What is this? >>gold seems to me to have too many crowds of people hanging around it hoping to get rich<<
And QCOM doesn't? Have you checked out this thread recently? Subject 8007
>>I'm automatically nervous about crowds of people hanging around something in the hopes of getting rich quick.<< You and me both.
And here, Subject 25851 is based on a best-seller get-rich-quick strategy. A few of the good folks there are presenting their portfolio distributions, like here: Message 16865212 And Q! figures prominently.
>>Cybercurrencies based on share values have so much going for them that I don't see how anything else can compete<<
Except anything that is an equivalent to a cybercurrency would automatically have all of these same so-muches going for them too. Which then leaves a herd of uncompetitive mutual substitutes?
Is this a repackaging of the argument that one fiat currency is superior to another? Stripped of all fancy packaging, stocks are merely alternative fiat currencies, backed by the full faith of management. Which the good folks at Enron illustrate is not necessarily a basket in which all eggs should be placed. Whether it's Argentina or Japan or Qualcomm or ... same difference.
The argument that one is better than the other seems to rest solely on the fact that one is not the USD while the other one is. Which is somewhat circular at the core.
Of course there is something to be said about real assets.
For example, strip away gold and all PGM and the value of CDMA decays in a puff of corroded metal. Those little ASICs in which electrons dance to put the cyber in your currency? Sorry. Every day some number of kilograms of gold are sputtered onto silicon wafers and bonded onto die-pads and electro-plated onto contacts and dispersed into the hands of consumers, thence jettisoned with the kitty litter some years later. Which kilograms must be purchased on the open market, and possibly from me.
So just as we don't heat with coal or burn bunker crude or grind our own wheat, nothing wrong with holding onto a piece of the action that makes the cyber-world run, eh Maurice?
Now, if you were arguing about rhodium or some of the more exotic (cosmetic) metals, well, I'd agree with you. But you are talking about an engineering metal, which has arguably as much value as a CDMA ASIC today, and probably moreso a decade from now when Q's strangle hold CDMA patents expire.
Which leads us to this comment: >>No, I mean what can be, not what is now. <<
Sure. Anything's possible in the future. Sadly however, of the infinite possible alternative futures we can look forward to, we have the luxury of experiencing only one in this lifetime. And while some may be brighter than others, I suggest planning for the most probable is preferable as a practical matter.
But it is always fun to daydream.
John |
