Good morning Jay, being a disciple of Ayn Rand, I have to deny any altruistic actions. But to be honest, I'm not totally pure. In fact, I am ashamed to admit that I find altruism a successful strategy. I hasten to add, it's a selfish strategy because my altruism makes me feel good and also makes the rest of the world a better place, which makes MY life so much better.
So, for example, I give away my great ideas for others to profit from. You should not call that altruism though because they pick up the ideas and do great things with them and then I can buy the results. By giving them away, I don't even have to do anything.
Owning QCOM doesn't fit my definition of altruism. But to some extent it does [or did in the early days when there was serious risk]. Philanthropic investing is altruistic. That's investment in very high risk things which will provide great benefits to customers and probably therefore profits, but will probably fail.
When people have enough money to ensure their comfortable and happy life, they should move to philanthropic investing with a small portion of their wealth. That is altruistic. It's the old nobless oblige stuff. People living hand to mouth can't afford to take the risk of developing something like Globalstar, because if it fails, they have nothing to fall back on. We the altruistic, can afford to take the chance.
Even though Globalstar failed, lots of engineers and others learned lots of things and that lost money provided foundations for other businesses so that other things could succeed. So a satellite-making company earned money from producing the Globalstar satellites and could afford to train more engineers and produce other more successful satellites.
Similarly, Eurotunnel failed and the original Philanthropic Investors [who mostly thought they'd just make a lot of money] lost their savings. But the tunnel is still there and has a high value.
Warren Buffett doesn't do Philanthropic Investing. He likes ordinary investing with sure returns.
I have had my quota of altruistic Philanthropic Investing now and am retreating to more certain returns, leaving the alpha altruists like $ill Gates to rule the roost.
Jay, you have failed to make the logical connections and see the full picture: <How do you know I would not try to save the next Q-mug if he had chanced within range of me? We must save one at a time, methodically, with perseverance, and apparently, infinite patience. >
The person who paid $200 a share for QUALCOMM or any higher price than now, was sacrificed to the capitalist cannibalistic process the instant they handed over their money. You can't save a QCOM shareholder by sacrificing the next in line to the current owner. What do you have against the person who would buy my shares? Presumably you would warn them not to buy them from me if you happened to stumble upon them in the next post. So you are saving one and sacrificing another if we all follow your instructions.
It's true that you spent much effort trying to get me to sell at lower prices than today's QCOM price. It's not clear to me that I would be happier if I'd sold.
But I do appreciate your persistent efforts to save me.
Mqurice
PS: It's a fantastic sunny midwinter Sunday, so I must go and enjoy the warmth and beauty.
G347 Q357 - the gap has narrowed... damn... |
