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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday July 09 2019, @05:14PM   Printer-friendly
from the R.I.P. dept.

Ross Perot, Billionaire Former Presidential Candidate, has Died at age 89:

Billionaire, philanthropist and former presidential candidate Ross Perot has died, CBS News has confirmed. He was 89.

Perot died in Texas, the state where he was born, surrounded by family.

[...] In 1992, Perot made a name for himself when he became the most successful non-major party presidential candidate in 80 years, amassing 19 percent of the popular vote, running against President George H.W. Bush and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton.

As a boy in Texarkana, Texas, Perot delivered newspapers from the back of a pony. He earned his billions in a more modern way, however — by building Electronic Data Systems Corp., which helped other companies manage their computer networks.

Yet the most famous event in his career didn't involve sales and earnings; he financed a private commando raid in 1979 to free two EDS employees who were being held in a prison in Iran. The tale was turned into a book and a movie.

Perot first became known to Americans outside of business circles by claiming that the U.S. government left behind hundreds of American soldiers who were missing or imprisoned at the end of the Vietnam War. Perot fanned the issue at home and discussed it privately with Vietnamese officials in the 1980s, angering the Reagan administration, which was formally negotiating with Vietnam's government.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @09:30AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @09:30AM (#865326)

    Yes, why is the solution never "make the government 10% more efficient"? This would free up $400 billion dollars a year for new projects... But that possibility is *never* mentioned.

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 10 2019, @12:11PM (3 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 10 2019, @12:11PM (#865350) Journal
    I get that there's limits to how efficient you can make a government. But when we're routinely seeing government do things for an order of magnitude more cost than a private entity would (for example, SpaceX development of its line of rockets), then there's plenty of room in trying to make things a bit more efficient. Yet it's all about sticking it to the criminally undertaxed - despite the fact that the alleged crime is quite legal and everyone down to the poorest is trying to minimize, legally, the tax they pay.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @04:18PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @04:18PM (#865417)

      Yet it's all about sticking it to the criminally undertaxed - despite the fact that the alleged crime is quite legal and everyone down to the poorest is trying to minimize, legally, the tax they pay.

      Well, there's legal and then there's legal. You do realize that the "criminally undertaxed" have bought and paid for the politicians who write our tax code, no? While what the ueber-wealthy are doing may be[*] legal, moral or ethical could be another matter entirely.

      [*] I have my doubts about how many of the tax breaks these ueber-wealthy are claiming are on the up and up; they typically have lawyers and accountants to make as many dodgy, weasally claims as they can muster with a semi-straight face. Just sayin'.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @05:23PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @05:23PM (#865433)

        So you want the criminally undertaxed to give more money to their bought and paid for politicians?

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 11 2019, @12:26PM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 11 2019, @12:26PM (#865777) Journal

        moral or ethical could be another matter entirely

        "Could be". Pretty weaselly even for the law. Meanwhile I'll note that even the allegedly moral or ethical tend to pay as little taxes as they can get away with.