrong
/. poster posted a comment in good faith which was revealed by another /. poster to be mistaken. Amazingly, the original poster quickly admitted his mistake and went on with his life.
Today a
While similar things have happened in the past, never in the experience of this reporter has it been done so quickly and honestly with such correct use of contractions.
I just checked my SEC report on Microsoft. They've listed that the maximum Dividend-Return that any investor could get is $9.94. This is tallying their on-hand cash reserve and dividing it by the number of stocks. Since Microsoft uses a loophole, there is no concrete numbers of total shares it has, but it is estimated to be around 1 billion shares. $40 billion cash reserves mean a div/share max return of $40, not $9.94.... Where is the $30.06 per share?
I've seen this kind of funny papertrail before... when I pulled my money out of Enron at $74.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
As for a shelter shielding Microsoft from taxes, their own financials reported a total income tax expense (2001) of $1,288,000,000 US Dollars. If they have a tax dodge in place, it AIN'T working.
Yes, but what about Gates? Right now, when he wants some coin, he sells some shares, and the proceeds of those shares are taxed at a lower marginal rate than if he had received dividends. I suspect that guys like Bill Gates and Paul Allen are avoiding a great deal of taxation in doing so.
It's not as if they can't afford to pay the tax...
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
That's not true. You have a very simplistic understanding of the stock market. Without getting into all of the reasons why a company might want to hang onto a lot of cash, a company can buy back stock. This has the same effect as paying a dividend. One way of thinking about is, suppose there are ten shareholders, each holding 10 shares of stock. If each share is trading at $10 each, the company decides to use an extra $100 in cash to buy back ten shares instead of paying a $100 dividend, each shareholder can sell one share if its stock for $10. The shareholders then each get $10 from selling their stock, and they still each own 10% of the outstanding shares.
The big advantage of this is taxes. Instead of paying ordinary income taxes on the dividend, they pay taxes on the capital gain. Capital gains rates are lower than income taxes, so this is a major advantage with the same economic effect. There are other advantages to buybacks though, because you don't have to sell. Instead you can increase your ownership in the company without engaging in a separate transaction. Normally taking your dividends and reinvesting it in the company has tax consequences. A buyback does not.
The reason people are hungry is not unequal distribution of wealth, it's because of unequal distribution of capitalism and freedom. Lack of food and money is a symptom, not a root cause.
It's not as if there are any poor or hungry people in the first world where capitalism and economic freedom dominate.
Oh, wait...
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
And government. The new DOJ of the newly federated banana republic will get to prosecute companies that operate with business practices in conflict with Microsoft. These unfair business practices will be treated as treason and the offenders will be "deleted".
If you don't believe me, ask that guy over there.
Starting space exploration on a REAL scale WOULD be selfless, as you would never, ever, live to see the truly cool shit that would come from it.
When you do something really important that actually changes the future, that actually makes a difference in the way that humans go about their lives, you WILL be remembered, no matter what.
So all you fucking hippies that think that you have to give money to charity or whatever to be "humane" or whatever the hell you're going for is absurd at best. Why waste money on something that really won't affect all of humanity just to pretend to be a selfless philanthropist? Because you're a moron.
That's the only explanation.
Bye bye karma.
~D
I've seen some people refer to Nader's call for MS to pay dividends and to the Ford/Dodge court case that brought this issue up about 75 years ago. However, I haven't seen any details posted here.
The article I saw in January about Nader's case (argument, not legal case) makes it clear what the beef is:
Regarding the Ford/Dodge case, that happened in the Michigan state court system and is summarized as part of this article I found. An extract:
As the author mentions in passing, there is some question "as to whether dicta from a state court decision remains influential after seventy-five years"... but I gather it's the only major case testing the same issue
Even with 40 Billion and a major
anti open source slant, Linux is still
kicking ass. Open Source software
rules. It's the only thing that can
bring them down. The government
coudn't do it, lawsuits can't do it,
but open source will in time, beat
them back down.
Yeah!
-- "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."
They do not use Microsoft Money for that?
... that software package "Microsoft Money".
Too bad there's no money to be made by investing that money in making their software suck less.
OK, I can deal with them having cash on hand and not paying dividends (though the amount is friggin mind blowing). Most tech Co's don't pay dividends theoretically because they're supposed to use the cash to create value for shareholders via R&D which leads to eventual improvement in stock price.
This being the case, why isn't more of that cash going into MAKING WINDOWS NOT SUCK ASS?? If I owned any M$ stock I'd be furious for that reason alone. "Make my investment GROW, you PINHEADS!"
We're doing a PISS poor job of teaching people economics. If more people understood economics then 505 of the comments here wouldn't be here, and we'd have much better elected officals. Oh well... I'm just afraid you all might VOTE!
Can someone explain 40billion to me in terms of pot?
I stopped using money years ago.
Two chicks at the same time, man.
This is why the XBox will not fail and its impossible to compete against Microsoft products. There's essentially an indeterminate number of trials that Microsoft has to get it done successfully.
i do remember this: not long ago MS's cash status was at $50 B. ... so whatever that software is, it's at least partly responsible for a 20% drop
in cash assets??
"There are 11 kinds of people: those who know binary, those who don't, and those who could not care less!"
Simple enough: he dives through the money like a porpoise, and burrows through it like a gopher, and tosses it up and lets it hit him on the head!
Still quite a bit less than the fellow who has five billion quintiplitilion unptuplatillion multuplatillion impossibidillion fantasticatrillion dollars housed in three cubic acres.
Please tell me there is someone on here who got their knowledge of the classics from actually reading Carl Barks rather than watching Ducktales.
... is the fact that professional athletes make an appreciable fraction of the cost of a space shuttle.
you are so incredibly dumb, i can't believe you waste this much time to write so much garbage. i have no idea where you got your education, you really are a shocking example of its inadequacies.
... a sense of humor, because I thought I had something witty to write, but it turns out I don't.
1,999,999,999,999 ideas, rather...should that price hold
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
So what's the difference from version 1.0? The original only accounted for earthquakes and tidal waves?
I'd buy an airline, a basketball franchise, and a couple space vehicles. I'd fire all my basketball players and set up a franchise on the moon. I would then fly a bunch of midgets to my launch facility on my airline then blast them off to the moon. I would only let midgets play on my moon-based basketball team. Can you imagine how awesome it would be to see little people slam dunking over Shaq's head?
over it?
... uh errr, as the abstraction of the abstract media of money (numbers on paper) suggest?
Perhaps with all those companies they ran out
of business?
Money is an abstraction, an agreed upon media of value exchange that can be distorted.
To have a more fundamental POV there has to be value generation of which the abstract media is associated with.
So has MS really produced such real value as the abstract media
In other words, had MS not run out of business (using proven illegal anti-trust tactics) where and how would that 40 billion be going thru the economy?
For an example consider the Trillion Dollar Bet and how it drained the south Asian Market and contributed to the so called terrorist motive/excuse.
dig money...
Well the kinda chicks that would double up on a dude like me do.
~Admrlnxn
"I got your mom in my trunk"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
But i'd mod this up. Why can a guy say "eliminate them by peacefully driving them to extinction" and another guy suggesting that he could take the first step gets modded as flamebait.
I believe you can't make a country better of by killing the "would-be-born" kids. You can make them better of by teaching them, educating them.
After all, there are a lot of low-population countries which are inmensely POOR and no-one's helping them either. So how reducing a country's population makes them better off? You could only say "then less of them will suffer".
Are you guys that modded this down being serious? I really think the best Bill Gates could do is to build a network of high quality schools in the poor countries. Eliminating their population by castration is NOT a solution and it's a proposal only an ANIMAL could push.
You can take my karma, but you can't take my dignity.
unfinished: (adj.)
And don't forget that 91% [econop.org] of the taxes are paid by just the top 5% of the taxpayers. I know that our tax duties aren't philanthropic, but dammit, people want to act like the rich do _nothing_ but capitalize on those beneath them, and it just ain't true.
Has it ever occured to you that the reason you see that pattern is because that same exact 5% of the taxpayers earn 91% (or something like that) of all country profits each year?
I know that our tax duties aren't philanthropic
Agreed!
unfinished: (adj.)
Well it depends on which directions they want to take. I mean, new and better operating systems. Hardware. Computers. In the computer industry the sky is the limit.
.NET model not a necessity. I remember pre-1997 when I didn't give a shit about computers or the internet. I had my Mac Classic which did everything I needed. Printed shit, played cheesy games etc. Then my grandfather got a computer with Windows 95 on it. He took me on a tour of the internet. What wasn't a necessity before became a need. After I gradutated I got a computer ahd headed off to college where I was connected morning, noon and night doing shit. It became a necessity. .NET could also have the same effect in the long run. I mean they have put this much into it. I don't think they are gonna back out now and say "OOPS! Bad Idea!"
I know for a fact that they will never make their own computers like apple. It would destroy everything that they have built. As for new and better Operating Systems. Yes. Windows has gotten better over the years. Look at the evolution between 95 and 98 alone. 98 was better, you can't argue with that. It wasn't great but it was better. Then from NT3-NT5(aka 2000) It was better. A lot better. Now they have XP and I am sure they are working on somthing else that is even better.
They way I figure it. In the next 10 years or so Windows will be a worthy rival in the computer industry. Server side I am speaking. When it comes to client they win hands down. I know that comment is flame bait but hear me out. Not everyone is a computer geek. Most people who use computers are nearly computer illiterate. So windows is an obvious choice. Easy to use yet still has its flaws.
Anyways... The way I figure it. Microsoft will eventually create an Operating System that just rocks on every front. Then I think their next goal. (I can't be for certain on this) Is to connect the world. Similar to what NURVj tried to do in Antitrust. Make the world just connected one one global network. No dial up modems or DSL or cable... but one network. Homes would come with an ethernet standard built into them, like phone lines. You hook up your computer and you are in. I don't know if that is their intentions but it isn't a bad idea to where they might be headed.
I wouldn't call their subscription
I don't think they will lobby politicians either. I think they will continue to do whatever it is that they do. Make over-priced software that almost everyone and their mom needs because it is the latest and greatest. I don't knwo where they are headed but I am sure in Mr. Gates office is a huge dry erase board with the model... ever changing.
~Admrlnxn
"I got your mom in my trunk"
I would... fucking buy an island in Fiji and retire dammit. For 40 billion dollars; screw the idea of going to work. Who cares at this point. Sell all your shares and retire. Let some other schmuck run the company. I mean come on, you can't do it forever. Take the wife and kids outta dodge and raise them in a fun environment where you do shit all day.
~Admrlnxn
"I got your mom in my trunk"
I recommend reading "Money makes the world go round" by Barbara Garson as she follows her "deposit" around the world.
Why is this news?
Microsoft won't buy the airline industry. The pilots would see the blue sky through their windows and crash.
Gee, how many puns can I stick in there? !e-nuff.
-Darren
then the recipients of that money would put it back in the bank, or spend it to people who put it in the bank.
But if M$ just took the money back from the banks and held it in private coffers, that might create the problem you describe. Perhaps if they find a way to profit from such an action, they might do it.
Likely outcome of the bust left as an exercise for the reader.
... from seeing friends to putting one person's junk to the service of some less demanding cause.
... and at which those best at spreading FUD continue to have the greatest success, be they involved in hyping upgrades or the war against drugs.
Living in a lucky country where the economic measures didn't even shorten stride as they gallop into the unknown, I have noted a few other people starting to bemoan the degree to which money is starting to get in the way of even the simplest things which are essential to our very humanity
But every day it looks more likely that we do not have to wait till after the boom for depression, but that depression has already set in, both for those whose ever harder work continues to underpin the indicators and for those struggling to find their way into the loop.
There is something primitively natural in the cycle of long growth and rapid death which flies in the face of human aspirations to fairness, the kind of overgrowth which our granting veto to the bean counters has made has made an inescapable aspiration of every human institution
So you don't have to wait for the depression to follow Wired's long boom, you just have to look around and ask people how they feel.
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
That said, The Bill's philanthropy is way too little too late and doesn't make a big dent in his net worth. A nice big number but not so much for the world's richest man. Most science fiction has such a guy funding the first moon base etc. Why does our Bill care so much about nosing into little dusty interiors when he could have his head in the clouds? Fund X Prize competitors and Nanotech startups, and try to do it without strings attached! Feh!
If they can't spend this money, they must be hitting limits on growth. There must not be any new ideas in Microsoftland worth investing in- at least, not to that extent. That does spell catastrophe- but hoarding money is not the way to deal with it, because Microsoft is not a bank.
When they say Catastrophe, are we sure they don't mean "Catastrophe Theory", as is "why does this continuous process generate discontinuous results?" Just curious. If there ROI looks anything like some of the catastophe graphs I've seen, they're making out like bandits. Or wallowing in debt. But I'm pretty sure that's not the case.
trustedworlds.net - gaming, security, and the gunk that lives in between
I won't argue that communism is slavery but it does seem to me that a little fairness is in order. Any professor arguing for a new variant of slavery would be drummed out of academia *if he was lucky*. The advocates of communism, unfortunately, are still with us and semi-respectable.
I would like to hear about the slave history of the ROC (Taiwan), S. Korea, etc. before I accept your blanket statement that capitalist countries have never existed without slavery. There are a whole bunch of very new capitalist countries whose slaveholding, if it is documented at all, occured long before capitalism grew up there.
communism has always relied heavily on the useage of past economic seed corn in order to finance a temporary increase of current consumer consumption. This is very important in the period where armed opposition exists to the regime. Nicaraugua never got past that phase so you are somewhat correct that it is atypical.
Eventually the seed corn runs out, capital is used up and there is little new capital assigned to replace it. The long downhill slide of communism commences in all its customary brutality.
I would submit that the USSR success at creating a new soviet man was not, perhaps to this day still is not, understood in the mainstream West. Sure, there were some perceptive people who understood communist reality but they were largely voices in the wilderness, stifled by the paid communist hacks and their allies, the anti-anti-communists.
The commanding heights of Western society were filled with Walter Duranty types who distorted and denied the fundamental evil of communism, never giving up an opportunity to excuse and ignore the horrors that were occuring.
When a society emerges from communism, there is generally an immediate drop in living standards because the seed corn economic cycle needs to be primed and those resources are not available for present consumption. As the effects of communism fade and society is rebuilt in a sustainable fashion economic resources become more and more available to respond to present needs without robbing the next generation of any hope for even maintaining the economic level. On the contrary, it is the children who most benefit because they are placed on the economic up escalator that capitalism provides.
DB
...the first thing I'd do is throw a little money at Congress, to pass laws that help me maintain my position, such as the DMCA. The cost would be chickenfeed, the results spectacular.
I'd buy every major league baseball team and make them all wear dresses.
I'd buy all the pants in the world and burn them. No more pants.
These quotes directly stolen from comedian Louis CK.
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
I would destroy you all! Bwhahahahahahaha!
But we were talking best Disney Afternoon cartoon. Thundercats was a Rankin/Bass creation using a lot of Japanese artists (had a very anime look and feel), as was the successor, Silverhawks (heheh, who remembers that?). If you want to open it up to mid-80's cartoons in general, you'd have to include more quality works like Robotech as well.
Mmmmm....Cheetara...
Rrrowl.
Microsoft has lots of $$$, but the MPAA/RIAA still has much more political influence, especially with the Democratic Party, which will bend over whenever the MPAA/RIAA asks it to.
Enough money to crush the DMCA's backers and eject the politicians responsible for it.
Microsoft would never do such a thing. They love the DMCA. Expect them to use it a lot more in the future.
Extinction? Perhaps you haven't been paying much but there are way too many people in many parts of the world, and they are in absolutely no danger of dying out, even under the original poster's proposed idea.
So hows it helping the economy when the majority cant borrow the money. And hows borrowing money better than actually getting to keep it?
If you worked for microsoft you'd EARN the money which means its your money.
Borrowing the money is not fair because not everyone can borrow money, and its not like you can borrow 100,000 a year, and also you cant keep it, its borrowing, dont forget interest.
borrowing doesnt help the economy because most people dont borrow money, they earn it.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
If they have so much cash on hand, why are they suddenly so concerned in the past few years about copyright fraud? Why do we, as users, have to make a phone call to M$ to re-register our software after we upgrade the hardware in our PC? I added 256MB of memory, made no other changes, and had to call for a code in order to use the Excel software that I paid for.
"A generation which ignores history has no past and no future." -- Robert Heinlein
I can understand they sometimes have 15 children and now way to feed them so they are beign irresponsible (or ignorant).
Just that i don't find sterilizing the way to solve poverty. They will always be poor that way. So it's hypocrat. If you don't care, then do nothing. But don't suggest sterilizing their women.
How would you like it if someone suggested sterilizing America? Not funny, of course.
unfinished: (adj.)
Hey I'm not suggesting flying in there and steralizing people against their will. But a reward for people who ask to for vascectomies (I'm not so sure about tubal ligations -- those are generally pretty dangerous) is something I could go for -- yes, even in America.
Fewer children is always a good thing.
How is it a good think? Unless you are not the one unborn, you'll have a hard time proving your point.
If there was no food, no space, no resources i could undestand it. Anyway, my point was about the guy beign slaped as flaimebait for calling the guy that wanted to erradicate poverty by taking their fertility away an "ANIMAL".
It's his opinion. It's not a flame.
unfinished: (adj.)
Fewer children == lower population. A lower population is definitely a "good thing," and simply encouraging people to have fewer children is the best moral way of accomplishing this.
Anyway, my point was about the guy beign slaped as flaimebait for calling the guy that wanted to erradicate poverty by taking their fertility away an "ANIMAL".
It's his opinion. It's not a flame.
Crude personal attacks should always be considered "flamebait." But I wouldn't moderate down, since I prefer moderating good posts up instead...
The only real cures ... (to) take mean steps to cut down the birth rate (like, here, we'll feed you and your family for as long as you allow us to put this norplant thing into your woman).
"Stop having children if you want to eat, you poor stupid bastards" is ok, human and a honorable and thoughtfull proposition. Asking the guy to start by castrating himself is a personal attack.
My point was forced castration is not a solution, as prima nocte was not a solution for destroying scotland. You need to educate these people, while feeding them.
unfinished: (adj.)
$40 billion is also enough to cover I-5 in pennies, from Canada to Mexico, 25 times over. (Accounting for gaps in-between pennies, 6 lanes and a shoulder)