Kent [general rant and not directed to you] I fully intend not to lose money over US politics. I'm tight, not loose, with my hard-earned financial position. That is why I'm watching the crazy 'anti-trust' Jackson efforts and the appeal to the Supreme Court.
If the Supreme Court joins with Jackson, Joel and Janet in vilifying the efforts of Microsoft in general and $ill Gates in particular, I will NOT be going down the gurgler with the USA. The USA can go down alone.
Just as the Supreme court eventually decided that melanin-rich people should not be second-class citizens, I expect, [more accurately, hope], that they will leave the 19th century 'robber baron' anachronistic thinking and aim more towards life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, with property protected and individuals free to make choices about what products they will or won't produce and buy with protection against fraud and damages.
The USSR is a recently failed example of a country which tried to force production and pricing by edict from a bureaucratic, authoritarian, central-planning committee. While the USA does have dictatorship by the proletariat through the ballot box, which could as reasonably be called mob-rule, that does not guarantee a much improved path to freedom. Ask women about voting rights in the 1900s. Ask melanin-rich people from the 1950s about freedom and forced segregation. Ask homosexuals in the army about freedom today. Ask $ill Gates about freedom tomorrow.
Freedom is still elusive in the USA.
Kent, you say Microsoft's day in the sun has come and gone. It has certainly come and the market capitalisation doesn't really support the idea that it has gone. If, as you say, nobody cares about $ill and Microsoft being punished for success, then you might be right that nothing will come of it.
But when the Nazis come for the first type of people on the list, we can be sure that they will not be satisfied when those have been dealt with. They'll move on. Such is the nature of unhindered megalomania, especially if the mob supports those in power. When I see them take the first person away, I'll be making some commotion and running for it.
As correctly interpreted by DWB, I have NOT sold my QUALCOMM stock. I will sell it if the Supreme Court declares that intellectual property rights are passe. QUALCOMM is just getting warmed up and the cash flow is going to be stupendous. When QUALCOMM is the biggest company on earth by market capitalisation and is making 100% margins on intellectual property, and huge profits on ASICs, Globalstar, handsets, Eudora, Cinecomm, WirelessKnowledge, Phone.com, SnapTrack, etc, etc, the screaming and whining from those paying will be loud.
The USA public and certainly the Europeans are very likely to back the idea of setting a 'sensible' limit on what QUALCOMM can be paid. Especially since Q! obviously committed breaches of newly handed down competition law from the Supreme Court and Judge Jackson which says you are not allowed to sell things cheaply, bundle them or give them away. You are not allowed to leverage one monopoly into another. You are not allowed to charge consumers money because the fact of the monopoly means you are damaging them. The patents restrict competition. Stuff like that!
I think $ill's problem was that he played golf with Bill [Clinton] and didn't offer to fill the Democratic coffers with lots of lovely loot. Al Gore has visited MSFT HQ and maybe he did and maybe he didn't come away empty-handed. I suspect $ill is going to fight Bill's Janet, Joel and Jackson. So far, that's the way it looks. MSFT has NOT settled on some acceptable punishment for making great software which I think really appreciate.
If $ill puts $300bn of MSFT stock on the market, what do we think that might do to the stock price? If he resigns from any association with Microsoft, what do we think that would do to the stock price? What do we think the flow-on effect would be in the margin accounts of people who have to sell some stock to meet margin calls. That will bring down other stocks.
It will cause me to sell. I will sell before any of this process happens. I do not want to get caught up in $ill having a shootout with the Supreme Court, Congress, the President and the Senate. The Individual versus the State. In the land of the free, the individual is sure to lose! In one way anyway.
Certainly $ill would lose way over half his market capitalisation if he dumped all his stock and resigned and sold the resulting US$. Actually, if he thought ahead, he could take a very large forward position to hedge against a huge market drop, THEN dump his stock and quit! He might even come out ahead! Now THAT would be the last laugh.
But even if he didn't and as is more likely, took a big financial hit, it would just mean the USA had succeeded in depriving the charitable beneficiaries of the biggest windfall in human history. I suppose they wouldn't care, because they are really only concerned about their own power. I think $ill would perform a huge public service by taking on the USA. The USA has led the world for decades in many respects. It is still the leader economically and it would be bad all round for the world if the USA mucks it up. The leadership in The New Paradigm derives from intellectual property rights, where profit margins are near 100%. Joel Klein, Jackson, Reno and others need to try to understand that.
I think a lot of Americans holding their retirement funds will feel ill if they see their stocks drop by 60%, and stay dropped.
All the companies which are on very high P:E ratios based on expectations of very high monopoly profits, such as Cisco, QUALCOMM, Intel, Yahoo!, Amazon might find their profits set by Judge Jackson at some 'reasonable' level. The cost of providing a web site, such as Yahoo! is not much, so if they are allowed say 10% profit, over and above the cost of building the software, then the profits will not very great.
Sure, it is likely that Jackson and the Supreme Court won't take on hundreds of companies and their transient monopolies, but when people don't know whether it'll be them next off to the gallows, we can be sure they will be very wary and lower the P:E by a LONG way. The highest P:E ratio companies will be the ones likely to attract the next judicial review. There will be plenty of whiners like Sun, Netscape etc who don't like competition to lay complaints and feed the legal system. The legal system needs fodder, so there will be plenty of support within the legal klans for attacks on these evil profiteers.
By the way, is the legal industry a monopoly? Yes indeed and check out their P:E ratios!! Will they attack themselves? No sirree Bob!
$ill Gates would be able to live very comfortably if he did resign and dump all his stock. There would still be plenty to go on with.
I wonder if the Supreme Court will go ahead and continue the destructive process. This is NOT a pretty sight.
I hope $ill does take them on and show that individuals are not impotent against the might of the State. Especially in the age of the internet and intellectual property.
Look at silly old Robert Mugabe, playing territorial tribalism. Ethnic cleansing does NOT create wealth these days. The Serbs tried it too and even if they'd succeeded in evicting all the Moslems/Albanians or whoever they didn't like, they'd have still been poor.
So, let's see if $ill Gates gets ethnically cleansed! I imagine a lot of people think it absurd that a drippy geek be so rich so they'll be happy to watch the process. They won't be any happier after the process than Mugabe, the Serbs or other cargo-cultists.
Mqurice
PS: Please folks, no whining about how great the USA is. Yes, I know that. I have given my life's savings to the USA in general and QUALCOMM in particular because of the wonderful attributes of the USA in general and QUALCOMM in particular. That does not mean I just sit dumbly and accept any nonsense and neither will the millions of other people from around the world and in the USA who have poured their multibillions of savings into The New Paradigm, led by the best economy and one of the best political systems on earth. Switzerland is not bad either. Japan's pretty good too. So is Finland.
Being at the centre of the world's economic activity as the USA is, carries with it some risk and need for great care. It does not take much for people to flee. Where would people flee to? To the Web! Encrypted and hidden from the clutches of Jackson, Joel, Janet and Al. Al invented it and I'm glad he did. Thanks Al! I wonder if he'll remain a Q! fan club leader if he's President and Q! is a $1tn company. |
