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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?"
With that much money you'd think they could buy a decent operating system
"Can't sleep. Clowns will eat me"
Are you screwing over the "American public" by not paying more than you are legally required to pay?
Guac-foo.
Lots of petrified grits
MS has to have their 40b deposited in banks. Those banks don't just pay interest for fun; they take that 40b and loan it to others (you, me, etc.) and we use that money to build houses, buy cars, and do other things that stimulate the economy and create more wealth.
Unless, of course, they take that money and loan it to sucker^H^H^H others to purchase shares of Enron (insert current flavor of month here) on margin while instructing the analysts in their investment division to hype the stock publicly all the while calling it a POS privately. It's a nice little system called corruption and it allows wealth to be CONCENTRATED, at least until the market collapses. Unfortunately, just as handling cost overruns on single-source no-bid cost-plus contracts is not taught in CS 101, practical tips on perpetrating multimillion-dollar market frauds aren't going to be covered in ECON 101. Instead, you'll be taught happy little myths about friction-free perfect meetings of supply and demand, which is like discussing Earth's gravitational pull while disregarding Earth's atmosphere when trying to understand aviation.
-- "Why, Mr. Anderson, why? Why do you do it? Why get up? Why keep voting? Do you think you're voting for something?"
You are either a 1) liberal that believes in a finite amount of money. 2) Never taken econ classes. The latter is forgivable, the former isn't. :)
What does being a liberal have to do with 'believing in a finite amount of money'? I swear, some of you young'ns have been so brainwashed with this 'the L-word' bullshit, it's scary.
Despite what the Republicans would have you believe, liberalism is not communism. It may involve a slightly different definition of 'equality of opportunity' than the conservative or libertarian sets might like, and it definitely does not stand for corporations over individuals, but it's not the boogey man either.
So, what do you think of the GPL?
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
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.....]
You are an animal. Why don't we do begin to do something for population control by first castrating you?