Now where did I see that chart? Angry Bear, perhaps. It was a comparison of total dividend payments made by some companies, over the past decade, versus total borrowing by those same companies over the same period, and indicated that this is exactly what those companies were doing. Every penny of dividends, and in some cases more, was borrowed.

As James’ article points out, this is not necessarily a bad thing, if it was part of a well-thought-out adjustment of the debt-to-equity ratio. But as I recall the original chart and analysis, for at least a few of the companies it was just a way to meet analysts’ expectations for the dividends.

Funny, but BSD is a lot older than Windows, and OS X on which it is based is totally superior. There goes that argument.

Have you ever heard of WACC and EVA? I don’t think you understand how value accrues to shareholders when you lower the cost of capital. I expected more from this site.

Anyway, it seems most anti monopoly buzz today centers on financial companies.

What am I missing here?

Like many other well-thouhgt-through moves you have made: The money you pay back in 1 year will cost a LOT less than what it is worth now !

In other words, rate will increase, and your bonds will, over the next year, become much lower cost bombs you can buy back for a cool 50% profit on your money !

If it were my choice, I’d sell twice as many !

Microsoft now still has monopoly pricing power and the wise thing for it to do – all ego and silly hope aside – is to ride it out and make what it can while it lasts.

Buying up companies exposes them to government anti-monopoly attention; trying to out-innovate the small inventors and promoters will be a loser every time.