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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Freedom Fighter who wrote (67720)	9/15/1999 1:43:00 PM
From: Mike M2	Respond to of 132070

Wayne, excellent comments as usual. One point to add is in the old days pre bubble times companies created wealth ( as in the capacity produce goods or services of value -tangible or intangible) by investing in their businesses not their stock. In the past few decades US productivity growth has been among the lowest of all industrial nations in large part due to our low rate of capital investment. What is happening in this bubble is paper assets representing claims to the productive capacity of these companies are inflating faster than the true underlying value of the business as measured by their ability to create wealth. What is so strange is any businessman who saw his business continue to appreciate far in excess of its ability to create wealth would see the utter folly of the situation but once it becomes an investment in the stock market the prudent businessman throws sound judgement out the window and joins the herd to speculate. Mike

To: Freedom Fighter who wrote (67720)	9/16/1999 12:58:00 AM
From: Richard Nehrboss	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Wayne, >> But there is NO doubt that for some companies 20%-50% I believe most agree that MSFT is a very aggressive company when it comes to ESOs. As one of the most aggressive companies, they take a hit to earnings of 19% when "immunized". If this is not in question, I'd prefer not to see the number of 50% thrown out (which is a %250 greater than 19%). >>not benefiting existing shareholders I've been CEO of small high tech company, and I have to take difference to this statement. It greatly benefits existing shareholders to attract talent, and reward them based on merit. >>vanishing free cash flow I'd need to examine companies on a case by case basis, but often shares are not repurchased for ESOs. They are taken from an approved pool out of authorized shares. In this case, it has a dilutive effect, but does not decrease cash flow. Richard