Senator Obama looks to promote “wealth redistribution.” He wants each of us to ignore the “American Dream” which is based on the “free market” concept of “risk-reward.”
In my first illustration I listed Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer which, along with IBM clones, created an entire industry hiring tens of thousands of Americans.
Let me now share another American citizen’s success story. As you can read below Larry Ellison’s early life was anything but dining on fine China at the Waldorf=Astoria hotel on Park Avenue in Manhattan. He had a vision and, with two colleagues from Ampex, created a new firm with eight employees that in 1980 had sales of $one million dollars.
In 2006 Oracle Corporation had “a global workforce of 65,000 and annual revenue topping $15 billion.”
So Senator “wealth redistribution ” wants to reward Larry Ellison by raising his income tax rate? Is this Obama’s way of saying “thanks for creating jobs for Americans” and the domino effect that employment and technology have had on this country?
Senator Obama. Respectfully, you are wrong.
Don’t stamp out the reward aspect of the risks we take in this capitalistic society. Below is the biography of Larry Ellison:
Internet Bio. Larry Ellison, Founder, Oracle Corporation Larry Ellison Date of birth: August 17, 1944
Lawrence J. Ellison was born in the Bronx, New York. At nine months, he contracted pneumonia, and his unmarried 19-year-old mother gave him to her aunt and uncle in Chicago to raise. Lawrence was raised in a two-bedroom apartment on the city’s South Side. Until he was twelve years old he did not know that he was adopted. His adoptive father had lost his real estate business in the Great Depression and made a modest living as an auditor for the public housing authority. As a boy, Larry Ellison showed an independent, rebellious streak and often clashed with his adoptive father. From an early age, he showed a strong aptitude for math and science, and was named science student of the year at the University of Illinois.
During the final exams in his second year, Larry Ellison’s adoptive mother died, and he dropped out of school. He enrolled at the University of Chicago the following fall, but dropped out again after the first semester. His adoptive father was now convinced that Larry would never make anything of himself, but the seemingly aimless young man had already learned the rudiments of computer programming in Chicago. He took this skill with him to Berkeley, California, arriving with just enough money for fast food and a few tanks of gas. For the next eight years, Ellison bounced from job to job, working as a technician for Fireman’s Fund and Wells Fargo bank. As a programmer at Ampex, he participated in building the first IBM-compatible mainframe system.
In 1977, Ellison and two of his Ampex colleagues, Robert Miner and Ed Oates, founded their own company, Software Development Labs. From the beginning, Ellison served as Chief Executive Officer. Ellison had come across a paper called “A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks” by Edgar F. (“Ted”) Codd, describing a concept Codd had developed at IBM. Codd’s employers saw no commercial potential in the concept of a Structured Query Language (SQL), but Larry Ellison did.
Ellison and his partners won a two-year contract to build a relational database management system (RDBMS) for the CIA. The project’s code name: Oracle. They finished the project a year ahead of schedule and used the extra time to develop their system for commercial applications. They named their commercial RDBMS Oracle as well. In 1980, Ellison’s company had only eight employees, and revenues were less than $1 million, but the following year, IBM itself adopted Oracle for its mainframe systems, and Oracle’s sales doubled every year for the next seven years,. The million dollar company was becoming a billion dollar company. Ellison renamed the company Oracle Corporation, for its best-selling product.
Oracle went public in 1986, raising $31.5 million with its initial public offering, but the firm’s zealous young staff habitually overstated revenues, and in 1990 the company posted its first losses. Oracle’s market capitalization fell by 80 percent and the company appeared to be on the verge of bankruptcy. Accepting the need for drastic change, he replaced much of the original senior staff with more experienced managers. For the first time, he delegated the management side of the business to professionals, and channeled his own energies into product development. A new version of the database program Oracle 7, released in 1992, swept the field and made Oracle the industry leader in database management software. In only two years the company’s stock had regained much of its previous value.
Even as Oracle’s fortunes rose again, Ellison suffered a series of personal mishaps. Long an enthusiast of strenuous outdoor activities, Ellison suffered serious injuries while body surfing and mountain biking. He recovered from major surgery, and continued to race his 78-foot yacht, Sayonara, and to practice aerobatics in a succession of private jets, including decommissioned fighter planes. In 1998, Ellison and Sayonara won the Sydney to Hobart race, overcoming near-hurricane winds that sank five other boats, drowning six participants. Ellison is a principal supporter of the BMW Oracle Racing team, which has been a significant force in America’s Cup competition. His own yacht, Rising Sun, over 450 feet long, is one of the largest privately owned vessels in the world.
Oracle’s fortunes continued to rise throughout the 1990s. America’s banks, airlines, automobile companies and retail giants all came to depend on Oracle’s database programs. Under Ellison’s leadership, Oracle became a pioneer in providing business applications over the Internet. Oracle benefited hugely from the growth of electronic commerce; its net profits increased by 76 percent in a single quarter of the year 2000. As the stocks of other high tech companies fluctuated wildly, Oracle held its value, and its largest shareholder, founder and CEO Larry Ellison, came close to a long-cherished goal, surpassing Microsoft’s Bill Gates to become the richest man in the world.
Beginning in 2004, Ellison set out to increase Oracle’s market share through a series of strategic acquisitions. Oracle spent more than $25 billion in only three years to buy a flock of companies and large and small, makers of software for managing data, identity, retail inventory and logistics. The first major acquisition was PeopleSoft, purchased at the end of 2004 for $10.3 billion. No sooner was the ink dry on the PeopleSoft deal than Ellison trumped rival SAP to acquire retail software developer Retek. Within the following year, Oracle also acquired competitor Siebel Systems. Ellison capped his buying spree with the acquisition of business intelligence software provider Hyperion Solutions in 2007.
Today, Lawrence Ellison has his principal home in Woodside, California. He served as President of Oracle from 1978 to 1996, and undertook two stints as Chairman of the Board, from 1990 to 1992, and again from 1995 to 2004. Since its founding, he has been Oracle’s only Chief Executive Officer.
Thanks Larry, now I’m inspired to make millions, billions, trillions!
Of course the wealth redistribution Obama spoke about isn’t welfare or socialism its tax cuts. Remember those things that every giant conglomerate and rich person gets? Well under Obama’s plan those go away and the working people get the tax breaks. Not the people who don’t pay any taxes, not the people who don’t do any work, not the businesses who ship jobs overseas, not the businesses who dont pay any taxes because of off shore banks, not the businesses who make over a quarter of a million dollars a year.
I noticed you didn’t call the bailout wealth redistribution, or socialism, and you didnt call those tax cuts they got wealth redistribution, or socialism. Heck I dont call those tax cuts they enjoyed socialism and you know why? Because it was their money – they didnt get any money from the government. You know why the Obama tax plan isnt socialism? Same reason, its their money.
So I think I know why your attitude is so bad about this its because you’ve had your head up your socialism and you have a socialistic outlook.
anon.
Can you please show me where I wrote anything supporting the bailout?
While somewhere around three percent of the homeowner mortgages are in trouble what about the remaining 97% of homeowners who are making their mortgage payments? Should their federal money be used to bail out others who, for whatever reason or circumstance, are in trouble today.
The same applies to those who create the tens of thousands of jobs in America. You can become the next Larry Ellison. What you don’t see in the papers are the thousands of Americans who started businesses that failed. My father and one of my brothers are perfect examples of those whose businesses didn’t survive that I can relate to. You won’t find their names in the Fortune 100 list of wealthiest Americans. So I guess they should have asked the government for a rebate for their failed investments of time and money. PS: My dad is no longer with us. My brother started another business that has been a success.
Apparently the Obama policy is for those who have creative ideas and put in thousands of hours, take no salaries in the ramp up of their busiesses, should be punished on the other side of the bell curve once they reach the top of the mountain. Sorry. But that’s not an inducement for the risks taken.
Is it also part of the American Dream that over the last few decades, corporations have gone from shouldering about 75% of the tax burden to about 25%, whereas individuals have gone from about 25% to 75%?
Damn right I wouldn’t mind seeing that “redistributed”.
And while you’re at it, let’s hear your compelling case as to why the average CEO deserves to make upwards of 400 times the average factory worker. (that figure fluctuates, but the trend is ever upwards).
Is that part of the American dream too?
“He called it… anyone, anyone; Bueller, Bueller? He called it ‘Voodoo Economics.” Trickle-down is back in fashion is it? Can we just get to a fair tax and move on with our lives? Income taxes, when they were first imposed were, what… I think it was less than 1%?
Let’s not tax the success of making a profit, let’s tax the extravagance inherent. If you can afford a Bentley, you can afford to pay taxes on it, especially if we finally make the income tax reasonable or abolish it. And the poor shouldn’t be paying taxes at all. Lower taxes for all. Lower spending.
SMS
anonyms,
You better check your facts about the Obama tax cuts. In fact, those who do not pay any income tax will be provided at dispursement or refund under his plan. How does that balance with your statement about working class? That is clearly a redistribution and an increase in welfare and the mentality associated with those types of programs.
Our country was founded on the principles that one has the right to PURSUE happiness. This does not mean you have the right to HAVE happiness. For those who take risks, there are rewards. Why shouldn’t a CEO of a company, who is responsible for the direction, the profitability, and the future viability of a corporation, earn their worth? If a factory worker makes a mistake, what is the worst thing that could happen? Will the company shutter their doors? Unlikely. But a mistake by the CEO could put all employees out on the street, affecting not only himself, but all of the companies employees, and also the stockholders. Do you see that factory worker taking on that responsibility? When you level things out, or redistribute the benefits (i.e. wealth) of taking those positions and achieving success, you will have more people say those types of things are not worth the risk. At that is the danger, that we do not push the envelope on innovation and strive to excel and prosper as individuals and a nation.