Letter to Ballmer: YOU are what is wrong with Society

You are looking at Mr. Steven A. Ballmer: the biggest man at Microsoft now. CEO of the company, Ballmer has a lot of decisions to make like how many versions of Windows 7 to pump out. He also has to deal with seeing Microsoft’s stock stay steady for FIVE YEARS and also keeping an eye on the nice Microsoft stockpile of cash. Even a super company like Microsoft can see losses and, in fact, they already have for the first time in 23 years. It’s not solely from the horrible economy we’re all in (except for the Australians), but they still lost sales. So in a time of economic downturn and wanting to help boost American jobs, what does Ballmer and some buddies want to do? The opposite.

Of course, he could just be full of hot air and be doing this for a PR stunt (Ballmer? PR stunt? NEVER!). The fact of the matter is that I doubt he’s just pulling our leg.

On May 4, President Obama announced that he intended to “crack down on companies ‘that ship jobs overseas.’” There’s a bit of background to this and it primarily deals with large technology companies. When the tech companies have a large portion of their income come from overseas, they would invest the earnings overseas, avoiding local U.S. taxes. In the last few fiscal years, HP, IBM, Cisco, Microsoft, and Google alone saved a combined $7.4 billion in taxes.

Well, that’s pissing Obama off and he wants change (take a shot). Obama’s new proposal is to tax a large chunk (if not all) of the foreign profit these companies have, something Obama thinks will raise around $210 billion over a 10-year timespan.

It makes U.S. jobs more expensive. We’re better off taking lots of people and moving them out of the U.S. as opposed to keeping them inside the U.S.
-Steve Ballmer

While I disagree more often than I agree with Obama, this mindset of Ballmer’s is idiotic to say the least. In the current state of the economy, we need American jobs. These jobs are what keep the economy strong by not only keeping Americans employed, but by fueling the community around it as well. The local restaurants, movie theaters, malls; they’re all affected by big business. We’re seeing it now with Detroit going under and we may see it happen in Silicon Valley and Redmond, not to mention spreading throughout other parts of the world.

Now, of course this wouldn’t necessarily be a problem if Obama wouldn’t have had yet ANOTHER taxation idea to take to Congress. In any case, if the proposal goes through, you can expect more job losses in the States. While a billion or so being taken from the companies in taxes may not seem extremely large from these mega-corporations and even a blessing to some, the 1-3% increase in the amount of taxes paid could mean the difference between keeping all the jobs or losing a lot to overseas areas. Where would this leave you? Well, if you work for these companies, possibly unemployed.

Obama reasons that U.S. companies will create more jobs in the United States if there is less of an advantage to setting up operations overseas.

Yeah… And for the companies that already have a presence in foreign countries? Guess they’re just screwed. I mean, relocating everybody out of the U.S. is better than higher taxes, so why not move the entire operation centers out?

So, will Ballmer’s “threat” change Obama’s mind? Doubt it. It’s Ballmer after all. If Obama’s plan goes through, will we see domestic job losses contrary to Obama’s belief? A good possibility. I fear this is not the last of the clashes we will see between Corporate America and the Government.

Sources: [CBS5, E-Commerce News, Bloomberg]