To: Mahatmabenfoo who wrote (839 ) 8/15/2002 12:33:44 AM From: Mahatmabenfoo Respond to of 1150 Gosh, I guess I am a genius! ================ from #839 September 1999 ==== > Speculation without liquidity leads to 1929-type > situations. I do not see liquidity being an immenent > problem. You seem to mean this: if people stop buying stocks (that is, if there is a "liquidity problem") then prices go down. But as long as people still buy stocks, the market will be stable or go up. Am I right so far? Problem is, that sort of liquidity can change between, say, August and October. Or between Friday and Black Monday. Saying "as long as there is liquidity, prices won't crash" is like Herbert Hoover saying "when people are out of work, employment results". Herbert was right and so are you, but I don't think it means much. The key to a 1929 situation is the momentum of speculation getting out of touch with reality: stocks go up because they go up, not because they are worth more. And all the while a subtle anxiety builds that a time will come to get out.... Oh, other things help -- like a lot of buying on margins, so when the flakey stocks crash, people will be forced to sell the "real" stocks to meet margin calls. That's what happened in '29 -- the nutty "trusts" (stocks that just owned other stocks) crashing first, and taking real industrials with them. And guess what RRRR's big plan is: to be a stock that owns other stocks. Ring a bell? Now look at Yahoo -- a particularly successful internet stock. But it's capitalized at BILLIONS -- and when under traditional standards can it ever expect to take home the real profits that will justify that? The year 2600? Guess what: Sylvester can't fly. Oh. Oh. - Charles