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How Hatch forced Microsoft to play K Street's game
Washington Times ^ | June 24, 2012 | Timothy P. Carney

Posted on 06/25/2012 7:00:42 AM PDT by C19fan

"If you want to get involved in business," Sen. Orrin Hatch warned technology companies at a conference in 2000, "you should get involved in politics."

Hatch was referring to the shortcomings of then-software king Microsoft, which he had spent most of the previous decade harassing from his perch as Judiciary Committee chairman. The message was clear: If you become successful, you must hire lobbyists, you must start a political action committee, and you must donate to politicians. Otherwise Washington will make your life very difficult.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; US: Utah
KEYWORDS: gates; hatch; kstreet; microsoft
No wonder Washington DC metro is so prosperous. Is there any difference between Washington and your friendly neighborhood mobster coming to your business every week to collect the "protection money".?
1 posted on 06/25/2012 7:00:53 AM PDT by C19fan
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To: C19fan

“Every year, the outlaws swing out of the trees, rob the merchants and ride back to Washington D.C. for a glorious feast over the stolen goods, which they may in some small way share with a few peasants, to secure their support. “


2 posted on 06/25/2012 7:05:47 AM PDT by Paladin2
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To: C19fan

Pay to play.


3 posted on 06/25/2012 7:06:56 AM PDT by Timber Rattler (Just say NO! to RINOS and the GOP-E)
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To: C19fan

I don’t see why corporation don’t send this message, “Screw with us and we’ll spend millions on your opponent!”


4 posted on 06/25/2012 7:08:44 AM PDT by CodeToad (Homosexuals are homophobes. They insist on being called 'gay' instead.)
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To: C19fan

HAND OVER YOUR MONEY OR ELSE!


5 posted on 06/25/2012 7:10:16 AM PDT by unixfox (Abolish Slavery, Repeal The 16th Amendment!)
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To: C19fan
That article reads like a combination of Atlas Shrugged and John Semmens' semi-news satires. People complain about businesses corrupting government. It is quite clear that the opposite is the truth: government corrupts businesses. Whether it is the "mordita" to a Mexican cop or having to hire a K Street lobbyist, governments around the world are the source of corruption, not the innocent victims.

Larkin glanced away, as if debating something in his mind. After a while, he asked cautiously, "How is your man in Washington?"

"Okay, I guess."

"You ought to be sure of it. It's important." He looked up at Rearden, and repeated with a kind of stressed insistence, as if discharging a painful moral duty, "Hank, it's very important."

"I suppose so."

"In fact, that's what I came here to tell you."

"For any special reason?"

Larkin considered it and decided that the duty was discharged. "No," he said.

Rearden disliked the subject. He knew that it was necessary to have a man to protect him from the legislature; all industrialists had to employ such men. But he had never given much attention to this aspect of his business; he could not quite convince himself that it was necessary.


6 posted on 06/25/2012 7:13:17 AM PDT by KarlInOhio (You only have three billion heartbeats in a lifetime.How many does the government claim as its own?)
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To: C19fan

Is that why MicroSoft give most of its political contributions to Democrats and Democrat causes? 90% +


7 posted on 06/25/2012 7:17:30 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
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To: C19fan
Doesn't Hatch have a runoff tomorrow against Daniel Liljenquist? Anybody know if he's any better and has a chance?
8 posted on 06/25/2012 7:25:02 AM PDT by Armando Guerra
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To: KarlInOhio

The gov’t ARE the outlaws.


9 posted on 06/25/2012 7:29:13 AM PDT by Paladin2
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To: Armando Guerra
Doesn't Hatch have a runoff tomorrow against Daniel Liljenquist? Anybody know if he's any better and has a chance?

My sense is that it will be a landslide for Sweaty Forehead Bosom Kennedy Buddy Borin' Orin Hatch.
Phenomenal amount of advertising and endorsements.
10 posted on 06/25/2012 7:29:42 AM PDT by frankenMonkey (This tagline for rent. Inquire within.)
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I’m not saying Hatch and the rest of gov’t aren’t gangsters but little Bill is no sweetheart himself, he’s heavy into vaccines and Monsanto. He came by his passion for eugenics naturally as his daddy was on the board of Planned Parenthood.


11 posted on 06/25/2012 7:31:06 AM PDT by Hayride
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To: C19fan

Yes. The mobsters dress better, have more class, and better ethics...


12 posted on 06/25/2012 7:32:46 AM PDT by Little Ray (FOR the best Conservative in the Primary; AGAINST Obama in the General.)
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To: C19fan
Utah Revenge: Hatch & Noorda Sting Microsoft

By Paula Rooney & Darryl K. Taft, CRN

June 22, 2000 6:59 PM ET

Today, WordPerfect is gone as a company and Novell is down to about 2,000 employees. A big reason: Microsoft, the conqueror of the word processing and PC network software markets.

Yet a handful of Utahns,including Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Ray Noorda, former Novell chairman and president of The Canopy Group, a Provo venture capital firm,didn't overlook who fostered the decline of their state's IT prominence. And without their prodding, the Microsoft antitrust case and subsequent court-ordered breakup, now being directed toward the Supreme Court, might never have happened.

source:http://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/18808940/utah-revenge-hatch-noorda-sting-microsoft.htm;jsessionid=HvHXLxQlzsIo6ghjxhGDFw**.ecappj01

Hatch is a mobster shakedown thug just like all the other "politicians".

13 posted on 06/25/2012 7:39:11 AM PDT by BigBobber
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To: CodeToad
Because of time lag.
Do something like that, and Congress will have time to pass laws and “regulations” that gut your company, cut it out of federal procurement, etc.
The problem is that the Fed has grow so large, that it can control just about any corporation - so the corporations have to control Congress in self-defense.
14 posted on 06/25/2012 7:41:52 AM PDT by Little Ray (FOR the best Conservative in the Primary; AGAINST Obama in the General.)
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To: BigBobber; humblegunner

Hasn’t Palin endorsed this guy Hatch?


15 posted on 06/25/2012 7:52:15 AM PDT by ngat
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To: C19fan

I will say it again, If Microsoft would have immediately apologized and admitted to their uncompetitive ways, something like:

Dear Mr President and Congress I am very sorry for the way my company has acted with regards to competition and antitrust laws, therefore as of Today I am selling off ALL MY STOCK in Microsoft, I will then sell ALL ASSETS of microsoft and distribute them equally to all of my faithful employees, then the doors will be closed forever. Windows and Microsoft is hereby out of business forever and we are all retiring. Thank You for pointing out our anti-competitive ways in the business world.

Bill Gates

A statement like this would have STOPPED them COLD, not to mention the immediate CRASH of the Stock Market, every last Politician would have been begging to stop this lawsuit, while graveling at the feet of Bill Gates.


16 posted on 06/25/2012 8:17:56 AM PDT by eyeamok
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To: C19fan

Politicians are rent seekers, too, in the activist Mafia sense. They seed rents as Protection money.


17 posted on 06/25/2012 8:47:38 AM PDT by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson)
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To: Paladin2

Tomorrow is the primary in Utah.

Last one of this season.

You can support the man running against Hatch if you want. Send him some money today.

I think his name is spelled Lindquist.


18 posted on 06/25/2012 9:40:43 AM PDT by ridesthemiles
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To: eyeamok
What they should have said was:

"We will move our corporate headquarters 20 miles north to Vancouver. Moreover, we will discontinue ALL support to ANY government entity that uses our products. Have a nice day."

19 posted on 06/25/2012 10:42:06 AM PDT by unixfox (Abolish Slavery, Repeal The 16th Amendment!)
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To: BigBobber
Today, WordPerfect is gone as a company and Novell is down to about 2,000 employees.

Well, if WordPerfect Corp. and Novell "got involved in politics" via Orrin Hatch, it sure didn't do THEM any good. WordPerfect is still my word processor of choice, but the Novell/WP merger was a horrible, horrible disaster that had nothing to do with Microsoft.
20 posted on 06/25/2012 12:06:14 PM PDT by Dr. Sivana ("You forget, it isn't who you claim, but instead, who claims you. We don't claim you!")
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