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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gerald Walls who wrote (44224)	5/3/2000 11:02:00 PM
From: Charles Tutt	Respond to of 74651

Entering into the consent agreement 5 +/- years ago might have been a hint that they needed to be careful.

To: Gerald Walls who wrote (44224)	5/4/2000 12:02:00 AM
From: JC Jaros	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

Hi Gerald- I'd like to speak to the 'civil liberties' thing. I think Microsoft is the antithesis to what is 'American'. I can't think of another corporation that asked for and received as much aid from the Federal Government in the pursuit of sustaining it's business model as Microsoft. I would go as far to think of Microsoft in terms of being a big leech. --- Our country was founded in part, as a reaction against the monopolists of intellectual property. It's in our national fabric. Our copyright laws originally existed in order to keep belly crawlers like Microsoft from occurring. --- Taking pages right out of George III's playbook, Bill Gates quietly PURCHASED (lobbied, along with his Mussolini, Jack Valenti) U.S. Code, Title 17 and actually made it the U.S. Government's job to collect "Royalties" not just from the American citizenry but as well from other soveriegn nations. At that point, Bill Gates augments 'UN-American' with 'ugly American'. --- Shareholders of course, don't quite see it that way. The problem is that not every American is a Microsoft shareholder. In fact, there are increasingly *fewer Microsoft shareholders. But, I digress <g>. --- MSFT shareholders who are railing loudly against government involvement in the software industry should be aware that in spite of Gates and Ballmer's rally 'round the flag act, MSFT depends on the U.S. Government to collect the "Microsoft Tax" (see: revenues) and these clowns are the NEWEST converts to this suddenly convenient Libertarianism. (JMO) -JCJ