To All, Tech Review review. Larry mentions that this issue is early (where have I heard that name before? <g>). I guess the editors couldn't wait until the normal pub date so they could gloat about Compaq's preannouncement. <g> BTW, the term "myth" gets several mentions, as does the name of a brilliant guy I know well.
Great but different issue. The intl. scene, which has taken up about half of previous reviews, is absent this time around. And, IMHO, justifiably. The coming collapse in the US markets are the main topic right now.
1. They mention that in the last two decades, debt as a % of personal income has risen from 58% to 85%. It's called liquidity. <g> Not to be outdone, cash poor US corporations have borrowed to the tune of $400 billion a year in the past few years. It won't be long before we have more bankruptcy lawyers than soldiers.
2. Always using their cruel memory of past predictions, the Reviewers note that Wall Street analysts were predicting profit growth of 20% in 1998. It came in at -2.2%. Hell, close enough. <g>
3. A mention that capacity utilization in the US is the lowest since 1992. And inflation adjusted wages were 12% lower in 1998 than in 1973. Maybe that bear market didn't end after all in reality. Net worth of the American household has fallen 9% since 1989. Fortunately, none of this crap is happening at my house. <g> Of course, neither is work.
4. Oddly, they think that the T-Bond yield being 4.3 times the S&P 500 dividend yield isn't a good omen. Shoot, dividends are only for companies with free cash flow. We don't have any of those in the new pair of dimes.
5. I want to see their inflation adjusted stock charts.
6. They poke fun at Dataquest's predictions for DRAM growth. Really, didn't these guys realize that DQ had to be joking. Even they couldn't be dumb enough to publish what they published as anything other than a spoof. Alas, nobody at DQ has a sense of humor.
7. An exposition of the newfound muscularity of Korean DRAM cos.
8. They dare to mention Intel and "innovative accounting" in the same sentence. Will the units in Intel's inventory this quarter take up a space larger than Prince Edward's Island? That last was a doffing of the hat to the Canadian origins of the review's authors. I was going to say Rhode Island. From what I know of the newly fake-married Prince Edward, his Island must be something like the Sutro District of San Francisco. <g>
9. A nice slamming of internut stocks.
10. A catalogue of tech eps warnings that, now, a day later, are way behind the announcement curve.
11. A great stat. Microsoft was up $100 billion in the first quarter. US GDP was up $111 billion in the fourth quarter. When is Bill The Cat going to cough up a hairball and get rid of this slow moving country? <g>
12. I want to give away all the humor, but I don't think that would be fair to Larry and Danny. Besides, the disclaimer kind of scared me. <g>
Highly recommended.
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