Steve Ballmer says Microsoft will move programmers out of the country

[thewayne]

if Obama goes through with revising tax shelter legislation to make American corporations pay more of the taxes that they're supposed to.

I am shocked, shocked I say.

Let 'em. Meanwhile, impose legislation that any company that isn't based in the US and doesn't pay American taxes doesn't get to lobby Congress, they have to go through the Department of State via whatever country they're based in. And since they're not an American corporation, they lose preference points for government contracts to American corporations. Hmmm, Oracle's SuSe Linux on government desktops and servers instead of Windows? More Oracle database on government servers instead of Microsoft SQL Server? Need to file a lawsuit against an American company that pays American taxes to protect your patents? We'll get back to you on that. "May I see your passport to reenter the country, Mr. Ballmer? (rubber glove goes *snap) Follow me into this back room, please?"

Same thing goes for Halliburton, now HQ'd in Qatar.

It's one thing to move manufacturing out of the country to save manufacturing costs, but manufacturing costs are almost nonexistent when it comes to the costs of Microsoft software. What do we get (at work) most of the time when we buy a copy of SQL Server? A single CD and a couple dozen sheets of paper. When we buy another license? We don't even get the CD, we might get a half dozen sheets of paper.

Lower the corporate tax rate if it will get the bastards to pay, but have a bunch of really big sticks behind your back if they start making threats like that.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aAKluP7yIwJY

http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/06/06/1153217/Ballmer-Threatens-To-Pull-Out-of-the-US?art_pos=2

Comments

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Interesting idea, I can't recall it being mentioned before. Yeah, $20 would be nice, the deficit is way too high as a percent of GDP, especially with the GDP slipping the way it is.

[deborak]

FYI I deleted my earlier post as I realized my math was off a bit, and I didn't want to get into defending/recalculating, etc. I'm also trying to train myself not to get into policy discussions because it just doesn't do my psyche any favors. I'm better off just commiserating with Bill on these matters.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I was wondering about that. My hours are pretty weird with me being out of work so much, and yesterday we drove up to Cloudcroft to see if I could handle the altitude (fairly successful experiment) so it was rather late when I finally replied.

I fully agree that the tax system needs to be rationalized, but there's so many vested interests both in and out of the system that, short of total gov't/economic collapse, I tend to doubt that it will ever be done.

There's an old saying: The best thing about slamming your head into the wall is that it feels so good when you stop. And it definitely is a good idea to pay attention to the care and feeding of your psyche/karma.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

(I was wondering about the deleted post when I replied, not about your math. That slipped past me.)