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Tech giants Microsoft(MSFT, $27) and Google(GOOG, $705) are locked in a multi-front struggle whose outcome will have enormous implications for the shareholders of both companies as well as technology customers around the world. In many ways both companies find themselves at a vital crossroads: what to do when the cash cow upon which the organization is built comes under mortal threat? The answer that both have settled upon, leveraging areas of strength to force their way into adjacent markets, is both uninspired and fraught with risk.
War Between Microsoft And Google Heats Up, 1/21/13
Fearing a tripling of dividend tax rates next year, companies have found one-time payouts and early payments of quarterly dividends as a way to beat some of the impact of the "Fiscal Cliff."
Companies Shelling Out Billions to Beat the 'Fiscal Cliff', 11/28/12
Same-day delivery is the next most important problem for technology to solve. Some of the hottest startups in Silicon Valley are already working on ways to attack it.
Next Billion-Dollar Startup Opportunity: Ordering Something Online And Getting It Hours Later, 9/6/12
It looks like Walmart is interested in the business of healthcare. Earlier this week, the superstore decided to begin offering a large list of medical services which include basic prevention and management of chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease, according to a document obtained by NPR and Kaiser Health News.
Walmart wants to be your government health care provider, 11/10/11
The legitimacy of the Obama administration's green energy initiatives has been called into serious question after California-based solar technology company Solyndra, which received more than $535 million in taxpayer-funded loans, went belly-up just days ago (http://www.naturalnews.com/033551_S...). And according to ABC News, the US House Energy Commerce Committee recently uncovered internal emails revealing that the White House knew the company was in trouble long before its bankruptcy, but essentially reassured the public that everything was a-okay.
Uncovered emails reveal Obama administration knew Solyndra was risky, lied to public, 9/17/11
For some people, this story about robot workers taking human jobs may be good news.
Foxconn, the Taiwan-based factory firm that makes nearly half the world’s electronics, aims to replace 1 million of its workers with robots within in the next three years, the company announced over the weekend. The factory bots will reduce labor costs and improve efficiencies, the company’s founder, Terry Gou, told the Xinhua news agency. And they will be unable to take their own lives.
Foxconn Plans to Replace Its Gadget-Building Unhappy Human Workforce With 1 Million Robots, 8/1/11
Latest figures from the US Treasury Department show that the country has an operating cash balance of $73.7bn (£45.3bn).
Apple's most recent financial results put its reserves at $76.4bn.
Apple holding more cash than USA, 7/29/11
It could be one of the most ironically insulting "gifts" ever, but what it is, for certain, is a pathetic shame.
You might think that KFC is doing a good thing by pledging to help fund diabetes research, but when you figure out they are doing much more to cause diabetes than actually cure it, you have to shake your head in disbelief.
According to a recent advertisement spotted in a KFC store, the fast-food chain says it will donate a buck to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation for every meal it sells - along with a "Mega Jug" of Pepsi Cola that contains about 800 calories and about 56 spoonfuls of sugar.
Yes, that's right. KFC will donate the dollar to JDRF, but only if customers buy a half-gallon of soda. So despite the "good intentions" behind the donations, clearly by forcing consumers to drink so much soda, the chain is violating the spirit of its campaign by contributing to the very disease it claims to be helping cure.
KFC and PepsiCo donate to diabetes research in exchange for your soda purchase, 7/6/11
Promising change after eight Republican dominated years, Obama betrayed the public trust by special favors given business at the expense of essential growing needs.
Spurning them, in fact, he shows contempt for the things he rhetorically supports, proving he's no different from the worst of the bipartisan criminal class, serving wealth and power interests only.
As a result, he backed Wall Street's financial coup d'etat, looted the nation's wealth for them, institutionalized speculation and corporate racketeering, wrecked the economy, and consigned millions to impoverishment without jobs, homes, savings, social services, or futures.
Obama Plans Gutting Regulations for Corporate Favorites, 6/1/11
Just days after reports that Google and Facebook were interested in partnering with, and possibly buying VoIP company Skype, Microsoft announced that it was buying the company for $8.56 billion in cash.
Microsoft Buys Skype for $8.5 Billion. Why, Exactly?, 5/10/11
Is America the exceptional, #1 country in the world?
Of course it is!
David Morris of the Institute For Local Self-Reliance has published the truth about American exceptionalism.
It turns out, the US is #1 in all sorts of ways.
WE'RE #1, WE'RE #1 - US is #1 in all sorts of ways, 5/1/1
Until relatively recent times, the symbiotic relationship existing between economic and political institutions has only been vaguely comprehended. It has been popular to view these two major sectors of American society as having a generally antagonistic relationship, with political institutions serving as a countervailing force to economic influence.
Business War Against Competition, 4/29/11
Exxon Mobil Corp's quarterly profit rose a better-than-expected 69 percent as the world's largest publicly traded oil company benefited from higher crude prices and better margins for its refineries.
The Irving, Texas, company reported a first-quarter profit of $10.65 billion, or $2.14 per share, up from $6.3 billion, or $1.33 per share, a year earlier.
Exxon profits soaring amid gas price hikes, 4/28/11
An earlier article discussed hurdles ordinary people face before America's High Court, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2008/07/supreme-court-inc-supremely-pro.html
Saying pro-business rulings aren't new, it suggested the most damaging one occurred in 1886. In Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railway, the High Court granted corporations legal personhood. Ever since, they've had the same rights as people without the responsibilities. Their limited liability status exempts them.
[Fascist] Supreme Court Lets Corporations Ban Class Actions, 4/29/11
The debate over Republicans’ insistence on continued tax breaks for the superrich and the corporations they run should come to a screeching halt with the report in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal headlined “Big U.S. Firms Shift Hiring Abroad.” Those tax breaks over the past decade, leaving some corporations such as General Electric to pay no taxes at all, were supposed to lead to job creation, but just the opposite has occurred. As the WSJ put it, the multinational companies “cut their work forces in the U.S. by 2.9 million during the 2000s while increasing employment overseas by 2.4 million, new data from the U.S. Commerce Department show.”
New Corporate World Order, 4/19/11
Deutsche Boerse will take over NYSE Euronext to create the world's largest exchange operator in a deal worth $10.2 billion, but the exchanges dodged key questions that could threaten the accord.
Deutsche Boerse, NYSE Agree to Historic Merger, 2/15/11
 The ruins of the American economy represent a massive crime scene. Wall Street built a house of cards on fraud and misrepresentation, it crashed, and Americans' aggregate net worth is now more than $12 trillion off of its peak. The grievous economic crisis affecting so many American families is no exception -- big business has found a number of ways to profit, directly, from Main Street's economic pain. Like vultures descending on a rotting corpse, they've come up with a variety of innovative methods to pull the last scraps of meat off the bones of America's middle-class.
5 Ways Corporate Scavengers Are Making Big Money Off Our Economic Pain, 2/12/11
The prosecution’s cast of witnesses in the Sam Riddle bribery trial is dominated by shady characters, with Carlyle Group subsidiary Synagro starring.
PapaDoc Bush magic - Crooks Testify, 2/7/10
Consider all this but a Lockheed Martin précis. A full accounting of its "shadow government" would fill volumes. After all, it's the number-one contractor not only for the Pentagon, but also for the Department of Energy. It ranks number two for the Department of State, number three for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and number four for the Departments of Justice and Housing and Urban Development. Even listing the government and quasi-governmental agencies the company has contracts with is a daunting task, but here's just a partial run-down: the Department of Agriculture, the Bureau of Land Management, the Census Bureau, the Coast Guard, the Department of Defense (including the Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force and the Missile Defense Agency), the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Technology Department, the Food and Drug Administration, the General Services Administration, the Geological Survey, the Department of Homeland Security, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Internal Revenue Service, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of State, the Social Security Administration, the U.S. Customs Service, the U.S. Postal Service, the Department of Transportation, the Transportation Security Agency, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
When President Eisenhower warned 50 years ago this month of the dangers of "unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex," he could never have dreamed that one for-profit weapons outfit would so fully insinuate itself into so many aspects of American life. Lockheed Martin has helped turn Eisenhower's dismal mid-twentieth-century vision into a for-profit military-industrial-surveillance complex fit for the twenty-first century, one in which no governmental activity is now beyond its reach.
Lockheed Martin's Shadow Government, 1/12/11
The Carlyle Group was the clear winner in private equity deals this year. The firm, headquartered in Washington D.C., had 43 transactions totalling a valued of $18.9 billion, according to peHUB. Three of Carlyle's buyouts were in the top 10 private equity deals of the year.
Carlyle Group Is The Supreme Ruler Of The Private Equity Kingdom, 12/22/10
"The war in Iraq does not seem to be over al all, but in the meantime the rebuilding has already started. This has unleashed fiercecompetition for contracts, which are mainly awarded to American (ed: U.S.) companies. What is remarkable about these companies, is that they have people on their payroll from American politics and the military. Is this a conflict of interest, or is this the new global way of doing business? [text in the screen at this time reads: 'the iron triangle'] One of the companies that operates in this manner is the Carlyle Group." On their payroll are people like : George Bush (Sr.), James Baker III and old premier John Major. The Carlyle Group is a private investment bank which doesn't come to the publics attention very often but it is one of the biggest American (ed: USA) investors of the defense industry, telecom, property and financial services. What is the Carlyle Group? Who are the people behind the name? And how much power does Carlyle have?
Carlyle Group Exposed
The nation’s workers may be struggling, but American companies just had their best quarter ever. American businesses earned profits at an annual rate of $1.659 trillion in the third quarter, according to a Commerce Department report released Tuesday. That is the highest figure recorded since the government began keeping track over 60 years ago, at least in nominal or noninflation-adjusted terms.
Corporate Profits Were the Highest on Record Last Quarter, 11/24/10
The American revolutionaries gave their lives for a future in which each man would have the freedom to make his own choices. That dream has come true in the form of supermarket aisles that contain 50 different cereals with the word "oat" in their name, five marshmallow based cereals with a monster theme and 12 different varieties of Cheerios alone.
What would you say if I told you that dream was a lie? That all these brands you think you're picking and choosing between are all sock puppets on the many tentacles of a few, lesser known companies? I don't know what you would say, but we're about to find out.
6 Secret Monopolies You Didn't Know Run the World, 10/27/10
US oil giant Halliburton says its second-quarter profit has jumped 83 percent, despite the company's involvement in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Halliburton profit soars 83% in Q2, 7/19/10
The following list is an attempt to articulate the obligatory rules by which corporations operate. Some of the rules overlap, but taken together they help reveal why corporations behave as they do and how they have come to dominate their environment and the human beings within it.
Jerry Mander: Eleven Inherent Rules of Corporate Behavior
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