Financial Engineering Companies: A Company Worth 4 Trillion Dollars Would Not Borrow 100+ Billion Dollars at Interest Rates Like Today's
Also see: NVidia is a Bubble
"Microsoft, the world’s most valuable company, declared a profit of $4.5 billion in 1998; when the cost of options awarded that year, plus the change in the value of outstanding options, is deducted, the firm made a loss of $18 billion, according to Smithers."
Many headlines (some from slopfarms that parrot inaccurate, poorly-sourced hearsay), both this month and last month, perpetuate the lie Microsoft had just 2 waves of layoffs (there were 8 or 9 in 2025) totalling 15k 'heads' and that 'headcount' didn't change much. The real number of layoffs is about twice as big (we kept a running tally) and they don't seem to understand what temps, contractors, and perma-temps are. Microsoft is shrinking rapidly, its debt is fast-growing, and its claims about it finances are lies.
How can a company gain in "value" when it's shutting down so many operations?
"How much of Microsoft illusion of growth is due to stocks, or specifically to stock buy-backs? I suspect that stock buy-backs were used to artificially inflate the valuation and give it a false high value," an associate notes. Some time later today we expect to see the figure for Microsoft's total debt as of June 30th. We'll then do a follow-up article.
The media isn't falling for a Ponzi scheme; it's a participant in it. It gets paid to play along. █