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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?
"..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.
While the economy would prosper from non-tariffed overseas sales of Microsoft and Dell goods, the resulting civil war from the Apple and Linux sympathizing states would most certainly bring it right back down.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
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.
Spot on. The country would be in much better shape if we had more business people in politics and less politicians who are, by and large, mostly lawyers and career politicians. I'm not saying Gates is the right man for the job, but I do think we need more people with real business acumen in politics (not Neo-Cons with Ivy-league MBA's) before anything is really going to change.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
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."
Face it, you're getting Hillary in 08, whether you like it or not. Just don't care about it and you'll feel better.
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
"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.
Would Gates declare war on Linux-loving nations?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
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
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.
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.
Seriously, you want an evil genius as president?
Not only he is unbelievably rich and powerful, but he is responsible for nearly every kind of almost-but-not-quite criminal corporate misconduct in the book and then inventing some. He recklessly and shamelessly exploits everyone and everything he can to benefit himself and the company he sees as an extention of himself.
And you want to give him, in addition to everything he already has, the position of commander of the armed forces.
You gotta be kidding.
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Look at what you have now. compare. Do you want austin powers #2 running things or doctor evil himself. Gates is borderline evil and unethical but compitent and successful. Cheney/Bush is openly evil and incompitent. choose the lesser evil or choose cthulu.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Can you imagine that guy taking questions from the press? I don't think it would exactly inspire the voters.
Right, he would not be able to favor MS, just like Bush would be able to favor big oil and Cheney wouldn't be able to favor Haliburton.
Very good observation!
Well, Gates is an athiest and a liberal, so I don't think he'd fit in so well with the neo-cons.
Hello? Dick Cheney and Halliburton?
$signature =~ s/$signature//;
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."
I'm not a big fan of the current administration...but, it is hard to say bad things about the economy under Bush. He started office which the beginnings of a recession hitting him...and today, market is good, unemployment is down....I'm making good $$'s now, and is nice that I don't have to pay so much of it in taxes to the Feds (although I wish they could cut more and do comprehensive tax reform).
There are so many other stones to throw at the current admin, but, the economy really isn't a good one to try to pick on.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Gates is borderline evil and unethical but compitent and successful. Cheney/Bush is openly evil and incompitent. choose the lesser evil or choose cthulu.
:)
So who exactly are you endorsing? Hitler was evil and competent and I'm assuming he would be an undesirable candidate. Chaney/Bush only have a few tens of thousands of people in detention camps. So are you saying a competent Gates would nab millions and so be more evil, or are you saying the "borderline evil" means he would just put a video camera in every bedroom and bathroom and so be marginally better than Chaney/Bush?
I choose cthulu in either case.
BTW In the last 12 elections I've only once chosen a candidate that won, and I regretted that vote. It was very much a lesser of two uber-villains Senate election. I doubt cthulu has much of a chance.
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?
He's also much harder to bribe.
That's the nice thing about having a billionare as the mayor of New York City. He really doesn't care about the nickel and dimeing that the career politicians do. He looks at the big picture.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
I can't imagine gates doing anymore then make the US gov all use windows and make MS monopoly law proof. ohh wait they already are in the US because everyone who would convict him is his father golfing buddies. That'd rank about 1000 less then either cthulu or bush cheney anyways. Cthulu would just start consuming people in washington which is problably a benevolent act for humanity while buch-cheney are bent on lining their friends pockets and removign all your civil liberties and pandering to a segment of the populace who would insist on everyone living according to their belief system. In the grand scheme I suppose cthulu is the best vote.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
>he is responsible for nearly every kind of almost-but-not-quite criminal corporate misconduct in the book and then inventing some.
So, an improvement on our current crop of politicians, then: creative *and* reluctant to blatantly violate laws.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
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!
"So, an improvement on our current crop of politicians, then: creative *and* reluctant to blatantly violate laws."
The only reason he is reluctant to violate laws is because he doesn't get to write the laws himself.
Seriously - an evil genius is far worse situation than an evil incompetent.
Being that much stupid also prevents Bush from doing even more damage than he is doing. Someone as evil yet smarter than most people who try to stop him now and in a position to put law enforcement between him and them is, positively, scary.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
The connection is a lot more obvious in public perceptions and far more subject to scrutiny than the Bush connections.
Furthermore Gates is clearly currently trying to prove what a good guy he really is - he is hardly going to muck it up by doing something crooked.
He is a very different person from Bush and in very different circumstances. I am no fan of Gates and MS (see previous comments, blog, etc.), but even he does not look so bad when compared to politicians!
I fail to understand how my original comment has been moderated troll. Because I said something good about Bill Gates, or because I do not like Scott Adams?
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The country would be in much better shape if we had more business people in politics and less politicians who are, by and large, mostly lawyers and career politicians.
While I agree with this in general, I think the blood-thirstiness and ruthlessness of Gates would scare the hell out of me as a president. (Not that Bush doesn't scare the hell out of me, too.) But I'd sooner a businessman than an oil cowboy, any day.
You guys did have your chance with Perot; watching that election fiasco of yours from Canada, it was truly sad how the media seemed to be partisan to the other parties, totally dismissing Perot. When he was eliminated from the race (and the manner in which it occurred), that was the point in which I totally lost faith in the US people and their government. And boy, it only got a lot worse since then. Good luck with that.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.