Obama in private confab with Jobs, Zuckerberg, Schmidt President Obama will sit down with a pack of Silicon Valley tech titans on Thursday evening in San Francisco. Among the attendees: Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Google soon-to-be-ex-CEO Eric Schmidt. "The president and the business leaders will discuss our shared goal of promoting American innovation …
I certainly hope he's begging campaign cash ...
The other alternative is that he's taking advice from:
1. Steve Jobs, a slaver.
2. Mark Zuckerberg, an ethically challenged kid who thinks of his customers as "dumb fucks", treats their privacy accordingly, and always has in his short life.
3. Eric Schmidt. El Reg has terabytes of evidence on his creepy behavior. Let me not count the ways, please, life is too short.
I realize the President has to maintain some dignity, but this is case where I wish he would beat one of them to a bloody pulp as a lesson to the other two then steal all three wallets.
The "dumb fuck" at the meeting will be Obama.
Oddly, out of the three companies represented, two are in business built on using data obtained by compromising the privacy of their users, and the only one actually produces a real, physical product, makes their money almost exclusively in the United States with exports representing an insignificant share of their revenue.
And Obama should not be meeting with Schmidt. Obama should be ordering the Attorney General to put Schmidt and the other two assholes he works with, in prison for criminal copyright infringement.
"After all, either Jobs or Schmidt might decide at the last minute that the unpleasantness of sitting next to each other wouldn't be outweighed by the opportunity of making a case for tech-related tax breaks to The Most Powerful Man in the Free world."
Oh, is she going to be there too. ...... listening to hopeful tales of the future from the boys? Now that would be coup, and a tale worth telling. Methinks though there are better things to do, other than having to listen to failing pipe dreams, and thus it will just be an old boys reunion and bragging rights exercise/wall pissin' contest. ........ a sort of Bohemian Grove without the old boys in the woods getting pissed up and talking a load of bull market bull shit nonsense...... great expectations.
At sometime during the meeting they'll all be asked into a sideroom for a 'private meeting' and come out replaced by gubberment/MS controlled dopplegangers.
OR
the 'private meeting' is an FBI sting (as used against common criminals) to arrest them for crimes against humanity
Excuse me, nurse says I have to take my medication.
I wonder if the POTUS will address the issue of out sourcing IT jobs hand over fist to cheapo other countries. On shoring all those IT jobs would be a nice way to create loads of high value tech jobs in the US. I'm not saying that those having a nice natter with Mr President are singly responsible for off shoring, but they're clearly being used as prime merchants for ideas on tech job creation in the US, and on shoring all those jobs again would be a prime way to do exactly what Mr President is after.
Also I wonder if this topic cropped up during the evening:
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/02/16/apple-lobbying-for-international-tax-amnesty-to-bring-home-profits/
All that cash sitting in foreign bank accounts that they wont bring back to the US because they would get taxed at 35%. They (and I'm aiming at all the tech companies that are after the suggested amnesty here, not just Apple) want a 5% tax rate amnesty so that they can bring all that lovely moolah back to the US probably under the guise of promising job creation, and enhancements to the economy I bet.
Lets say their lobbying is successful and they get their tax amnesty, drag all those $Billions back to the US paying one seventh of the tax they should have done. What happens then? They start bringing the profits home at the normal 35% in future years like good little $MEGA_CORPs. Or will they more likely let it build up over seas again until they can persuade some future benevolent POTUS to give them another one off amnesty.
because those profits have already been taxed in their country of origin at more than 35%.
It would make more sense to lobby for a permanent reduction in the tax rate so all the money would come back in immediately, then continue to flow in on a yearly basis thereafter. And that would be in the best interests of their shareholders. Who happen to include me via various retirement account mutual funds.
I managed to escape SFO before the circus came to town, but the Mercury News reports:
"Later, the president's motorcade arrived in tony[sic] downtown Woodside, where crowds gathered to cheer him on before he met with 12 tech executives for a private 90-minute dinner at the home of prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr -- a big campaign donor.
Those invited included Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Twitter CEO Dick Costolo. White House officials confirmed all those on the guest list were present.
"The president specifically discussed his proposals to invest in research and development and expand incentives for companies to grow and hire," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "
90 minutes for those 12 (14 with POTUS & VC)? That's ~7 minutes each :) I suppose the Twitter guy will have been fine with that, but I can't see Steve or Larry coping well. They've probably spent the last month refining their 7 minute speeches...
There was a time long ago when industry served at the behest of the public.
This would sound all "socialist" and bad now.
Perhaps Obama is meeting to see how much it would cost in payola for these guys to stop outsourcing and fscking with the VISA system in the US.
Evil Bill because he has been lobbying for uncapped VISAs in the US for years.
I think the underlying theme of this is jobs, not innovation (I think there was something about that in the article.....somewhere). But, he is meeting with the heads of companies that have made great strides (one might call that being "innovative") in the technological sector. Now, everyone is entitled to their own opinion (or what Glenn Beck/Rush Limbaugh/others have brainwashed them into believing), which seems to be getting in the way of reasoning....welcome, FOX News viewers.
This is meeting with the heads of the INNOVATIVE COMPANIES....thus, not providing the title of "innovator" to the individuals at the meeting. If it was me, I would want the most prominent people there as well, to find out what can be done about this crappy jobs (no pun intended :D) situation.
(Sidebar: Why is Zuckerberg there? No fucking clue. He's a.....well....bitch.)
The Reality: Most people that support these megahuge companies vote Republican, and then bitch about the jobs situation and blame it on Obama. Guess what, the Republicans are the ones providing tax CUTS (even more than the current ones us peons get, unless they find another loophole to keep from paying them taxes all) to the large companies shipping our jobs overseas. But, they (GOP/GOP Propaganda) word it in such a way to blame it on the Dems....and maybe on Obama's "radical" agenda....yeah, like Bob Dole's radical health plan from '92.
If it was me, I'd be meeting with the largest developers/advocates of open source, and then figuring out a way we can cut down on billions of expenses within gov't by switching. It wouldn't have much of an effect on the majority of jobs in the US, because large companies like MS are already shipping them overseas....pure and simple. Everybody wins. :D jk, not that easy, obviously.
All I'm saying is: Kids, don't believe everything you hear on TV/Intarwebz, research it for yourselves....
So, in conclusion: WTF?
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