An item on the CBS Evening News caught my attention. I wasn't able to find the story on the cbsnews.com site but here it is on CNN -- http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/31/bridge.microsoft/index.html under the title "Critics slam Microsoft bridge as waste of stimulus money".
Essentially, Microsoft is grabbing economic stimulus money to build an infrustructure project -- the connection of separate M$ "campuses" through construction of a tax-payer funded bridge. I'd call this a massive misappropriation of tax-payer money clearly illustrating how the public good is subverted and redefined to serve that which is good for corporations.
Anyone who follows the Microsoft web of lies will be especially outraged as it is clear that many of those walking across this bridge will certainly be imported "guest workers" hired in preference to Americans, retained in preference to Americans and, in fact, used to replace Americans.
sick, sick, sick!
That's like getting taxpayers to pay for sports stadiums when the team owner is going to make all of the profits on overpriced ticket sales.
Like Microsoft isn't sitting on a butt load of cash and could afford to build their own bridge, or pay for it themselves. Hell they could buy the entire track of land build the bridge and not even hit a dent in how much cash reserves they have.
Let's name this bridge
I'll start with some suggestions:
The Foreign Guest Worker Bridge to U.S. jobs
Microsoft Bridge to Serfdom
The Bridge to Corporate Welfare
H-1B Low Road
L-1 Lane
Offshore Outsourcing Avenue
Best and the Brightest Dump Off Site - No Recycling Allowed
My copy of Vista tends to crash
Should we be concerned about this bridge if it will be as reliable as Windows has been?
Hey, Microsoft spends its
Hey, Microsoft spends its capital on lobbyists, not non-deductible capital improvements. Consider the tax consequences here: they can expense lobbying costs. Whereas, improvements to a campus are long-term and must be amortized and since they'd pay out of cash, there's no interest deuctions. And, it just makes sense to hire local minority/female/...owned contractors (with offshore relatives) to assure that bridge is built to top standards.;-)
At the risk of sounding racist...
do you think once we see photos of the construction that the majority of the workers will be Indian and Chinese immigrants here on a visa? By day they're wearing hard hats, by night they're coding.
Actually
Given standard who goes where in migrations to this country, Indians and Chinese are WAY too expensive to use for this. Illegal Mexicans & Central Americans get all the construction work.
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Moral hazards would not exist in a system designed to eliminate fraud.
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Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
Guest Workers Bridge
Since most MS guest workers are paid cheap, they can't afford cars, the bridge will make it easier for them to go from one building to the other. Hey Johnny Venom, they are not immigrants, they are Guest workers (temporary visas).
But that's funny Evil Bill using them for both construction and coding.
The Bridge to Buttf*#k
To Mr. Rob Oak:
Oh yes, whenever there is a stimulus for our beloved corporate welfare queens, a MAN CRUSH is not far behind...
We call this a BRIDGE TO BUTTF*#K.
-The Gay Swami
http://tootruthy.blogspot.com/2009/04/billionaire-bill-gatess-bridge-to....