| Unfortunately, there are a lot of cheap telco assets out there. Who is going to buy WCOM, when everyone already has more debt than they can handle, and the credit spigot has been shut off? Book Value is a meaningless term today. What was the book value of Iridium, just before they couldn't get anyone to bid anything for all those very expensive satellites, so they turned them into meteorites? What is the book value of an unused fiber-optic cable? What is the book value of those copper wires going to every house and office in the country, when cable and wireless and the NextTechThing can carry a phone call (and a whole lot more)? There are several hundred billion in telecom assets that make a big pile of Book Value, and are going to be written off over the next few years, because their real value (that is, their ability to produce profits in the future) is zero, as the market is telling us. |
