licentious radio

Wednesday, February 13, 2002
[10:41:44 AM]

MS worse than Enron for soft-money corruption. Examples include largest-ever campaign donation to South Carolina attorney general just before SC withdrew from anti-trust case.

Apparently, MS is also out hiring all the anti-trust law firms so they aren't available to work against MS.

MS cheats on financial reporting [theregister.co.uk].

That's nothing, really. There are two things MS does to avoid taxes that are much more interesting. First, since a large percentage of stock is owned by the executives, and tax rates are higher on dividends than stock sales, MS doesn't pay dividends. Old-fashioned companies with $30 or $40 billion in loose change would pay some out to stock-holders. MS also avoids taxes by providing stock options, instead of salary. This is a large part of the need for steadily increasing stock value (lest employees all walk).

Now Qualcom [theregister.co.uk] is accused of rigging their books. Qualcom also appointed to its own board Frank Savage, who is also on Enron's board.

Enron, meanwhile, appears to have used their stealth partnerships to inflate reported income by ONE BILLION DOLLARS.