Ballmer likens economy to depressions of 1837, 1873, and 1929

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer sketched a dire portrait of the world economy on Friday, likening it to market conditions in 1837, 1873, and 1929, each of which involved bank failures, high unemployment, and a depression.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime economic crisis," Ballmer told a retreat of House Democrats in Williamsburg, Va. "There is a lot of history around that, and frankly if you stop and think about it, 1837, '73, '29, 2008, it's almost exactly a whole lifetime between each of the major economic difficulties that we face."

Ballmer said that economic growth in the last 25 years was fueled by innovation, globalization, and debt--and that the current levels of debt were unsustainable. "In 1929, for example, just before the stock market crash, the private debt-to-GDP ratio was 160 percent," he said. "Last year, private sector debt as a percentage of the GDP: 300 percent, far more leverage."

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer: "This is a once-in-a-lifetime economic crisis."

(Credit: Microsoft)

His warning of a protracted downturn that could become a depression comes amid a stock market that is down by more than 40 percent from its October 2007 peak, and housing prices in many metro areas that have been falling consistently since July 2006--a feat not equalled since the Great Depression.

"In my view, what we now have will be a fundamental economic reset," he said. "The economy is going to have to re-establish itself at a level of spending that reflects the real value of underlying assets before we can all start growing again at a healthy rate."

On the other hand, even after this week's unemployment reports, the U.S. unemployment rate remains at 7.6 percent, lower than where it was in 1975 and 1992, and far lower than 10.8 percent in 1982. Figures before 1940 involved more estimation, but Census Bureau data put the unemployment rate in 1938 at 19.1 percent.

"PC sales (are) discretionary in most home budgets, the second, the third PC," Ballmer said, adding that Microsoft nevertheless will continue to spend more than $9 billion a year in R&D. "Consumer electronics has that characteristic. Fifty percent of capital spending in this country is on information technology. Less capital, less spend on information technology. No sector will be immune."

Microsoft shares have fallen by about half since the fall of 2007, a steeper fall than the Dow Jones index but in line with the tech-centric Nasdaq.

Democrats in the audience applauded when Ballmer endorsed the so-called stimulus legislation currently being considered by the U.S. Congress, saying it is "vital" and "will provide a cushion as we reach the reset point and it will help restart our economic engine."

He didn't go into details or address some of the allegations of wasteful government spending that have imperiled the bill's passage in the Senate as its size swelled to nearly $1 trillion. Senate Democrats said on Friday night that they might whittle down the revised version to $780 billion, still much higher than the $300 billion figure that was proposed as recently as October.

Ballmer said that while he distinguishes "private debt and government debt," there "certainly has been too much use of debt" in general. The stimulus legislation will be paid for by the U.S. Treasury borrowing money and running up debt, largely from other countries such as China.

After offering dark comparisons to history's depressions, Ballmer ended on a positive note, saying the United States has the right combination of talent and potential for innovation to succeed, especially if more tax dollars are spent on basic research and development.

This is, he said, "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to think about our priorities again and make the investments that put us on the right foot."

[bonesbautista]

This is just a post at the end of a blog. Like so many intelligent readers and people, I'm out of a job, and I work in the construction industry - in engineering, but I've been telling developers to stop building for over three years because the signs were everywhere. Residential developments can take about 3 years - a year to plan and design, a year to build out the development, and a year to fully sell homes.

I take issue to Ballmer's blather.

I liken what we're seeing now to what I would see in any corrupted system. An unregulated banking system with bank officers exacting large fees for little work, a government not regulating the banking system and planning systems (but regulating everything else - fees, development requirements, etc., so why not banking?), and the last administration handing over hundreds of billions to "select" banking companies with hardly any oversight. Now, with the stimulus package, we're "borrowing" our own money - how do I get in on this deal?

I don't see our past problems - I see a governmental system similar to some of the Asian and African countries. Infighting, squabbling, people suffering and not being able to pay their bills and walking away from their homes, poor education support. America, or Zimbabwe? The leaders of both countries appear to be aloof to their charges, and we want a solution yesterday.

Ballmer means well. Pushing upgrades for PCs, operating systems, and office suites is what MS does. I am now working for myself, working to get child care, transit, and affordable housing solutions built and established in a part of the US that has been suffering for years while developers have worked to push real estate prices through the roof, and I work just to cover my expenses and eat. I changed my priorities 3 years ago, after tiring of trying to get my clients to listen to me and watching my previous employers feed the frenzy with irresponsible abandon.

Good luck to all.

[ferretboy88]

Lets stop giving out free money to people who don't work but are full healthy. 48% don't even pay taxes in this country. I am so sick of seeing 21 year old people in my town not work and act like we should give them a free ride. You offer them a job and they quit after a week.

[pentest]

If 10% of the population holds 95%+ of the wealth, then don't you think it seems fair that many don't have to pay taxes?

[directorblue]

Pentest: half of the 10% who hold the most wealth did so in ONE generation. That means guys like Gates and Allen, who founded MSFT, created jobs for hundreds of thousands (if not millions, indirectly), created thousands of millionaires through stock options, and revitalized the Seattle area.

What folks have to get through their head is: the MORE WEALTH DISPARITY THE BETTER. The question you should be asking: can move between economic strata easily? In the U.S., the answer is YES.

Less economic regulation. Less taxation. More free enterprise. More wealth creation. More wealth disparity.

Zimbabwe and Cuba have wealth parity -- if you believe in economic equality, those are areas to emulate.

[J. Blow]

Dude, what planet are you on? The banking industry is HEAVILY regulated. Along with regulating the banking industry, there's the SEC, SOX, local and state government regulations, auditing requirements, etc.The amount of regulation is absurd and to the point - doesn't prevent an economic collapse.

In fact it can easily be argued that the sole reason we have the problem we have is exactly because of regulation. See, congress oversees the banking regulations and the democrats controlled banking, even under GB. The democrates wanted to increase home ownership (social engineering) and so they lowered the loan/asset ratio that banks must maintain. This enabled home ownership to climb from 64% to 69%. Guess what % of total gov't backed mortgages are bad? Right, about 5%. Too bad housing is a relatively illiquid asset and can't be easily unloaded esp when there's little capital liquidity.

Why did banks follow the gov'ts lead in terms of resetting their asset/loan ratios? Because this primarily applied to Fanny/Freddie mortgages which are... regulated and backed by the gov't.

So, for this problem, thanks Barney Frank (who just bailed out his own bank), and Christopher Todd. But mainly, thank the democrates who only want markets with upside and no downturns. The result is instead of normal smaller more frequent downturns is full on recessions. Thanks Barney!

[J. Blow]

Btw, why did companies keep building developments? Because people kept buying the houses! It would be great if some of the spotlight was turned on the idiots buying houses they couldn't possibly afford.

And lets be honest, please - They knew they couldn't afford them! It makes my stomach turn to hear about "preditory" lending etc. The fact of the matter is that most people that bought houses that were too expensive for their income levels did so because they thought the value of the house was always going to keep going up and if they had to bail that would cover their butts.

Of course you only hear about the banks from the politicians, especially the ones that were complicent in this problem.

[pentest]

Gates and Allen also have damaged the industry, cost companies billions fixing their mistakes and have set back the industry by decades.

Just because a few greedy people that contributed nothing got rich doesn't justify anything.

[Renegade Knight]

If developers knew their market...
If bankers knew their loans...
If insurerers knew their risks..
If investors knew their investments...
If regulators had the right regulations...

Yeah, we would not be here. We are. It is reset (called reality).

[dcwiencek]

I find it interesting that Mr. Ballmer is supportive of a solution to the current economic condition that by his account was caused by a historic run up of private debt, is a historic run up of government debt. When is the ultimate day of reckoning coming?

[Nicholas Buenk]

The public debt is insignificant to the mount of private debt. Public debt is only about 70% of GDP.... Private debt, 300%!

[simplelifer]

Since when did we become the slaves of money?

The economy is bad, so sure I wanna buy another PC.

If one job ain't enough to put breads on the table for our families, then two jobs and three jobs for some. Are we lazy? Or, we are, like some commentators suggested, simply wasting too much money on things we don't need. Perhaps.

I was brought up believing hard work and honesty. Never tell a lie. And here I am, struggling with my finance.

Looking at those guys unhappy of government capping their salaries at $500,000/yr and hinting that money does not justify the efforts and time they spent on their jobs. You know what? I'm gonna start to teach my kids to be greedy but act sincere and compassion. Show the people how much we really care about them. Show them our work is not about us, it's about them. Show them the world is not a fair place, but we can make it better by working together, give them hope. Then, they will be more than happy to give us the money and feeling good about doing so. Having nothing or everything? I want my kids to have everything---whatever it takes! Because honesty and hardworking seem only bring debts and more family struggles.

[Lerianis]

Simplelifer... you are actually right. Honest and hardwork today bring nothing but debt, family struggles, never seeing your family, etc.
The problem is that we have taken 'hard work' to mean working yourself to DEATH and BEYOND at the businesses that employ you. Plus, we have allowed the rich to get out of their share of helping to fund the infrastructure of this country by keeping them at VERY low tax rates, when the super-wealthy (those making over 10 million a year) should be taxed at near 90% unless they are pumping their dollars back into the economy by actually BUYING STUFF, not by buying stock which NEVER sees that money spent on stock getting back into the economy at large.

[pentest]

"Since when did we become the slaves of money? "

Pretty much since the terrible decision to treat corporations like they are a person, it was further exacerbated by the insanity of making corporations answerable to only shareholders.

Next, the US turned from a producing to a mindless consumer where debt spending on crap no one needs was considered patriotic.

The endless pursuit of money and collecting things is what got us here. It won't stop until people figure out that they have to live within their means and must take away power from the corporations who really run the country.

[Endbringer]

@ Lerianis (Your wealth envy is showing.)

The rick got out of paying their fair share? What planet do you live on? The top 10% of income earners in this country pay 95% of the taxes. Don't be ignorant of the facts. The rich ARE the ones paying for everything right now. You are just jealous and want to use the police power of government to take what they've EARNED to give it to someone who hasn't earned it.

You're obviously ignorant of how economics work. "....should be taxed at near 90% unless they are pumping their dollars back into the economy by actually BUYING STUFF, not by buying stock which NEVER sees that money spent on stock getting back into the economy at large". They use the value of their stock to borrow with so they can buy things. You think Bill Gates and all his billions in stocks aren't being spent on anything? You don't think he's buying clothes, nice steak dinners, cars, houses, planes, etc? Who makes those stuff? Oh that's right, the middle and lower income classes. So when you tax someone like Mr. Gates at 90%, he's just gonna leave this country and then never buy anything.

The ignorance of the American people is astonishing today. The fact that no one understands basic economics and can be steamrolled by politicians into believing that spending MORE will get us out of this recession is a testament to how bad our education system is. You know, the education system run by those same politicians that spend more money per student than any other country on the planet.

[heavydevelopment]

Totally, completely, different. Ballmer is completely off in this case. In all of those historical cases there were other institutional issues that pushed the country into a depression. In each of these references the government either didn't act or was slow to act. Yes, there will be a market correction. Yes, it will be rough. Ultimately, though it will be a recession and not a depression. One other thing to point out is that in each one of those historical cases the "herd" mentality was what made the overall economic situation much worse. Talking doom and gloom feeds into that mentality. And while Ballmer may be asserting his opinion, it would be wise IF HE KEPT HIS VERY PUBLIC PIE HOLE SHUT. We need people to say that while things look bleak now, EVERTHING WILL BE OKAY. Because, ultimately, it will.

[Lerianis]

heavydevelopment.... my parents are already saying that we are past a recession, and into a Depression. So are all the economic majors at the college near us who I have talked with.
I don't think that things will 'ultimately be okay' until we realize that our free market system works even worse than the system that Russia and the U.S.S.R. had, which wasn't communism.
The only thing that our 'free market' system has accomplished: putting all the money in the country into the hands of a VERY few, contrary to government figures.

[gerrrg]

There is an institutional problem: banking regulation.

There haven't been many changes between 2006 and today, when it comes to credit default swaps / derivatives, sub-prime / NINJA loans, mortgage brokers, mark-to-market rules, grading of risk. Without good regulation in place, confidence remains low.

AND

Over-leverage is an extremely important issue as well.

With the markets over-leveraged, credit remains tight, period. If the banks fail to maintain capital as a result of loan defaults, they will not meet the minimum capitalization and will be taken over by the Feds. Since there's no in-place process for dealing with mortgage defaults and sub-prime/NINJA loans will continue to reset through next year, it's fairly easy to assume that a lot more banks will fail.

[J. Blow]

Lerianis - um, you need to read up a bit on global markets. The US represents about 23% of the global GDP, 13T/55T. If you think that "works worse than the USSR" you are horribly wrong.

More importantly, the USSR was a soul crushing experience that robbed people of their ability to think and act for themselves.

[Endbringer]

@ Lerianis

I don't seem to recall capitalism killing millions of people in its name. I do remember my history in that the communists in Russia and China killed hundreds of millions of people and then kept the ones alive living a life of mediocrity. But hey, who pays attention to history, right?

Besides, it's not like capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other economic system in history, right? <rolls_eyes />

[James Anderson Merritt]

One thing that I think is noteworthy is the idea that "a whole lifetime" separates the economic crises: enough time for people to forget the truths taught by the previous crisis, and to believe that the old laws don't apply in the "modern" time. In other words, a severe lack (or decay) of institutional memory.

I take issue with those who believe that in the earlier instances, government didn't act or was slow to act. Good scholarship now concludes that the depression starting circa 1920 was extended BY ALMOST A DECADE because of government's actions (not its delay in acting). The problem here is that the conditions that led to depression were caused or enabled by government, and that government actions to deal with the problems made them worse. Some pain will be felt in any "correction." But government should just back off and let the normal forces of the market deal with the problems thus caused.

The free market is a system that, by its nature, tries to maintain equilibrium. When the government intervenes, it postpones the establishment, or changes the nature, of that equilibrium. Sometimes, it even causes an injury, the healing of which is thwarted by further intervention. In cases of economic depression, the system can heal its own scab, but if we cauterize the wound, we make things much worse.

[codynews]

Totally...

[Lerianis]

Yeah, right..... like it was able to heal during the Great Depression, which was only stopped by the New Deal? I don't think so, the problem is that our 'free market' DOES NOT WORK. It never really has. They keep on putting forward 'supply and demand' but as we saw during the summer of 4 dollar gasoline, supply and demand doesn't work for essentials to daily life.
No, all of this came around because government wasn't using it's regulatory powers the way that it should have been using them.

Oh, and as to the 'good scholarship' concluding that the great depression was extended by the government's actions.... DON'T YOU BELIEVE IT! It is only ECONOMIC scholars who believe in 'Free market over all, no regulation!' who are saying that, only to be proven wrong at EVERY turn by other scholars, such as historians.

[ferretboy88]

If a bank declined a person for a house they could get sued under the Clinton admin. We had to make every thing fair. Like Obama said "everyone is the country should have access to high speed internet". Even if you don't work? People need to stop thinking the govt owes us everything. Work for what you have. Stop buying 3 ipod.

[pentest]

The free market system is a failure.

It is a failure because those with their hand on the scale are driven by greed, and they don't care who gets hurt by their irrational desire for getting more money then they need.

The free market as a self-correcting system is a MYTH.

[dcwiencek]

So if the Free Market is a failure and socialism and communism are failures what is the answer?

[pentest]

Rationally regulated capitalism will be as close to an answer as we will probably get. The keyword is rationally.

[Renegade Knight]

The free market doesn't exist. Once you accept that, you may recognize that this recession was caused by private industry and greed.

[Endbringer]

You are correct. What's sickening is that there seems to be a backlash against capitalism. Capitalism didn't fail, it's still working the way it's supposed to except when the government decides to mess with it. Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system in the history of the planet, yet why are people thinking this is the end of the world? We aren't in a depression, we're in a recession. Those that were government indoctrinated (educated I mean) probably don't know the difference. Our unemployment is STILL lower than Western Europe, yet we're supposed to be having the most troubled times in almost a century? Wake up people. This isn't the end of the world, it's not the fault of capitalism, and we're not going to become a third world country like Mexico.

[Commander_Spock]

How about if Microsoft's Ballmer encourages that company to release all the Source-Codes that it now owns for the IBM's OS/2 Operating System and let IBM develop and distribute that Operating System for free if there is any deep down interest in helping the economy of the United States of America and other countries around the world if he wants to talk about "economic depression" as what is depressing the world's economy are the missing Economic Rate of Return (ERR) APIs that are missing in both OS/2 and the Windows Operating Systems - Go figure this out!

[Draq Wraith]

Because it is more than likely a source code included into the NT kernel.
Is it any coincidence that N is one letter off from O and T is one letter off from S?
1+1=2 right?
Also the start of the NT kernel line was 3.0.

Something to think on is it not?
D~W

[The_Cinderz]

Politics, religion, businesses and people = lies, interpretation, greed and forgotten. Values have been lost and rules have been cast aside. All to familiar are the 7 sins, with deceit and fear as their umbrella. We saw this coming and did nothing. Now we pay. You can't point fingers without blinding yourself. You can read this and ask what the hell this has to do with anything that it happening. Well, it has to do with everything.

[Commander_Spock]

You are so right with what you are saying... you can do a search on this same CNET NEWS site and determine the amount of preaching Commander_Spock was doing for years in relation the philosophical approach that was needed in order to make needed predictions (assumptions) and was called all sort of names - so now, who should be laughing all the way to the bank?

[Inconnux]

Its amazing that this guy runs the worlds largest software company... But then again he thinks Vista was a success. almost makes us miss bill gates

[Nicholas Buenk]

Ballmer is exactly right. What we have is a debt bubble. And when they implode, what you get is a large drop in money supply and incomes, a deflationary spiral, and hence a depression.
There are some great articles on this by an Australian economist. Who rejects the notion that economies tend towards equilibrium, saying that economists who say that are using overly simple models of reality.
http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2009/01/31/therovingcavaliersofcredit/
http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2008/11/02/debtwatch-no-28-november-2008-what-is-really-going-on/

[Commander_Spock]

"[...what you get is a large drop in money supply and incomes, a deflationary spiral, and hence a depression. There are some great articles on this by an Australian economist. Who rejects the notion that economies tend towards equilibrium, saying that economists who say that are using overly simple models of reality....]" Oh, how Commander_Spock loves these comments about "economics" - something that Admiralty was being accused of being rammed down people's throats; so now, who are the ones that are drowning under the "Tsuname Waves of the Economic Turmoil" that is sweeping th globe. And, no it was started more than eight years ago. Here is why and as a point of reference here is an extract from a 1998 Lotus Development Corporation communication which reads:

"Re: Concerning the issues with 1-2-3 that are talked about in the documentation you gave me, most of the issues are related to converting files between older and newer versions of product and converting documents between Lotus and Microsoft. Anytime a file is saved backwards or saved with an older file format than the format the file was created under, such as saving a 1-2-3 , 97 file for Windows 95 into a WK1 format for DOS, then naturally we are expected to loose certain features due to technology and features that are present now that were not present 8 - 10 years ago. Similarly, if we try to convert a file from Lotus into Excel or Excel into Lotus, due to differences in the products not every feature will be converted perfectly with the file filters that are available. Both Lotus and Microsoft create similar spreadsheet programs; however, there are several differences in both programs and these differences will remain to distinguish the products apart. We do try to design conversion filters that will allow as much of the file formats as possible to be exchanged and converted without disrupting the actual file design and format.

In one of your letters you made mention of the @IRR and @ERR functions in the 1-2-3 product. By design the @IRR (notably "absent" in Open Office) will calculate the Internal Rate of Return; where the @ERR is used in conjunction with other formulas, posted was an "ERR" showing an error was received in the calculations. As far as I can see in the program I cannot find an @ERR function that will allow us to calculate an Economic Rate of Return"

So, let us party like it is 1982 folks on the "90% market share plus" river boat!

[mtoc]

what the hell is Ballmer talking about? he should stick to MSFT! it was business lobyists who pressured legislators to relax and exempt that caused this mess. he should concentrate on insuring that Win 7 works properly. otherwise..run for office!

[Commander_Spock]

Re: "what the hell is Ballmer talking about? he should stick to MSFT! it was business lobyists who pressured legislators to relax and exempt that caused this mess. he should concentrate on insuring that Win 7 works properly. otherwise..run for office!.." Nah! it was the dissolution of the marriage between IBM and Microsoft that has gotten the complacent world into the mess; instead of 1 - 6 well educated and groomed children we have hundreds of off-springs called Windows and Linux that cannot deliver (take care of the family's business). Ask the banks that have their eyes on sleek corporate jets, they have the business intelligence and all of your cash.

"Citigroup to buy $50M private jet: report"

http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/26/news/companies/citigroup_plane.reut/

Economic depression? what economic depression!!!

[waybacmac]

Hmm..."a fundamental economic reset"? So we fix the economy like we fix Windows...reboot and hope for the best?

[daimajinbuu]

Ballmer's a genius. A millionaire that has singlehandedly figured out the economy, just now.

[T_Tran]

You're wrong, he's a Billionaire! Last I checked on Forbes, he had over $10 billion. It must be nice...

[Super2online]

All of a sudden "everyone" is an "expert" on what should of, and could of happened. Stick to tech talk guys, at least you actually know something about that subject!

[Penguinisto]

Oh, c'mon - he's just using it as a thin disguise to get a hunk of that stimulus money. The only diff is, nobody has reported on whether or not he took a private jet to get there.

[aangel100]

It's much worse than the other depressions because we've built a global society based on oil and that oil is still relentlessly depleting -- even during this economic slump -- at about 28.5 billion barrels per year. Even though demand is down, it's only very slightly because the world runs on oil.
"Ramp up the alternatives" -- sounds like a good idea, but that needed to start thirty years ago. It's too late to replace more than an insignificant amount of that oil.
"Move to electric cars" -- a very small number of people will have electric cars, the rest will not have the money or credit to buy them. Most Americans have bought their last car ever.
It's a whole new world, better start getting ready.
For the best oil projections out there, see the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas:
http://www.aspo-usa.com

[ferretboy88]

electric cars still use power and oil.

[pentest]

Yes, it needed to be started 30 years ago.

Carter tried to start up serious alternative research, but the very people who caused this mess ridiculed and stopped him.

What happens when the oil runs out?

[ferretboy88]

I would like to thanks all of the people who bought houses they couldn't afford and then turned the water on and let the house rot. Good job losers. Not the people who couldn't pay because they lost their job but the people who never had a chance in heck to pay it back. We are talking about buying a $335,000 house when you make $35,000. Then you leave and ruin the house. Thanks for ruining the country. And FU to the idiot banks who gave them the loans so they wouldn't get sued for discrimination to the poor. Great job folks. 50% of the people who were bailed out defaulted again.

[pentest]

LOL@u

So the banks aren't complicit in allowing these loans? Don't give me the BS that they had to, they didn't. Why did Bush fix the "problem"? Why did the banks play around with variable rate loans to trick people into thinking they could afford homes? The poor banks are such innocent victims in all of this!

So the wall street isn't complicit in taking these bad loans and passing them off as AAA?

What planet do you live on?

This was caused by unbridled greed with no regulations. All infrastructure, banks, insurance, power, and water should not be allowed to be traded in the markets, they should and need to be either non-profits or publicly owned. Where I live, power companies that are private are 4-5 times more expensive then PUD's, and they also keep increasing rates even in the face of record profits that they got last year.

The "free market" is the problem and is a proven failure.

[ferretboy88]

Acorn saw to it that anyone should be able to get a loan even if they were a loser. Its only fair in the Liberal world. Life it not fair.

[ewelch]

Is Ballmer an economist? No. His greatest accomplishment was to trick IBM into letting Microsoft control DOS. He rode in on the tails of Bill Gates and Paul Allen. He's no genius. He's no economist. Why would anyone listen to him?

Talk about listening to people simply because of their position in a company that so many mistakenly think is progressive and innovative. They got where they are by hoodwinking IBM and then ruthlessly using their monopoly power to prevent others from innovating and taking their business away from them. Greed and corruption. Which is exactly what brought this country to where it is now.

Any fool can state the obvious. But no fool is going to give us the answers we need. We need people with the smarts to stop the nonsense of the post Reganomics fundamentalist economic theory that has the backing of people who don't care about the welfare of the whole, but only their own little slice of the pic.

If you must listen to him, take away the lesson that whatever he says is not in the best interests of the country.

[Commander_Spock]

Re: "[... Ballmer an economist? No. His greatest accomplishment was to trick IBM into letting Microsoft control DOS...]" You should have added; "and, IBM subsequently inherited an $500,000 mess that was the OS/2 Warp Operating System!

[sciontcya]

@ Mr. Ballmer: Please, fix YOUR house before you feel compelled to tell anyone else how to take care of business.
The egos of these guys is insane.

[ralfthedog]

He got something right.

"The United States has the right combination of talent and potential for innovation to succeed, especially if more tax dollars are spent on basic research and development."

R&D will be the key to our economy over the next hundred years. R&D can bring our cost of labor down below that of third world nations (especially if you include the cost of shipping.) R&D can bring the day to day cost of living down without reducing our quality of life. I would like to see Ballmer call for more research money to be spent on open source software like Linux and Open Office.

[Commander_Spock]

Hey "ralfthedog" Have you forgotten that OS/2 is still out there (at least in Russia) waiting patiently to help launch the "Carrier Rockets" to take NASA's Astronauts to the International Space Station and back to earth. So, how about R&D funding for OS/2 too!

[sciontcya]

You know who spends a ton on R&D?
Apple.
You know who's stock si still rising?
Apple.
You know who has 26B in ca$h?
Apple.
The list goes on.
MS Should be leveled from the top-down before they're in BK.
They're already in creative BK as shown by their never-ending copying (badly) of Apple.

Fanboy? Nope. Happy investor.

[jingonilo]

To all these Apple fans, Apple is overrated. Apple doesn't help the productivity of the workers , hinders it with their useless contraptions. It is all marketing. But I have to say Jobs is a genius, without him, Appple would go back to nothing.

[bhushan bhaagii]

Well, then all Apple employees will be praying Jobs lives long. "Long Live Steve Jobs!"