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Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
> __/ [ William Poaster ] on Friday 19 May 2006 10:33 \__
>
>> It was on Fri, 19 May 2006 08:03:08 +0100 when Mark Kent posted this:
>>
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>>> William Poaster <willpoast@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>>>> It was on Thu, 18 May 2006 22:59:15 +0100 when Mark Kent posted this:
>>>>
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>>>>> nessuno@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <nessuno@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>>>>>> Quote:
>>>>>> -------------------------
>>>>>> Hi9s indirect stake in the gargantuan software company Microsoft
>>>>>> (MSFT) has been cut to 251,750 shares from from 1.38 million during
>>>>>> the past quarter. The sale of over 1.1 million shares gave Soros Fund
>>>>>> Managers at least $30 million in cash to redeploy into other
>>>>>> investments more promising than Microsoft. The sale may have been a
>>>>>> small factor in the recent plunge of microsoft shares from a 52 week
>>>>>> high of around 28 to closer to $22 in recent trading days.
>>>>>> ------------------------- End quote
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.gurufocus.com/news.php?id=1617
>>>>>
>>>>> Anyone smart will be selling MS at the moment. Not too quickly, of
>>>>> course, but just gently.
>
>
> At least to me, this is very exciting news. Someone at the level of Soros,
> much like himself, has made many wise decision over the years. If I recall
> correctly, Soros came from Hungary penniless and he made his fortunate from
> being able to predict trends. He should now be surrounded by advisors or
> boards and be guided by analysts. This one step taken by one man is
> indicative of opinions of those that surround him. This confirms the
> continued advancement of Open Source and the emergence of more players in
> today's market.
>
> If MSFT's biggest threats are losses in the server market -- that where
> rigorous computing is moving (SOA), as well various software licences
> (embodied by companies like IBM, Apple, Sun and Google), it means that more
> clients choose Linux, more people choose GNU/Linux, Apple, OpenOffice and
> Web-based software, respectively.
For sure. Their monopoly is kind of dead now. It will be interesting
to see if Microsoft can actually compete in a 'normal' way.
>
>
>>>> IIRC George Soros was the guy who is reputed to have made a $1bn profit
>>>> at Britain's expense, on Black Wednesday - 16th September 1992. He got
>>>> the (then) chancellor, Norman Lamont, in a sweat! Lamont had to raise
>>>> interest rates from 10% to 12% & up to 15% through the day, & authorised
>>>> the spending of billions of ££'s in a doomed attampt to stop the
>>>> UKpound exceeding the ERM limits. Now if Soros can do the same thing
>>>> with M$...
>
>
> Norman Lamont was in a sweat just on that Black Wednesday. Look at Ballmer.
> He's been in a sweat ever since he jumped out of that cake and started
> yelping.
Well, true.. :-)
>
>
>>> I've never forgiven Lamont for giving so much of my money to Soros, to be
>>> honest, nor M. Thatcher for setting up the situation where that would
>>> happen (don't imagine for a moment that it wasn't a totally deliberate
>>> setup...)
>>
>> Lamont was made to look a total fool (I never did like him anyway). IIRC
>> Soros said, sometime later, Lamont had *exactly* the same information he
>> had, & couldn't understand why he didn't act on it.
>>
>>> How was it done? Thatcher insisted on an ERM rate which every
>>> economist and financier said was too high... why? To kill the system, at
>>> the cost of interest on my mortgage paying off Soros...
>>
>> All it got was the UK getting chucked out of the ERM, & the UK taxpayer
>> paying for her folly.
>
>
> I am lost. *frown* I was only 10 at the time... sorry for a poor post of
> mine...
>
Margaret Thatcher did some very good things, in many respects, and will
undoubtably go down in history as one of our best leaders, and probably
our best post-war leader. Unfortunately, she had a major blind spot where
the EU (or EC then?) was concerned, seeing them as the 'enemy' and the
US as the 'friend'. For someone who was so on the ball on most things,
this was an amazing error - there aren't really enemies and friends out
there, everything is shades of grey, of course; oddly, George W Bush
has been using similar language recently. Anyway, in order to prove
herself right about the EU, including the pro-EU parts of her own party,
she rather intelligently manoeuvred the UK into the ERM (which wasn't
a particularly good system anyway), but insisted on doing so at a rate
which didn't represent a realistic exchange rate. This caused a huge
run on Sterling. She sacrificed Norman Lamont, the then Chancellor, by
insisting that he continue to prop up the Pound out of national reserves,
which essentially meant that Lamont was just handing cash over to Soros.
My cash (and yours!).
Once a few billion had gone, she announced to the world, or at least
to the UK, anyway, that it was proof that the EU was not the place for
Britain to be, or something like that. The whole thing was a really
overt setup, rather like a Microsoft benchmark! Anyone with any clue
could see what was happening, but she still seemed to get away with it.
This position could've been exacerbated by the positions the US and
French took in the Falklands war - the US was generally supportive
(generously allowing the UK to use the bases leased to the US by Britain
as the price of the US offering assistance in WW2!), whereas the French
continued to sell armaments to Argentina, which obviously caused some
friction. And sank a couple of ships, too. To my mind, she always
had an element of racism about her, in that she was very positive about
"English speaking people" sticking together, with the clear indication
that non-English speakers were apart, without actually saying so.
So there you go - Mark's take on Lady Thatcher.
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
To the systems programmer, users and applications serve only to provide a
test load.
|
|
