danf

Microsoft: Free Cash Flow Analysis

seems to me that MSFT is a nice investment for Bill Gates and his friends. The company is basically run to benefit them. Dividends and large stock buy back programs are there to allow founders to liquidate their investments.

Nothing wrong with that, just don't see MSFT as somewhere to make strong gains when there is a big hole in the bottom of the tub

IT Needs to Innovate or Consumerize

IT seems to see their purpose as being the imposition of "process" on the hapless "users".

"process" means the responsibility for providing services are transferred to "teams" - usually located thousands of miles away and with careful structuring of communications channels so that the people with problems can never, ever call the "service" providers directly.

The strategic function of IT is to constrain expense by frustrating, sidetracking and preventing "users" from using IT services beyond what IT "teams" are prepared to provide.

This explains the attractiveness of SaaS, ASP and cloud solutions as what all the "users" hear is the possibility that they can bypass, ignore, avoid, escape the IT stranglehold.

One is reminded that the German Army in the early days of WW2 crushed their enemies with fewer armored vehicles or inferior technical qualities because they reorganized their fighting forces around the new technology whereas france and england simply added armor to traditional infantry formations.

Sadly IT has taken the same route as france and england. Of course it's probably not the fault of IT, but rather their management by checkbox masters and their own "loyalty" to their profession rather than to the businesses they have joined.

Full Disclosures - the above is all based on personal experience

CalPERS Is Unsustainable

Social Security was bankrupt when it was created. The population group that benefited the most - paid the least while receiving the highest returns was not the baby boomers (my generation), but my parents. It was my parents - who made their fortunes on the back on real estate inflation that left me with a $3000/month mortgage.

When did the explosion in the growth of government begin ? It was the 60's when my parents - the parent of the evil baby boomers - were in their prime. It was my parents who the squandered 50k lives in Korea and 50k lives in Viet Nam - The baby boomers were foot soldiers in Viet Name and rose to leadership to build the invincible war machine we enjoy today and win the cold war - another gift to us from the "greatest generation".

Your generational rant simply undermines your credibility and panders to emotive thinking in general. Each generation includes weak and strong, good and bad, virtue and selfishness, wisdom and folly.

Is the Pulse of the Post-War Business Cycle on the Verge of Stopping?

Can't really have feudalism without a monopoly on tools and capacity for violence. At least where I live, everyone is armed to the teeth.

What we are seeing is the rise of national socialism - the mutual embrace of large state and large corporate interests to seve the interests of the party, corporate elite.

Longer term this will fail because it depends on the virtue of others to keep producing while at the same time prosecuting an all out war on that virtue which lies at the heart of productivity.

The first step in the creation of a national socialist police state is the explosive growth of law and regulation. Of course you want everyone to be a law breaker so as to empower the police powers of the state. Therefore you need laws that will be broken.

The question is if that can succeed in an armed society.



On Aug 16 01:46 PM socrateazz wrote:

> If Democrats acted democratic. Really believed everybodies veiws
> are important. Attacked the problem and not the other people. Acted
> non-racist while calling others racist. Really believed in fairness
> as equal chance to succeed instead of take from others so others
> can have more. And actually the biggest real bias is protecting
> their wealth while sucking more out of those who already contribute
> greatly. Yes unless major leadship change is coming, then fuedalism
> is the future. Kings of old became powerful by protecting their
> serfs. The serfs rewarded the kings for that protection. The problem
> developed as the kings started to believe they deserved more. Government
> overwhelmed the producers, and they became poor. I see that happening
> today! What do you think?

Microsoft Gets Its Edge Back

MSFT is like the government. An unfortunate burden our society has to endure that nonetheless drains us of our vitality. I make my living with a computer - not as an employee - so my computer purchase is a choice for me. Given the choice to buy a PC for $1000 or a Mac for $2000. I would - and do - buy a mac. One machines gives me Unix, Windows and Mac software. No concerns about virus, excellent access to open source.

MSFT stock is dead money. The stock repurchase is all about transferring cash to Bill Gates. Most MSFT employees are retired in place. The manipulators have remained, the doers have left for other places where they can do

Unwise to Tax the Rich to Pay for Health Care

Here is what I would do.

1. Ban all insurance except for coverage that begins after the first $10k in expense and then require it to pay for everything - no usual and ordinary, no exclusions. The social purpose of insurance is to spread risk.

2. Require all providers to advertise prices up front for all services and justify those prices.

3. Forbid employer provided insurance. Require people to buy their own or not and make it a tax deductible expense.

4. If you want the government to provide insurance, then enact a regressive tax that hits everyone - no exceptions and requires the groups who will benefit the most to pay a proportionately greater share. People should pay for what they get. But still require the $10k deductible.

5. Health care is not a right. Good health is not a right. In the end each generation dies and no amount of health care spending will change that.


On Jul 16 06:53 PM LeoTheDog wrote:

> "I've got mine, so screw you." Nice philosophy to live by. Not
> sure what lies and mangled statistics you are referring to, but I
> did notice that you didn't answer the question of what you would
> do about the current situation (counting the chronic uninsured is
> a pretty weak course of action...). Chalk you up as one of the "status
> quo" advocates. That's fine; of course, that makes you a selfish
> moron who apparently thinks that bankruptcy is an acceptable consequence
> of illness or injury.

Unwise to Tax the Rich to Pay for Health Care

Taxation is theft. A society that embraces theft from the few is undermining virtue. Everything else is a lie and the framers of such lies are liars.

Obama's Economic Failure

Mr. Obama is clueless. He is our next Jimmy Carter. Worse, he is in the pocket of wall street, lawyers and the NEA. All vampires sucking on the neck of our country and draining the vitality from our civilization.

Could America today build the Hoover dam or get to the moon in 10 years ? I dont think so. The nation is in the hands of takers and talkers. The doers have all been marginalized. Pretty face, pretty tele-prompter speaker whose image is protected by the media. But does our nation deserve anything better ? Probably not.

What's Driving the Increase in Oil Prices

Hm...let me understand. Oil at 120/barrel is a disaster because of it's negative impact on the US economy. The solution then is to...increase taxes on oil to make the price of oil in the US economy even higher ?

Asia Risks Much with Its Criticism of U.S. Monetary Policy

It's curious to see so much cultural self loathing in some of these comments. The children sense that they compare poorly to the virtues, sacrifices and ruthless accomplishments or their forefathers. Because they cannot measure up, they disparage and declaim.

Nobody knows what is going on inside China. Probably the Chinese don't know. China is unstable politically and demographically. I suggest that their political culture is alien to Chinese traditions and riddled with internal contradictions.

Asian economies will have a hard time generating their own consumption because their cultures don't value win-win outcomes.

America is in shock now as the productive classes are reeling from a coup by incompetent financial and governmental managerial elites who have mobilized the taking classes into their schemes to hang onto their entitlements.

The fumblings of Government will lead to a producers strike. Producers will respond to incentives and become non-producers. The taking classes will find the larders empty. A new awakening of republican virtues will begin to appear (no I don't mean the party).

Fearful times will favor the grounded, the intolerant believers in virtue. Civilizations are built and sustained by flint hard mentalities that are not visible in our landscapes for the present moment.

Consumption Junction: 2 Thoughts on the Declining Savings Rate

My biggest cost is carrying the burden of government: And my fellow americans have voted to increase that burden upon me.

As a percentage of my actual income

15% federal tax
3% state tax
7.5% Fica (another 7.5 paid by my employer)
4% sales tax
3% property taxes
2% in other hidden taxes - taxes buried in the costs of other things I buy

34%


On May 16 01:51 AM johngonole wrote:

> I disagree with an earlier poster here that the author answered the
> question as to why two incomes are now required for a family to
> enjoy the middle class lifestyle. I thought the amount we consume
> in measured in terms of textiles was very poor. Here are the reasons
> I would list.
>
> 1) bigger houses
> 2) more cars per family....which account for a huge part of your
> budget. More than food and maybe even your house when maintenance,
> insurance, gas and depreciation are considered.
> 3) New must haves - computers, cell phones, etc..
> 4) Higher medical cost - driven primarily by the fact that they can
> do more and more things that didn't even exist years ago
> 5) More interest is being paid on debt.
>
> More importantly however is why with two people working can't the
> difference be made up? Why with all the productivity advances are
> we worse off financialy than previous generations? With productivity
> advances one would think that one person working could afford all
> this new stuff in additoin to the old.
>
> I believe the main contributing factor is that while productivity
> has increased it has been offset by government beurcracy. When all
> levels of government are considered (city, county, state, and federal)
> we have like 10 times the amount of government workers pushing nothing
> but paper. Sitting around surfing the internet, etc... Think about
> the guy up in the bucket of the cherry picker while 7 guys are on
> the ground watching him work. This is happening everywhere. Government
> workers all work themselves into positions where they don't have
> to work. Too many mangers of managers. Not only are they hardly
> working but they are racking up huge retirement benefits in the mean
> time.
>
> Along with the growth in government is the concept that government
> has grown in part because the lack of people to govern themselves.
> More people are in jail then ever. We have cheats in politics, lots
> of cheats in financial sector, etc.. When Katrina hit New Orleans
> everyone was waiting around for someone else to help.
>
> The point is that while two people are working they are only producing
> in terms of goods and services (that actually hold value) that of
> one person. We spend way too much time doing things like suing
> each other because people think that if their isn't a law forbidding
> it than its OK to do it.
>
> I could go on but I think I've made the point.
>

Consumption Junction: 2 Thoughts on the Declining Savings Rate

Low savings is a rational choice of people responding to the incentives baked into the environment by those who rule over us. Put your money into a bank savings account over the last decade and you find yourself earning 1% or less (on average). Layer on direct taxes and an indirect inflation tax and holding cash becomes a loosing game.

The state is the largest debt holder. The state has every incentive to inflate that debt away. Any fool can see that the state is desperate to debase the currency. People make a rational choice to avoid holding cash. Our one hope here, ironically enough is that the market power of china in the debt market will impose some constraint on the ability of the US to debase it's currency.

It is the state that is at war with virtue because virtue is the enemy of the modern state desire to gather all unto itself..

The state subsidizes education, so one should expect prices to go up to capture that subsidy. Insurance subsidizes medical care, so one should not be surprised to see the cost of medical care go up to capture that subsidy. One simply has to compare the costs of human medical care with costs of animal care to see the impact of insurance.

The two income family is a tax trap more than anything. People are mesmerized by the education argument and yet the minds that we see coming out of the education factories seem more formulaic, post-critical and entitlement focused than anything else.

Credit Default Swaps May Be Playing a Supporting Role in Chrysler Bankruptcy Filings

Lots on sensitive feelings on display about calling our president names. He is however just a man and not particualarly crucial to the survival of our society. I recall much worse names being hurled at Bush 1 and 2. And I clearly remember the glee of the media in showing the shoe being thrown at the president. I personally refer to the president as Princess Obama.

The unfortunate thing is that the consequences of whatever Ob does now wont show up for 5 or 7 years. So OB will take credit for the recovery that would come along naturally and will be out of office when the consequences of what he does now manifest themselves in the future.

My own take is that the article is spot on. The unions are the favored constiuency of the government. It would be better for the economy if chrysler were liquidated rather than have the company run for the benefit of the UAW and the administration. Such a liquidation might inject some reality into the greater economy.

When the means of production are nominally in private hands, but the enterprise is run to benefit the interests of the state - we have a classic description of National Socialism in Germany 1933 - 45

Obama's First Economics Lesson

"I think it's funny that his justification for avoiding some sort of socialized medicine is that the free market is not producing enough doctors"

We have not had a free market medical system for 50 years. In the case of medical care, the means of production are in the hands of private parties, but the price they are paid are increasingly in the hands of the state. Sounds like national socialism to me.

Doctors avoid primary care because government pricing rules pay that category of care the least. The more specialized you are the greater the compensation you receive from the state.

Consider what it costs to take your dog to a vet - operating in a mostly free market, vs what you pay to see your doctor. In my town it's $25 to see the vet and $75 to see the doctor

Goldman Sachs Backlash Is Picking Up Steam

Let GS rape AIG. Let GS pay back tarp and then start cleaning out the AIG trading desk folks who may not like living is the civil service pay grades. GS will say, "come home boys, and bring everything you know about AIG's book with you and together we will plunder and loot that whale".

In the meantime, the Gov't will bring in congressional interns to man the trading desk and as blood runs in the streets, cry about how unfair it all is.