Today’s windy/cold weather makes French Polynesia very tempting…. (Quicktime VR Tours)
(From Quicktime News)
Monthly Archives: March 2004
Warren Buffett’s Annual Shareholder Letter
NEW YORK, March 6 (Reuters) – Warren Buffett, the world’s second-richest person, wants to pay more taxes. And he wants the rest of corporate America to pay more too.
In his annual letter [196K PDF] to shareholders of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (nyse: BRKa – news – people) holding company, released on Saturday, the 73-year-old Buffett said Berkshire’s taxes rose more than eleven-fold to $3.3 billion from 1995 to 2003, as profits rose ten-fold to $8.15 billion.
During the same period, federal income taxes paid by all U.S. companies fell by 16 percent, to $132 billion.
“We hope our taxes continue to rise in the future — it will mean we are prospering — but we also hope that the rest of corporate America antes up along with us,” said Buffett, who has previously criticized Bush administration tax policy.
Visit Berkshire Hathaway’s site to view Buffett’s annual letters, from 1977 to 2003…..
Hot Tub
Affendy Awalludin shares a very nice Quicktime VR Hot bath in a natural pool scene from Perpignan in the South of France. (650KB)
Misadventure Capitalism
Doc Searls has some useful commentary on a recent PBS Cringely column (The Curse of the Hundred Bagger) regarding the stagnant economy.
Searls references Peter Drucker’s Post Capitalist Society with respect to the declining utility of large corporations (he’s right on).
Internet Political Movies
Moveon.org generated quite a bit of publicity with it’s anti-Bush movies (CBS refused to run these during the SuperBowl!).
There are more here (from my friend Steve).
I’m amazed that the candidates continue to spend so much of their money on TV…..
President Bush has posted his TV ads here. John Kerry’s videos.
Protectionism
Dave Farber’s IP List has an interesting post on controlled economies:
Einar Stefferud writes:
“Reminds me of efforts to [support] Wisconsin.
I well remember how we had to buy margarine by mail order and hand mix
in the yellow coloring because it was against to law there to sell it
any other way.
And, the law required that all apple pie served in any state institution,
like the University of Wisconsin had to be served with a slice of Wisconsin
Cheese. Most of that cheese went into the garbage because most people did
not want cheese with their apple pie.
This kind of foolishness does not help an economy to grow jobs. It just
causes stagnation and waste and loss of incentives.
And higher taxes to pay for the waste.
Economies do not thrive under central control.
Economies and Internets do better without central control of details.
And, in the international situation, this is the beginning of a trade war,
ala the beginning to the 1930’s depression, which lasted for approximately
10 years until WW-II finally bailed us out.
BTW, the trade wars were a major aspect of the causes of WW-II.”
Lott/Thurmond Blogsphere Case Study
From Dave Winer:
A milestone case study from the Shorenstein Center PDF [324K] was released today. It tells the story of Trent Lott, his talk at Strom Thurmond’s birthday party, and how the news flowed through professional channels, to the blogosphere, and back, ultimately resulting in Lott’s resignation as majority leader of the US Senate.
Fascinating, and it’s great that this report is publicly available.
Feingold votes with the NRA?
Wisconsin State Journal Editorial page:
“Beginning in September, the gun industry can resume making, importing and selling military-style semiautomatic weapons that were outlawed a decade ago. And in a hard-to-understand flip-flop, U.S. Sen, Russ Feingold, D-Wis., stood apart from President Bush and a majority of Feingold’s Senate colleagues of both parties by voting to dump the ban on these weapons.”
I dislike any sort of political posturing via votes that our representatives make knowing a bill will die. Politics…..
I’m Sorry, Dave, You’re Speeding
Electronic logging & authentication in your car.
“What we’re suggesting is the driver’s license in the future will be a smartcard, and it’s embedded with all the data required to operate the car more safely and efficiently,” Toyota project manager Paul Beranger said.
If you are concerned about electronic rights (and you should be), support the EFF.
Calatrava does residential
Architect Santiago Calatrava (Milwaukee’s Art Museum) is set to make his mark on New York City’s skyline with a new residential tower.