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'Gates for President' Group Gives Up
netbuzz writes "Dilbert creator Scott Adams had done his best to make this fantasy (or nightmare, depending on your point of view) a viable notion, but after three months of trying the group's leader has acknowledged that it's unlikely Gates will give up his current gig. They've tossed in the towel." Here is our original coverage of this ill-conceived plan.
Isn't it a pay cut?
Bill Gates would probably run the economy *much* better than George. And probably would not get involved in the idiotic "Great American Century" neo-cons.
"..but after three months of trying the group's leader..."
What was he charged with?
He opposes the inheritance tax, like his dad, and he gives his money to decent charities. He ain't a politician in more that the corporate sense. He isn't competent to rule a country, although M$ earns more money than most countries.
No way he'd win, it would cost too much to bribe him.
He is a massively multi-billionaire. What billionaire would not oppose the inheritance tax?
Some form of inheritance tax is required because not having just encourages hoarding of capital, which is bad for the national economy in the long term.
Conflict of Interest....
There is no way he could be seen as anything other than conflicted over what software government branches use. It just wouldn't work.
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-Microsoft shareholders.
-Antivirus companies
-Computer techs/Best Buy and pimped warranties.
-Indian outsourcers.
-Foreign charities.
The website quotes reason why Bill is a good candidate:
I could just picture Ballmer running the campaign.
Something like "I'll fucking bury that guy" as he throws his chair before giving his campaign contributers contributers contributers speech.
This was a pure publicity stunt for Adams. He just picked a well-known person and made a big fuss to get his name into the headlines again. Gates is the perfect person for watercooler talk, since everybody knows him and has something (good or bad) to say about Microsoft. There was no chance this would ever lead anywhere, and now that they see that they won't get more publicity out of it, they're doing one last stunt (We give up! Too bad! We tried so hard!) and let it die with a bang.
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Crushing competition by any means? Stifling new technologies to support a harmful product? Collecting taxes illegally? Transferring wealth from consumers and productive businesses to a wealthy few who contribute nothing worthwhile to civilization? Embrace, extend, extinguish?
Gates is the neo-con artist par excellence.
Weekly unemployment claims doubled in two years.
Way to go Clinton/Bush !!!
He Just doesn't have the right charisma to do it. In in the end Chrisma is what makes you predident or not.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
...to oppose the inheritance/estate tax. Anyone who has a halfway decent job and saved money rather than spent money will most likely have to file. Remember, it isn't just cash holdings that go towards your estate, but property as well.
(There are a lot of financial advisors that will help to help you manage your estate so that you are below the legal limit before Uncle Sam comes in, by donating money to worthy causes you supported in life, etc.)
This seems to be the problem...
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Why would Bill support anything with this kind of response header?
better him as president than ceo of Microsoft. America used to have a economic monopoly. We were a manufacturing powerhouse, now what do we do? Things are going to get ba around here if something isnt done. Bill Gates could help, maybe.
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
Seriously, a consumption task is a pretty horrible idea.
This was brought up a couple days ago, so I'll copy and paste from my previous post on this subject:
Forgoing the income tax for a sales tax is a pretty bad idea.
First, the income tax is progressive. This would be impossible to achieve with sales tax. The only people that would benefit from a "flat" tax (sales or income) are those at the highest tax brackets. In order to replace the income lost from dropping taxes on the top 5%, taxes would have to be raised on the bottom 50%.
Second, a sales tax puts a disproportionate burden on the lowest income families. Those with low incomes--even up to $50k/yr for a single man--spend a very large proportion of their income. The lower your income, the higher percentage of it is spent. People making minimum wage are spending 100% of their pay checks.
Those making $1MM a year, on the other hand, may spend only a small fraction of their income.
And you can say that you would simply not charge sales tax on the things that poor people are spending their money on -- food, shelter and utilities -- but doing so would drastically reduce tax receipts. It would be impossible to exempt those things and the suggestion that it is possible is just used by proponents to try to sell their plan.
Furthermore, this is about Google. Corporations pay a pitifully small percentage of taxes in America. The percentage of taxes paid by corporations has dropped dramatically since the 1950's. Your notion that double taxation is a serious problem is just plain wrong. The tax code currently incentivizes businesses to invest in capital expenditures, R&D, etc.
In summary, the only people that want a sales tax are those that don't understand it's implications and those that could pay less taxes by shifting the tax burden more on the lower & middle classes.
The notion that there is tax injustice because the top minority of Americans pays the majority of taxes is absurd. The people at the top of the food chain reap the highest rewards of our society. Without our national infrastructure, they wouldn't be able to make and horde millions or billions of dollars. They SHOULD pay a tax burden that more closely resembles their share of the US pie, not necessarily their share of the US Population.
Bill Gates is currently testifying before Congress and asking them to remove all limits on H1-B visas. Microsoft is also one of the leading offshorers of US jobs. The net effects of both of these measures is fewer good paying jobs for US citizens and a reduction in our standard of living. Do we want someone who seems to have no care for the very country that allowed him to become so rich to become our President?
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
Back in the day, the National Lampoon got sued over a spoof VW ad showing a Beetle floating in water (which they will do, for a while). Caption: "If Teddy Kennedy had driven a VW, he'd be President today."
rj
The man who single handedly built the middle class in this country in 100 days was one of the wealthiest presidents we've ever had.
Suggesting that anyone independently wealthy that reached the white house would use it to feather his own nest is just a gross oversimplification.
You're giving up on Mr. Gates's presidential aspirations.
Cancel or Allow?
Gates: I'm not somebody who goes to church on a regular basis. The specific elements of Christianity are not something I'm a huge believer in. There's a lot of merit in the moral aspects of religion. I think it can have a very very positive impact.
Hey may author a funny comic strip, and more power to him. But his recent forays into defending Intelligent Design on his blog, as well as other poorly thought out posts, has left me wondering just who is he to throw around the epithet "dolt"? Dude should look in the mirror.
Bill Gates would make a terrible President of the United States. Do we really need another Warren Harding or Calvin Coolidge?
Dogbert is a much better and, in the long run, safer choice. The sooner we elect him the less severe our penalties for waiting will be.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Embrace, extend, extinguish?
That's what Dubya is doing in the Middle East, and we brought him back for a second term.
You don't have to pay ANY estate tax unless you have over $2,000,000. That is far too high. Every other form of income is taxed without a two million dollar deduction. Why is the estate tax so limited? Think of how few people have over two million saved. Yet so many people who this tax will never effect want it eliminated entirely. I say reduce the deduction to $200,000 or less.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
...and there is much rejoicing.
"...the shortest distance between two points may be straight line, but it is by no means the most interesting."
do you really take this crap seriously? get over yourselves.
Adams could just switch his support to Steve Jobs. Jobs could run on a platform to:
1) Change the name of the US to 'iCountry'.
2) Ban Thanksgiving
3) Replace ballistic missile defense with a national reality distortion field.
[Insert pithy quote here]
.... That is truly defective by design.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
... I'd have voted for Doug Stanhope
he has since 1997 -- even though he gave it to himself
Charlie Rose has a series of interviews with Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, sometimes together. They discuss this topic specifically. You may be surprised about what these billionaires think about inheritance.
"Do you have any idea how much power I'd have to give up to be president?" - Lex Luthor to The Question
When Chinese president Hu Jintao came to the U.S. for a state visit last year, he visited Bill Gates before going on to visit GWB.
Mr Hu goes to Washington (after he's seen Bill Gates and the Boeing factory)
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Scott Adams should have done a tearful press conference in which he explains that the enormous cost of running a successful presidential campaign is just too much for the world's richest man to afford. There's a certain tradition to these things.
I would vote Knuth as my Homeboy http://geekz.co.uk/shop/
"'Gates for President' Group Gives Up"
I'm not a US citizen, but what's wrong with you all? Gates would be perfect: he could copy the ideas of all his political opponents (only rather badly), put a little spin on top, and announce he was the greatest innovator American politics had ever seen.
And Ballmer would make the perfect campaign manager for him. I can just hear him:
"Wow! Come on, people! Who said, 'Sit down.'?"
[Begins clapping]
"Give us your vote! Give us your vote! Give us your vote! Give us your vote!" [repeated _ad_nauseam]
How can you pass up on that?
Would Gates declare war on Linux-loving nations?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Of course the problem is that he is already powerful enough not to care for a political position (no more real power when you take into account all the constraints on political leaders, more scrutiny, more stress).
The other things is that this stunt is typical of Scott Adams recent idiocy.
One of the Dilbert booKs contains his own theory of gravitation (yes really, and yes it look like he was serious). He said there were no obvious flaws, it took me about ten seconds to spot one.
He followed it up by attempting to write a philosophy/theology book. He came up with what appears to be rather naive pantheism, at best a poor rehash of ideas like the Hindu one of the dance of Shiva. The sad bit is that he seems to think it is an original idea, and he cannot understand the objections to the flaws in his thinking (fairly obvious if you read his blog). The book is called God's Debris - its a free ebook download because he could not find a publisher (he whines about that on his blog as well).
Now he wants to influence politics.
Obviously he is dissatisfied being funny and wants to achieve something serious. Personally I wish he would just stick to being funny - he is actually good at that.
The FairTax proposal addresses most of your objections.
Everyone gets a monthly prebate covering the tax on spending up to the poverty level. This eliminates taxes altogether for the truly poor, and makes the tax effectively progressive.
True, there's a limit to how hard you can punish success and productivity with such a tax, but the overall effect on the economy and, dare I say it, fairness, more than makes up for that.
Website: http://www.fairtax.org/
Summary: : http://www.fairtax.org/fairtax/thumbnail.htm
...his considerable holdings...
That's the controlling interest.
What we need is more power for corporations.
Not true- Bush never embraced. He doesn't do that hippy tree hugging crap.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Between his pointless comic strip that attempts to placate the masses of cubicle dwellers by making them find humor in their pathetic situations and wanting Bill Gates to run the country, I think we can all now safely agree that Scott Adams is not only lacking in all related talents involved in producing actual humor but is an absolutely soulless corporate pawn. Dilbert is a great "deal breaker" indicator that you can use in judging how to treat people and what weight to give their contributions, similar to the judgments one can make about those who think Napoleon Dynamite is the greatest movie ever.
Seriously, the income tax where the more you earn the more you pay and at a higher rate is not fair. You want to "tax the rich for their share", fine, but why should the tax rate increase. The formula should be linear. A flat income tax of 18% on income over the poverty level with no exeptions, tax credits, fuel credits, educational credits, rebates and other complications would be fair. Politicians love to issue tax credits for whatever makes news that day, but the end result is it further complicates the system. There are more IRS employees than FBI/CIA. They have no net gain to the economy. The IRS employees exist only to ensure the complex rules are interpreted and applied somewhat the same. Now that Bill is out, how about Steve Forbes.
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It seems that you're trying to invade Iran. I can help you with that...
Bill gates is a "Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire." Which in turn makes him ineligible for presidency. Don't take my word for it. I simply trust my history professor.
Can you imagine that guy taking questions from the press? I don't think it would exactly inspire the voters.
Well, Gates is an athiest and a liberal, so I don't think he'd fit in so well with the neo-cons.
No, you have it backward. Bush followed extinguish, extend, embrace. He just hasn't quite figured out the embrace portion yet....
I got nothin'
That line from Microsoft's past would fit right in at Gitmo...
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Got his inspiration from Ponzi.
We have yet to cleanup his mess.
I'm not even going to mention him selling the US out to the reds. Used to be you'd be called a 'Bircher' for making the claim. Guess what, the USSR fell, files were opened, Hiss was a red traitor. The 'Birchers' were right for once.
The truly rich don't pay estate taxes. They have teams of lawyers and trusts setup just to avoid it.
No politician created the middle class. The middle class did (buy working). If you want to give some credit give it to the GI bill.
I don't even really know how to respond to that. First of all, if you think circumcision is more of a hazard then not being circumcised, your wrong (not really any other way of saying it). Second, where the hell did that comment even come from? Does Gates remind you of a penis?
There might be a possibility that ole Billy G might make a reasonable president. At Microsoft, his directive is to make money. He's very good at it. If his directive was to the best thing for the nation, he might be just as good.
Dick Cheney...is Bill Gates.
I'm not sure who is the bigger asshole personality wise. That's a tossup.
Both of them need to be put out of business - Cheney by impeachment, trial and imprisonment for lying the US into a war AND damaging US security by outing a covert CIA agent and related CIA operations, and Gates simply out of the IT business completely along with his MicroCrap company.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I was opposed to the idea previously.
Or your kids could get a loan against the capital assets of the business.
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