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I stand corrected per Dell's charity giving.....however, most of that is a tax-write off, which means the gov't gets that much less in Taxes as they would otherwise. This way, Dell gets good/free PR, and perhaps can manipulate legislative and trade agendas behinds the scenes via foundations and such.
The problem is when one person in a Corporation retains the vast majority of its' profits, to the extent that he is the #13 richest person in the USA, AND mandates contract hiring of a large minority of its workers, AND paying extremely low wages......Not as egregious as the Wal-Mart kin(worth 80 billion collectively) vis a vis the poverty-level average wage of Wal-mart, and the coolie labor from the large share of their goods made in China, but close to being as egregious....
And Dell has a large % of contract employess, othewise known as "permatemps"...temps allow one to avoid dealing with many worker rights issues, and can be fired at will, without reason........When you see someone at the top of a company, founder or not, making billions, you can rest assured either their workers are being sqeezed out of paychecks, or much work is being done out/offshore, where much work can be had for 1$ an hour....
ITC - there is so much to comment on these three paragraphs you wrote. But I don't have enough time.
Your beef is no longer with Dell - instead it is with anyone with that much wealth. Do you think Dell, or anyone with similar wealth, gives money to charity to save on taxes? Tax incentives merely cause him to give more than he might otherwise. Saving a few million a year on taxes is meaningless to him.
Michael Dell doesn't suck the profits from Dell. His wealth has been built from the stock he originally gained as the company founder and the (relatively) few options he has been awarded. He appears to own about 230M shares now - worth about $4B today. That represents assets, not income. Same story with Gates, Buffett, Ellison, etc. If money is a motivator for him than his interests are nicely aligned with Dell shareholders.
I don't admire Dell the company. But I don't fault Michael for building that company to what it is. His company created many other millionares and helped assure the retirement funds of countless others. Dell Inc's contribution to the economies of Austin, Tennessee, and other locations around the world is huge. That company also drove down the prices of PC, servers, storage, and software - which was clearly good for consumers and business.
Dell is a powerful man - one of many in the world. No reason to doubt that Dejoria is capable of legislative influence too. But that occurs every Saturday with countless other less wealthy people entertaining Texas legislators in the UT skybox.
As for Walmart - They employ 2.1M people. Their profit margin is about 3.5%. The average WalMart job doesn't pay well - but why should it? These are simply low end retail jobs that don't require much education nor special skills.
Michael Dell nearly single handedly made the home PC an affordable option. Would it have happened anway? Eventually probably, but he move the US and the world light years ahead in a short time. He did this not by creating monopolies and mistreating workers like the industrialist in the Industrial Revolution, but by making a lot of his employees wealthy and squeezing efficiencies out of a supply chain in ways that are copied across the globe. Dell is a guy who created real, tangible value through innovation (unlike many of the ibankers who destroyed it through innovative products) This country is lucky to have people like this. Holding the difficult decisions made to keep all the employees of that company working at a viable company against him is equivalent to mocking the pro athlete who falls short of victory while you sit in your recliner covered in cheetos and wing sauce.
Furthermore, donations to charity are not offset by the tax advantage, deductions simply reduce the total cost to the donor. Its not like his charity donations made him money, dimissing it as a tax right off means you don't understand his net sum is still negative from that transaction.
ITC - there is so much to comment on these three paragraphs you wrote. But I don't have enough time.
Your beef is no longer with Dell - instead it is with anyone with that much wealth. Do you think Dell, or anyone with similar wealth, gives money to charity to save on taxes? Tax incentives merely cause him to give more than he might otherwise. Saving a few million a year on taxes is meaningless to him.
Michael Dell doesn't suck the profits from Dell. His wealth has been built from the stock he originally gained as the company founder and the (relatively) few options he has been awarded. He appears to own about 230M shares now - worth about $4B today. That represents assets, not income. Same story with Gates, Buffett, Ellison, etc. If money is a motivator for him than his interests are nicely aligned with Dell shareholders.
I don't admire Dell the company. But I don't fault Michael for building that company to what it is. His company created many other millionares and helped assure the retirement funds of countless others. Dell Inc's contribution to the economies of Austin, Tennessee, and other locations around the world is huge. That company also drove down the prices of PC, servers, storage, and software - which was clearly good for consumers and business.
Dell is a powerful man - one of many in the world. No reason to doubt that Dejoria is capable of legislative influence too. But that occurs every Saturday with countless other less wealthy people entertaining Texas legislators in the UT skybox.
As for Walmart - They employ 2.1M people. Their profit margin is about 3.5%. The average WalMart job doesn't pay well - but why should it? These are simply low end retail jobs that don't require much education nor special skills.
Seems like your heart is with the billionaires, while you ask "Why should a single-mom working at Wal-mart be entitled to a living-wage", especially ironic when the community that that worker lives in, along with the worker, has just externalized most of the costs of build-out and infrastructure, where you have the sad but true reality of communities subsiziding the death of their retail base, av salary level, and more by their own pay-dollars, and deferrment of the same through tax-moratoriums.....
Put your hat in the ring with the people who see and live with everyday, at least when you shop, some of whom you may even know by name.....
not with the billionaire living in a gated-community somewhere, sheltered from anything resembling the reality of the common man....
BTW, some have described Ellison in Bio's as evil incarnate, but nice you include him as well to be pitied....
Seems like your heart is with the billionaires, while you ask "Why should a single-mom working at Wal-mart be entitled to a living-wage", especially ironic when the community that that worker lives in, along with the worker, has just externalized most of the costs of build-out and infrastructure, where you have the sad but true reality of communities subsiziding the death of their retail base, av salary level, and more by their own pay-dollars, and deferrment of the same through tax-moratoriums.....
Put your hat in the ring with the people who see and live with everyday, at least when you shop, some of whom you may even know by name.....
not with the billionaire living in a gated-community somewhere, sheltered from anything resembling the reality of the common man....
BTW, some have described Ellison in Bio's as evil incarnate, but nice you include him as well to be pitied....
My heart is with the idea that YOU/ME bear ultimate responsibility for our own well being. It isn't my employer's purpose to make sure I can live the way I want.
How many single moms would like ANY job now? They would probably be thrilled with a Walmart job that provided steady work that matched their skillset and provided benefits.
Why is this single mom single? Why do her kids not have a father to help? Is it an employer's job to make up for all the mistakes this person may have made in life?
I think it is funny you think Dejoria is some kind of saint compared to Dell. None of us know either one personally. But Dejoria probably didn't become a king of hair care products and tequila by being kind and gentle. Has his hair care product line helped the single mom? Have his products hurt any animals in testing? Does his tequila exploit cheap labor in Mexico? On and on and on. Do you drink tequila?
People with wealth have the means to do some enormously beneficial things. Many do great things. Some of course don't at all. But Buffett's great skill with investing in cooperation with Gates will cure some diseases, feed poor people, and improve education. Taking their wealth away by some government action is the wrong way to get things done.
My heart is with the idea that YOU/ME bear ultimate responsibility for our own well being. It isn't my employer's purpose to make sure I can live the way I want.
How many single moms would like ANY job now? They would probably be thrilled with a Walmart job that provided steady work that matched their skillset and provided benefits.
Why is this single mom single? Why do her kids not have a father to help? Is it an employer's job to make up for all the mistakes this person may have made in life?
I think it is funny you think Dejoria is some kind of saint compared to Dell. None of us know either one personally. But Dejoria probably didn't become a king of hair care products and tequila by being kind and gentle. Has his hair care product line helped the single mom? Have his products hurt any animals in testing? Does his tequila exploit cheap labor in Mexico? On and on and on. Do you drink tequila?
People with wealth have the means to do some enormously beneficial things. Many do great things. Some of course don't at all. But Buffett's great skill with investing in cooperation with Gates will cure some diseases, feed poor people, and improve education. Taking their wealth away by some government action is the wrong way to get things done.
The main point is the disparity of income in our country, which is a bigger issue than ever now in light of the credit crisis and national recession. We have far too much being gained at the top, a 1% that controls the vast majority of wealth here, far more than the other 99% combined. This makes us resemble a third world country like Brazil rather than anything in Western Europe.
The recent investment frenzy was just a way for the rich to grab more wealth, as the entire country tied a millstone around their neck with credit. This brought us to a national negative savings rate, and springboarded us to the foreclosure/bankruptcy wave that is/has washed over all over.
Net result - the rich get to snap up what are now greatly devalued residential and commecial properties pennies on the dollar, giving them far more wealth to add to their portfolio when the recession ends, while the vast majority of folks end up with less than they had before.
And I haven't even touched offshoring/outsourcing, which, if increased in the future, likely due to cost savings necessities pre the recession, could shut down our own Silicon Valley, and whatever is left out of the only sector we still control(barely), tech. Per manufacturing, kiss that one good-bye, as Asia IS our de facto manufacturing base now.
The good news about that is that we probably won't War in asia anytime soon(Though the kook in N Korea is always a wildcard), but the bad news is we are still fighting in the middle east( 7 straight years at this point. Kids 13 or so, having watched news coverage since they were old enough to know what's going on, have actually grown up with it their entire childhood), FOR 7 YEARS!
If we took all the money spent in that war, we could have rebuilt our crumbling US infrastructure, created new mass transit in all large metros,
and given the entire nation health care for 3 years......
The main point is the disparity of income in our country, which is a bigger issue than ever now in light of the credit crisis and national recession. We have far too much being gained at the top, a 1% that controls the vast majority of wealth here, far more than the other 99% combined. This makes us resemble a third world country like Brazil rather than anything in Western Europe.
The recent investment frenzy was just a way for the rich to grab more wealth, as the entire country tied a millstone around their neck with credit. This brought us to a national negative savings rate, and springboarded us to the foreclosure/bankruptcy wave that is/has washed over all over.
Net result - the rich get to snap up what are now greatly devalued residential and commecial properties pennies on the dollar, giving them far more wealth to add to their portfolio when the recession ends, while the vast majority of folks end up with less than they had before.
And I haven't even touched offshoring/outsourcing, which, if increased in the future, likely due to cost savings necessities pre the recession, could shut down our own Silicon Valley, and whatever is left out of the only sector we still control(barely), tech. Per manufacturing, kiss that one good-bye, as Asia IS our de facto manufacturing base now.
The good news about that is that we probably won't War in asia anytime soon(Though the kook in N Korea is always a wildcard), but the bad news is we are still fighting in the middle east( 7 straight years at this point. Kids 13 or so, having watched news coverage since they were old enough to know what's going on, have actually grown up with it their entire childhood), FOR 7 YEARS!
If we took all the money spent in that war, we could have rebuilt our crumbling US infrastructure, created new mass transit in all large metros,
and given the entire nation health care for 3 years......
I know we are venturing far off topic, so perhaps it might be time to close this thread, Mod.........
Was an interesting one though.....
Should he close the thread now that you've had the last word? FYI, it is a pet peeve of mine when someone requests that a thread be closed after they've had the last word.
Nobody put a gun to anyone's head and told them that they should buy homes with interest only loans or buy homes that they couldn't afford. Nobody forced anyone to purchase fungible goods using credit cards. People make choices every day, sometimes those choices aren't wise.
Have you ever been to a third world country? I don't think we are anything like it. I cannot imagine that the poorest in those countries have cable TV or are obese. Yes, we have income disparity but very few people here die of starvation.
This is a warning that infractions will be given, regardless of "who started it", for personal attacks or even public ponderings on other poster's. The thread is a fine as an Austin topic, but it needs to stay related to Austin or it will be closed. Since I think it is probably impossible to get back to the OP topic......
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