Yeah, but if the big earners paid some more tax, we might have a decent education system. Then people like you might know that it's "capitalist" and not "capitalistic".
Do you think Balmer will "drive the economy forward" with the taxes he saves. Maybe ... in the Bahamas, or southern France. I don't see him buying lots of Fords.
If we could just get more tax money, we could build more of these.
In various rankings from bodies that chart economic power, South Korea has beaten the U.S. In several areas such as fewer regulations on business and more open trade.
We don't want to be heading towards a European model on how to run our economy while these developing tigers are discovering and embracing our old ideals. We want pro-growth policies and less regulation so we can again unleash our collective animal spirits.
I never said South Korea was not successful. I just said it was not free market, any more than it is here. The Chaebol pretty much run things the way they wish, and the government steps out of the way, unless the Chaebol want something.
It is no different here. People talk about the "free market" but if that were the case, lobbyists would not exist. Companies hire lobbies to get preferential treatment at the expense of their competitors. This is not a free market system, but rather one where the people with money and power game the system to their advantage.
It is no different here. People talk about the "free market" but if that were the case, lobbyists would not exist. Companies hire lobbies to get preferential treatment at the expense of their competitors. This is not a free market system, but rather one where the people with money and power game the system to their advantage.
I would remind you that Warren Buffet has committed to donate most of his wealth to charity, and has secured promises from 40 other multi-billionaires to do the same.
If someone wins the lottery and gives a portion away, I wouldn't describe it as an achievement. No single individual should be able to accumulate and control $44b. It's nice that he decided to donate over $37b to charity but that doesn't make him charitable - he's essentially paying other people to be charitable with money he made from other money that he doesn't need.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jb_in_sb
n the same line of reasoning, you probably are also against Michael Phelps' uneven distribution of gold medals. Should he be allowed to keep just one and be required to give his remaining 7 gold medals to the less fortunate athletes?
Gold medals don't buy things like money does unless you send them to MC Hammer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wovel
Well I fall squarely into that top 1% and I think the 18% Capital gains tax is absurd and unjustifiable. I have no guilt, I play plenty of taxes at that 18% rate and can guarantee you my life would not be any different if it were taxed as regular income. My investment strategy would change little if any.
Thanks for your honest and well-worded post. If you're willing to share it, I'd be interested to hear what milestones there were in your investing history that led to your wealth - surely the risks of losing it all at some point had to have been quite significant. Also did you start out with your own earnings and what made you start investing?
Microsoft IS indeed a dying company, they are down 13% and competition is Up 50%. Plus they have an idiot who thinks he's a visionary running the company.
Hard to imagine how you think you're qualified to pass judgment on something of which you've only been allowed the barest preliminary glimpse.
Agreed. I think, over time, we are going to see more and more of iOS in OSX. Like buttons down on the bottom like on the iPhone. I for one would like to see more similarity in format, colors, button location, etc!
I have to admit there is enormous technological turmoil on-going nowadays. Plus all those lawsuits and counter lawsuits over IP noted in previous fora. For myself, I find it hard to ferret out the trends with PCs, phones, and slates all in interplay.
In terms of Kinect, has it ever occurred to anyone here that Apple simply didn't want or care enough about it to make an effort to get it? There's nothing preventing Apple from negotiating with anyone if they feel it's worth it. You don't need to be a Silicon Valley insider to know that when Apple sees something they think is great, that they can develop and implement in just the right manner, they're all over it. As we know, Apple is quite conservative with their spending and they're much more apt to say no than yes to a lot of things.
It's nonsensical to believe that the Apple of 2010, with $50 billion+ in cash can't acquire technology they're dying to get. It might be a good idea to ask Apple about it, rather than assume what this guy is saying (especially *after* MS made him wealthy) is accurate. It makes for interesting PR to say (after the fact) that the people who turned him down did so out of ignorance or blindness/lack of vision or because they "didn't believe in [me] him." If any company today has vision and forward-thinking in abundance, it's Apple.
I'd be interested to hear Apple's reasons.
Gotta disagree somewhat, Sol.
Windows + Office sales is NOT a long-term strategy.
Glad to see everyone upgraded from the Vista nightmare and that Enterprise sales were very profitable - which is really where MS belongs. In the office.
The fact that MS' old stand-bys were once again their main source of revenue is probably the most discouraging piece of news about MS in months. It's pretty sad. It's the good old upgrade cycle. Windows and Office. It's been Windows and Office for years now. Which is why they're so easily embarrassed in key forward-looking markets by a smaller, faster (MUCH faster) and more innovative competitor.
Apple has beaten MS in market cap. Apple has just beaten MS in revenue, first time ever (in one of Apple's traditionally weak quarters... Christmas is bigger.)
The above targets were somethings critics said COULD NEVER happen.
But it DID happen. Because the aging Office-Windows-Windows Server applications stack is declining in relevance before cloud-connected mobile devices.
Microsoft's major revenue streams today are pretty much what they were a decade ago: Office and Windows. If you compare this to Apple, in 2000 the Mac was Apple's major (and pretty much only) revenue stream. They then came to dominate several markets - mp3 players, digital music sales, mobile applications stores, succeeding wildly with smartphones and now media tablets. Microsoft's challenge moving into the next year is to expand into mobile in meaningful way (already late and offering nothing very special), mobile gaming, cloud services, etc.
The traditional PC is dying and MS has no answer to it. Cheap netbooks running a crippled version of Windows is not an answer. Trying to shove full Windows onto Microsoft's bad slate experiments is also not an answer.
In short, Apple has reinvented its business (successively) and profited, Microsoft has not.
MS has made little to no money from the consumer markets that matter the most today and which are the ones ready for explosive growth - the one's which Apple is already near-dominant in. In short, aside from what little they made from the Xbox, MS made all its money from the wrong things.
Apple is the one ushering in a New Age of computing. MS is not. OS X Lion brings iOS to the Mac as well as an entirely new software distribution channel for "computers." Apple is blurring the lines between the "computer" and the touch-enabled mobile device. OS X Lion will redefine the "operating system" as we know it (iOS already has, actually.) Think Macbook Air/iPad + OS X Lion + App Store is the future of "computing." MS is so far behind on this one it isn't even funny.
It's a sign of what's to come. MS can easily have a record quarter with Windows upgrades and Office sales - often sales by default, a nice chunk of that comes from the enterprise. This is what has always happened. And MS has in recent years *always* ended up paying dearly for it when it came to competing in markets that mattered (the one's Apple is in.) And it's caught up with them: it's a different ballgame when Apple outdoes them in revenue and leaves them in the dust in market cap.
The best news for MS would have been a decline due to lagging Windows sales. This might have awakened them to the reality that Apple is eating their lunch - not just today's, but tomorrow's as well. Instead the Licensing Cash Cow gives a little more milk (more like one last, big spurt before keeling over) and Ballmer proclaims publicly "The PC isn't dead!"
Yes Steve, it is. In two years you'll be gone, Windows Phone 7 (more like '07) having failed, and MS will be that much further in Apple's rear-view mirror. The sad part is you and your investors have (as usual) been lulled into thinking all is well after all. But it 'aint.
They most likely didn't think the implementation of Kinematics/Dynamics was impressive.
When capital gains taxes were slashed by Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton in 1997 it unleashed massive bubble speculation that has bedeviled our economy ever since, and Bush aggravated this with his 2003 tax cuts. On the other hand, President Reagan cut taxes on income earned by work but never cut capital gains by farther than that, and we had orderly and steady growth for many years followed by a very mild recession and then more healthy growth. Since 1997 we've been giving capital gains a lower rate than we take on working for a living. That's a large part of the trouble we're in now. We need to go back to having work and investment income taxed the same.
And that's why they're going up -- just about to where taxes are on work.
You don't earn your intelligence; in that respect you are blessed. Capitalism works, but there is also such a thing as proportionality. There is not a one-to-one correspondence between innovation and reward. There is nothing wrong in making that observation.
Nothing wrong with the observation, as long as it comes along with the acknowledgement that that's the way it is and bound to remain. We don't live in Bambi-land.
Nothing wrong with the observation, as long as it comes along with the acknowledgement that that's the way it is and bound to remain. We don't live in Bambi-land.
Thompson
I agree that human nature is generally static. So how is it that a transition from hunter/gatherers to where we are today ever occurred? Because knowledge is absorbed, adaptations occur, and kids assume that what they have learned has 'always been that way.' Your viewpoint does not allow for what has already happened.
If someone wins the lottery and gives a portion away, I wouldn't describe it as an achievement. No single individual should be able to accumulate and control $44b. It's nice that he decided to donate over $37b to charity but that doesn't make him charitable - he's essentially paying other people to be charitable with money he made from other money that he doesn't need.
The difference is that Warren Buffet didn't luck into his fortune. You can play semantics over whether of not he "earned" it, but to be successful for as long as he has been at his game, that is an achievement. And perhaps it is a personal achievement of his to share his amassed wealth with those less fortunate. In any case, I very much doubt he cares what any of us think of his wealth or his actions.
And maybe you don't value his contributions to charity, but I guarantee that the work that the recipient charities do will be valued by many people. I certainly don't think beneficiaries are going to be disgusted that the funding came from billionaires. Just because Warren doesn't bring the starving child food himself doesn't make the food his money buys any less filling.
Also, to say that nobody should be allowed to amass that amount of money because they don't "need" it is ridiculous. This entire site is devoted to to a company that makes products that nobody absolutely needs. Yes, the comparison is very lopsided, but unless you're a monk living a humble life of poverty and moderating this message board from a higher plane of consciousness I don't believe you are in any position to tell people what they "need."
And with all due respect to the country I love, I trust that money more in his hands than in the hands of the US Federal Government.
Quote:
Gold medals don't buy things like money does unless you send them to MC Hammer.
They may not have the intrinsic value to buy things, but they sure do allow their recipients to make a few dollars. Do you think Michael Phelps would have sponsors, endorsement deals, public speaking opportunities, etc if he were just some guy that swam really fast at the Detroit YMCA? It's probably not fair that he was born proportioned in such a way that swimming is easier for him than others. Should he be barred from future competition to give others a chance to attain fame and fortune? After all, he probably doesn't "need" all of those medals.
Microsoft is launching battles against Apple, RIM & Google with Windows Phone 7 and against their PC partner Sony with the Kinect. They are spreading themselves too thin against major players. Ballmer is just getting some stock sold before some of these efforts fail and the stock goes even lower then it is now.
How about we drop the whole income tax thing and just tax sales? Then all those people being paid under the table get to pay their fair share.
We can eliminate the IRS and a good chunk of the "financial services" industry overhead from our economy as well.
AMEN!!!
That would be the BEST solution...I have been saying for many years, , yes, some like H&R block will have to change their business, but I agree, The IRS cost billions to keep running, just the savings there would be huge! plus all the "ilegal" money, and there are a few billions, will pay their share when they purchase almost everything, the most expensive stuff will have a higher taxes, food and medicine will have minimum or not tax at all..I could keep writing more and more! The IRS is outdated!!
Monday Nov 8. A man staff described as portly and rather sweaty was arrested at an AT&T store in Seattle today.
The man dressed in a trench coat, large brimmed hat and sunglasses was charged by Police with affray and resisting arrest.
According to witnesses the man became agitated when his order for two million HTC Surrounds could not be met, what followed was an extraordinary chase by police as the man danced around the store like a monkey, frothing at the mouth and yelling unintelligibly, pausing only to throw a chair at one staff member.
Details remain sparse on the identity of the man, who arrived at the store at the head of a convoy of armoured cars.
Comments
Yeah, but if the big earners paid some more tax, we might have a decent education system. Then people like you might know that it's "capitalist" and not "capitalistic".
Do you think Balmer will "drive the economy forward" with the taxes he saves. Maybe ... in the Bahamas, or southern France. I don't see him buying lots of Fords.
If we could just get more tax money, we could build more of these.
http://thevirtuousrepublic.com/?p=6139
Yes, please point your browser here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_korea
In various rankings from bodies that chart economic power, South Korea has beaten the U.S. In several areas such as fewer regulations on business and more open trade.
We don't want to be heading towards a European model on how to run our economy while these developing tigers are discovering and embracing our old ideals. We want pro-growth policies and less regulation so we can again unleash our collective animal spirits.
I never said South Korea was not successful. I just said it was not free market, any more than it is here. The Chaebol pretty much run things the way they wish, and the government steps out of the way, unless the Chaebol want something.
It is no different here. People talk about the "free market" but if that were the case, lobbyists would not exist. Companies hire lobbies to get preferential treatment at the expense of their competitors. This is not a free market system, but rather one where the people with money and power game the system to their advantage.
It is no different here. People talk about the "free market" but if that were the case, lobbyists would not exist. Companies hire lobbies to get preferential treatment at the expense of their competitors. This is not a free market system, but rather one where the people with money and power game the system to their advantage.
Bingo, GRKing! Well said!
I would remind you that Warren Buffet has committed to donate most of his wealth to charity, and has secured promises from 40 other multi-billionaires to do the same.
If someone wins the lottery and gives a portion away, I wouldn't describe it as an achievement. No single individual should be able to accumulate and control $44b. It's nice that he decided to donate over $37b to charity but that doesn't make him charitable - he's essentially paying other people to be charitable with money he made from other money that he doesn't need.
n the same line of reasoning, you probably are also against Michael Phelps' uneven distribution of gold medals. Should he be allowed to keep just one and be required to give his remaining 7 gold medals to the less fortunate athletes?
Gold medals don't buy things like money does unless you send them to MC Hammer.
Well I fall squarely into that top 1% and I think the 18% Capital gains tax is absurd and unjustifiable. I have no guilt, I play plenty of taxes at that 18% rate and can guarantee you my life would not be any different if it were taxed as regular income. My investment strategy would change little if any.
Thanks for your honest and well-worded post. If you're willing to share it, I'd be interested to hear what milestones there were in your investing history that led to your wealth - surely the risks of losing it all at some point had to have been quite significant. Also did you start out with your own earnings and what made you start investing?
OS X Lion totally missed the mark for me.
Hard to imagine how you think you're qualified to pass judgment on something of which you've only been allowed the barest preliminary glimpse.
Microsoft IS indeed a dying company, they are down 13% and competition is Up 50%. Plus they have an idiot who thinks he's a visionary running the company.
really
msft is the 56 th largest country in the world
Hard to imagine how you think you're qualified to pass judgment on something of which you've only been allowed the barest preliminary glimpse.
Agreed. I think, over time, we are going to see more and more of iOS in OSX. Like buttons down on the bottom like on the iPhone. I for one would like to see more similarity in format, colors, button location, etc!
Continuity in the ecosystem, baby!
Best
http://pitchandpixel.com/2010/11/is-...bout-to-burst/
I have to admit there is enormous technological turmoil on-going nowadays. Plus all those lawsuits and counter lawsuits over IP noted in previous fora. For myself, I find it hard to ferret out the trends with PCs, phones, and slates all in interplay.
In terms of Kinect, has it ever occurred to anyone here that Apple simply didn't want or care enough about it to make an effort to get it? There's nothing preventing Apple from negotiating with anyone if they feel it's worth it. You don't need to be a Silicon Valley insider to know that when Apple sees something they think is great, that they can develop and implement in just the right manner, they're all over it. As we know, Apple is quite conservative with their spending and they're much more apt to say no than yes to a lot of things.
It's nonsensical to believe that the Apple of 2010, with $50 billion+ in cash can't acquire technology they're dying to get. It might be a good idea to ask Apple about it, rather than assume what this guy is saying (especially *after* MS made him wealthy) is accurate. It makes for interesting PR to say (after the fact) that the people who turned him down did so out of ignorance or blindness/lack of vision or because they "didn't believe in [me] him." If any company today has vision and forward-thinking in abundance, it's Apple.
I'd be interested to hear Apple's reasons.
Gotta disagree somewhat, Sol.
Windows + Office sales is NOT a long-term strategy.
Glad to see everyone upgraded from the Vista nightmare and that Enterprise sales were very profitable - which is really where MS belongs. In the office.
The fact that MS' old stand-bys were once again their main source of revenue is probably the most discouraging piece of news about MS in months. It's pretty sad. It's the good old upgrade cycle. Windows and Office. It's been Windows and Office for years now. Which is why they're so easily embarrassed in key forward-looking markets by a smaller, faster (MUCH faster) and more innovative competitor.
Apple has beaten MS in market cap. Apple has just beaten MS in revenue, first time ever (in one of Apple's traditionally weak quarters... Christmas is bigger.)
The above targets were somethings critics said COULD NEVER happen.
But it DID happen. Because the aging Office-Windows-Windows Server applications stack is declining in relevance before cloud-connected mobile devices.
Microsoft's major revenue streams today are pretty much what they were a decade ago: Office and Windows. If you compare this to Apple, in 2000 the Mac was Apple's major (and pretty much only) revenue stream. They then came to dominate several markets - mp3 players, digital music sales, mobile applications stores, succeeding wildly with smartphones and now media tablets. Microsoft's challenge moving into the next year is to expand into mobile in meaningful way (already late and offering nothing very special), mobile gaming, cloud services, etc.
The traditional PC is dying and MS has no answer to it. Cheap netbooks running a crippled version of Windows is not an answer. Trying to shove full Windows onto Microsoft's bad slate experiments is also not an answer.
In short, Apple has reinvented its business (successively) and profited, Microsoft has not.
MS has made little to no money from the consumer markets that matter the most today and which are the ones ready for explosive growth - the one's which Apple is already near-dominant in. In short, aside from what little they made from the Xbox, MS made all its money from the wrong things.
Apple is the one ushering in a New Age of computing. MS is not. OS X Lion brings iOS to the Mac as well as an entirely new software distribution channel for "computers." Apple is blurring the lines between the "computer" and the touch-enabled mobile device. OS X Lion will redefine the "operating system" as we know it (iOS already has, actually.) Think Macbook Air/iPad + OS X Lion + App Store is the future of "computing." MS is so far behind on this one it isn't even funny.
It's a sign of what's to come. MS can easily have a record quarter with Windows upgrades and Office sales - often sales by default, a nice chunk of that comes from the enterprise. This is what has always happened. And MS has in recent years *always* ended up paying dearly for it when it came to competing in markets that mattered (the one's Apple is in.) And it's caught up with them: it's a different ballgame when Apple outdoes them in revenue and leaves them in the dust in market cap.
The best news for MS would have been a decline due to lagging Windows sales. This might have awakened them to the reality that Apple is eating their lunch - not just today's, but tomorrow's as well. Instead the Licensing Cash Cow gives a little more milk (more like one last, big spurt before keeling over) and Ballmer proclaims publicly "The PC isn't dead!"
Yes Steve, it is. In two years you'll be gone, Windows Phone 7 (more like '07) having failed, and MS will be that much further in Apple's rear-view mirror. The sad part is you and your investors have (as usual) been lulled into thinking all is well after all. But it 'aint.
They most likely didn't think the implementation of Kinematics/Dynamics was impressive.
A MEMS solution is the way to go.
And that's why they're going up -- just about to where taxes are on work.
You don't earn your intelligence; in that respect you are blessed. Capitalism works, but there is also such a thing as proportionality. There is not a one-to-one correspondence between innovation and reward. There is nothing wrong in making that observation.
Nothing wrong with the observation, as long as it comes along with the acknowledgement that that's the way it is and bound to remain. We don't live in Bambi-land.
Thompson
Nothing wrong with the observation, as long as it comes along with the acknowledgement that that's the way it is and bound to remain. We don't live in Bambi-land.
Thompson
I agree that human nature is generally static. So how is it that a transition from hunter/gatherers to where we are today ever occurred? Because knowledge is absorbed, adaptations occur, and kids assume that what they have learned has 'always been that way.' Your viewpoint does not allow for what has already happened.
If someone wins the lottery and gives a portion away, I wouldn't describe it as an achievement. No single individual should be able to accumulate and control $44b. It's nice that he decided to donate over $37b to charity but that doesn't make him charitable - he's essentially paying other people to be charitable with money he made from other money that he doesn't need.
The difference is that Warren Buffet didn't luck into his fortune. You can play semantics over whether of not he "earned" it, but to be successful for as long as he has been at his game, that is an achievement. And perhaps it is a personal achievement of his to share his amassed wealth with those less fortunate. In any case, I very much doubt he cares what any of us think of his wealth or his actions.
And maybe you don't value his contributions to charity, but I guarantee that the work that the recipient charities do will be valued by many people. I certainly don't think beneficiaries are going to be disgusted that the funding came from billionaires. Just because Warren doesn't bring the starving child food himself doesn't make the food his money buys any less filling.
Also, to say that nobody should be allowed to amass that amount of money because they don't "need" it is ridiculous. This entire site is devoted to to a company that makes products that nobody absolutely needs. Yes, the comparison is very lopsided, but unless you're a monk living a humble life of poverty and moderating this message board from a higher plane of consciousness I don't believe you are in any position to tell people what they "need."
And with all due respect to the country I love, I trust that money more in his hands than in the hands of the US Federal Government.
Gold medals don't buy things like money does unless you send them to MC Hammer.
They may not have the intrinsic value to buy things, but they sure do allow their recipients to make a few dollars. Do you think Michael Phelps would have sponsors, endorsement deals, public speaking opportunities, etc if he were just some guy that swam really fast at the Detroit YMCA? It's probably not fair that he was born proportioned in such a way that swimming is easier for him than others. Should he be barred from future competition to give others a chance to attain fame and fortune? After all, he probably doesn't "need" all of those medals.
You're totally right about that!
But, it's not like anyone is particularly interested in looking at data on these sorts of issues.....
Tends to get in the way of having emotionally satisfying opinions.
Seems the "redistribution of income" is perfectly fine, so long as it's up instead of down.
Seems the "redistribution of income" is perfectly fine, so long as it's up instead of down.
Ah, but it trickles down, you see...
How about we drop the whole income tax thing and just tax sales? Then all those people being paid under the table get to pay their fair share.
We can eliminate the IRS and a good chunk of the "financial services" industry overhead from our economy as well.
AMEN!!!
That would be the BEST solution...I have been saying for many years, , yes, some like H&R block will have to change their business, but I agree, The IRS cost billions to keep running, just the savings there would be huge! plus all the "ilegal" money, and there are a few billions, will pay their share when they purchase almost everything, the most expensive stuff will have a higher taxes, food and medicine will have minimum or not tax at all..I could keep writing more and more! The IRS is outdated!!
George
CNN Story about Microsoft as a dying brand.
Ah, but it trickles down, you see...
Yeah, I noticed all the trickling down.
The man dressed in a trench coat, large brimmed hat and sunglasses was charged by Police with affray and resisting arrest.
According to witnesses the man became agitated when his order for two million HTC Surrounds could not be met, what followed was an extraordinary chase by police as the man danced around the store like a monkey, frothing at the mouth and yelling unintelligibly, pausing only to throw a chair at one staff member.
Details remain sparse on the identity of the man, who arrived at the store at the head of a convoy of armoured cars.