Post #44,996
7/10/02 2:17:16 AM
7/10/02 2:19:33 AM
|
Re: Simple and straight forward
These corporate crooks ripped off "investors" (many of whom are just as guilty as they).
That last comment is opinion, it tends to demean the 1000s of retirees & institutional investment orgs managing retiree's funds, who were not expecting to be barefacedly deceived. Whatever we say about MS it can be little more than what many said about Standard Oil, NCR & IBM in earlier generations - 'blatant exploitation of a monopoly position'.
No one has proven that MS has lied on their balance sheets the way Enron et al have done. If anyone argues that they have then why does no one prosecute. If they have lied & no one will prosecute - I get back to just how bankrupt big business must be. So why won't anyone start a thread called Corporate Fraud (I believe no one really cares all that much - it will blow over).
But Billy the Nerd makes a real taget we can direct all our frustrations at - I know I resent just how much profit he thinks MS is entitled to make.
>>>"Microsoft hurts us directly- intending to deprive us of all choice, all options and any software that works better - and charging us plenty for the privelage"
So how do they differ from any of the other convicted monopolies mentioned ?
>>>"Microsoft is a much more serious annoyance than mere thieves."
I think what Enron has done to Business, to the market, to confidence and to those who lost much of their assets, is far worse than what MS is being accused of here.
The most serious accusation we can level at WG is his outright aggressive success - we can debate the cost of it but proving the value propositions in that area gets difficult as much of it is subjective. I really doubt that anyone could prove MS did any worse than IBM at its worst. IBM was really only cured of its culture of aggression when the CEO was hired from outside. The culture was the problem & MS is the same. Untill B7 B get replaced little will change at MS unless someone can prove they have indulged in blatant corporate fraud.
Anyway, there is nothing I have said that makes MS any better than they are or were, just that IMHO, these blatant corporate deceptions & greed are totally inexcusable & look who we have to step up on the podium of odium to blather about those corporate misdeeds, G-W-Bush. Using the words of one roman emperor - my advice to Bush is 'Klitus, fall on your sword'.
Doug Marker
Edited by dmarker2
July 10, 2002, 02:19:33 AM EDT
|
Post #45,016
7/10/02 9:16:42 AM
|
Perception vs. reality
I'll focus on one word:
I think what Enron has done to Business, to the market, to confidence and to those who lost much of their assets, is far worse than what MS is being accused of here. (My emphasis)
The modern stock market is a combination Ponzi/pyramid scheme/casino where the whole thing is rigged. It all works on confidence. As I said here recently, the only real asset of a large corporation is confidence in their brand. As long as they maintain that they keep making money[1]; as soon as they lose it they are finished.
The only reason Microsoft still has the confidence of the market is their monopoly position. It is literally a case of people believing there is no alternative: "Of course they're going to keep making money. Who else is anyone going to buy from?"
If a company without Microsoft's monopoly faced the same legal problems, their stock would have tanked by now, and Gates and Ballmer would probably be testifying in Congress.
[1] Or at least the corporate officers do. As we have all seen recently, you can claim profits you didn't make to inflate your stock price, knowing your compensation is tied more to stock price than dividend.
===
Microsoft offers them the one thing most business people will pay any price for - the ability to say "we had no choice - everyone's doing it that way." -- [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=38978|Andrew Grygus]
|
Post #45,017
7/10/02 9:25:01 AM
|
Retiree funds . .
. . have no business investing in high risk "high growth" stocks. If they do, then someone is "guilty" and should be held liable. Unfortunately, "investment professionals" have built walls between themselves and retribution, which should be torn down. It'll take a few disasters to do that, and to engender any sense of due diligance after so long a winning streak.
Whether Microsoft is worse than other monopolies or not is irrelevant to this discussion, which was about Enron, WorldCom and the like - clear cases of theft by fraud (creative accounting). These frauds will result in reforms, which will work for a little while, until the crooks master the new game.
Microsoft, on the other hand, wants to control every aspect of my life and work. They want a cut on every financial transaction and want to control what I can access on the Internet and how I access it, what news and what entertainment is made available to the public through other media. They fully intend to control what technologies are avaialable and from whom they are available.
Microsoft has clearly stated, by the revenue growth projections they have released, that they fully intent to monopolize the market for accounting and business management software except in the largest companies (that comes later). Since their stated intent is to move this monopoly to .NET services, they will be in a position to hold the continued existance of any business hostage.
Bill Gates has stated he intends to own the digital rights to every work of art in the world. He has already bought the largest photo archive in existance, and ended access to most of it. Only the parts he says are accessable can be seen by the public or by publishers. He owns the rights to digital presentation of all the works in the National Museum, among many others. Since nearly all future publication will be by digital means, Bill Gates will control all publication.
This is not the sum total, but only a few examples of what is going on.
The desire to control every aspect of my life (and yours) is far more serious than a few crooks stealing money, even on a grand scale. Stolen money returns to the economy one way or another. If not, then it was an illusion anyway and not much was actually stolen. Freedom never returns without a long and generally bloody struggle resulting in many deaths and destroyed lives.
If money is more important to you than freedom, then yes, Enron is (to you) worse than Microsoft.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
|
Post #45,086
7/10/02 7:14:51 PM
|
Strong disagreement on your leading point
Retiree funds have no business investing in high risk "high growth" stocks. If they do, then someone is "guilty" and should be held liable.
Bull.
A balanced portfolio of risky investments (note: investments, not gambles) in the long-run (20 years +) is virtually guaranteed to massively outperform any other kind of investment.
Given that that is the kind of time period that retirement funds are aimed at, there is every reason to so invest retirement money, and people should have every right to insist that their retirement funds be so invested.
Note that putting it all into your company is hardly "balanced", but that is another story.
Cheers,
Ben
"... I couldn't see how anyone could be educated by this self-propagating system in which people pass exams, teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything."
--Richard Feynman
|
Post #45,530
7/14/02 6:56:39 AM
|
Balanced depending on age
If I were 55+, I'd want most of my retiree fund to be in conservative funds.
If I were 20, I'd wouldn't mind a good percentage of relatively high risk stuff.
In the middle, I'm thinking of cutting down on "growth" stocks and going more into milder stocks with far fewer "risky" stuff.
Famous last RPG quotes: "I'll just shoot this fireball down the dungeon passageway..."
|
Post #45,548
7/14/02 11:55:32 AM
|
Exactly right
Your investment profile and projected needs should balance. Stocks are a long-term investment, a short-term gamble. Decide your term before investing.
Cheers,
Ben
"... I couldn't see how anyone could be educated by this self-propagating system in which people pass exams, teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything."
--Richard Feynman
|
Post #45,049
7/10/02 2:19:49 PM
|
Maybe, maybe not
Although it hasn't gone to the Justice Department, and although the SEC has (I hope) at least given it a once-over (though that's not entirely clear), Microsoft and other high-tech companies' stock option schemes can be argued as allowing them to misstate financial information (eg, liability for said options) pretty badly.
I seem to remember the SEC telling Microsoft to quit cooking their books to even out revenues between financial quarters. Microsoft in effect said "We'd never do that, but if we did we won't do it again."
That's only two examples of bookkeeping irregularities, but the book-cooking (or as I believe User Friendly put it, Martha Steward's Guide to Book Sauteeing) is a sign that they certainly aren't very interested in being open and honest about their revenues, assets, and liabilities. And where there are a couple of irregularities, there could certainly be more if you start digging deep enough. And once you start digging, you never really know what you'll find.
Informix, once *the* leader in relational databases but long ago surpassed by Oracle, stayed alive for quite some time but was eventually put to rest by the discovery of a series of increasingly bad financial irregularities (misstating inventory, booking sales when things hadn't actually been sold, stuff like that - I forget exactly all of what they did, but it was news at the time) which certainly *appear* to have been designed to make their finances look better. Not nearly as bad as the phoney holding/trading companies Enron set up, but bad enough... hmmmm, beginning to sound a little like manipulation similar to Microsoft.
|
Post #45,055
7/10/02 3:18:45 PM
|
Book Roasting
That was "The Arthur Andersen Accounting Cookbood with introduction by Martha Stewart".
Yes, Microsoft has been caught by the SEC in a little cooking - but just a "cooky jar reserve", which is a minor offense.
Of course, Microsoft is the definitive abuser of the stock option ploy, so their books are not just cooked, they're "Blackened Books with Cajun sauce". Alas, this is currently neither illegal nor against GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (What Companies Have Successfully Gotten Away With)).
Every couple of years, the keepers of accounting standards try to fix the stock options problem, and every time the entire high tech industry goes to Congress and whines, "These mean accountants are going to hurt us!". Suitable pressure is applied and nothing gets done.
You can be quite sure that any company to which the term "High Tech" can be applied has books that are entirely misleading and have at best a tenuous relationship to fiscal reality. Cisco, by the way, is another prominente offender.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
|
Post #45,572
7/14/02 6:54:42 PM
|
Re: Interesting - that point discussed on Aust TV last night
Head of Chartered Accountants in Australia said Bush had maybe 2 good opportunities to get things right & the one big thing he could have fixed was the issue of expensing stock options.
His opinion is that Bush failed to do anything that matters.
This particular issue reinforces my point that even with a known & internationally recognised flaw such as the stock options expensing, Govt & business in US won't take the obvious action to fix the problem so companies such as MS are doing what is not good but doing it legally.
The system is flawed.
Cheers
Doug
|
Post #45,583
7/14/02 11:08:34 PM
|
Of course the system is flawed.
Why do I think so? Because the people making the most money have the means to keep the system fixed in their favour, i.e. money! Hard to fix it, really...
Wade.
"Ah. One of the difficult questions."
|
