Davos cross-post: Values, schmalues, says Bill Gates. This crisis was about overspending

could you clarify this statement? What "spending" is Gates talking about.

Thanks Bill.
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At least, we have one honest soul in the audience. Any time that you get overleveraged as an individual, an institution or a government, you are in danger of collapse.
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I think that what Bill is simply saying is that too many people and businesses were living beyond their means. This was especially true in the US and old Europe.

bryan, I hope that's not what he's saying, given that Gates is practically the poster boy for the concentration of wealth -- not to mention one of the (if not THE) biggest beneficiaries from consumer culture alive.

pluk: (is that a reasonable nickname?)
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Are you complaining because he's a beneficiary, or because he's wrong? Presumably if he was a beneficiary of a broken system he would have better insight because he was able to see what was wrong and potentially play it to his advantage. (Ethical responsibility not withstanding).
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I don't think it's the 'consumer culture' coming under attack at gate's comments, rather the 'over leveraged' culture, nothing wrong with spending money, problems come when you spend money you don't have.
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-MBirchmeier

I don't think it's the 'consumer culture' coming under attack at gate's comments, rather the 'over leveraged' culture, nothing wrong with spending money, problems come when you spend money you don't have.
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I don't think that you can separate "consumer culture" from "leveraged" culture, insofar as "leveraged" is just a fancy word for "debt" -- and debt is intrinsic to the current understanding of consumer culture. (as an aside, I'd point out that the way we think and talk about investments has changed -- people now "buy investment products" instead of "making investments".)
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And Gates is a beneficiary of this "leveraged" culture -- while I don't know what percentage of Microsofts income comes from cash purchases of their products (or the computers that come with their products), my guess is that "debt" is involved in most purchases. And Microsoft encourages the "disposability" of computers, by promoting new versions of its operating system as superior to the older versions. (their lack of success with Vista notwithstanding! )
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oh, and "pluk" is fine. I've been called worse. MUCH worse

@plukasiak (I can't call anyone pluk): I have to agree that overspending connotes leveraged connotes debt (not sure about the consumer culture there). I can't condemn Bill for being a self-made billionaire, especially since he was never into the "private elevator directly to my office and my company-entitled G5" culture still so prevalent in Detroit. But I'm not sure what he added here in Davos, except for the fact that he was present at the fall. Justin, perhaps you can elaborate.

curmudgeon--
I don't have a problem with Gates as a self-made millionaire. He came up with MS-DOS, and it was a success.
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its how he became a "self-made billionaire" by subsequently putting out inferior products and using the power provided by the adoption of MS-DOS to eliminate competition.
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So yeah, Gates lives modestly for a billionaire, and supports good causes, but the fact remains that as a businessman, imho he represents the worst practices in the name of unadulterated greed and lust for power.

Gates should stick to computer code.

imho he represents the worst practices in the name of unadulterated greed and lust for power.Business practices aside how does that take away from his assertion that a culture of over-leveraging is a bad thing?-MBirchmeier

pluk,
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I think he said what he meant. While there may be a high correlation between consumer culture and leverage culture, let us not presume that it exists. I have seen no study which says that just because credit was available people would decide to go into debt. I have no contra indicator either. All I am saying is that we should be more careful in drawing such postulates.
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Further, I think it is important not to confuse animosity one may feel toward Microsoft with their business practices. Whether their products are inferior or substandard is a matter of debate of standard and acceptable levels of performance that ultimately the marketplace decides. With regard to business practices, I think Gordon Gekko was right, "Greed is good." There is nothing wrong with folks being greedy in a controlled environment. Just like there is nothing wrong with an athlete that takes every measure under the rules of the game to succeed. The problem arises when people operate outside of the rules or the area in which people operate outside of the rules serves to harm the game as a whole.
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Two examples quickly come to mind. I recall the USTA banning certain ultra-lightweight oversize head tennis racquets as it made some servers so powerful that they essentially became unhittable. Second example is with regard to baseball and steroid precursors. McGuire took andro when it was unregulated, and it helped him be awesome at slugging. Was he wrong to do so...not under the rules! Was he wrong for the game....absolutely 100% everytime! But I don't think you blame a person or a business for being competitive. The capitalist system works because of the competition not inspite of it.