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Pastimes : The New Qualcomm - write what you like thread. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: gdichaz who wrote (1626)	4/16/2000 7:09:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Respond to of 12233

One of the things that I've worried about for 4 years is the possibility of a self-reinforcing margin-induced price drop. I wondered whether there was so much debt that there would not be an effective market-clearing action before there was actual serious economic damage as events moved so fast that hordes of businesses and people ended up in a huge queue for legal decisions, with businesses shut, awaiting sales process completion, which always takes time. Although margin debt is [or was] at all-time highs, by a long way, it was [and now is] a very small part of the total value of stockmarkets. So I decided after long reflection that margin-selling is a peripheral process, very damaging to the individuals involved, but not harmful overall. More damaging is the sudden cancellation [or dramatic reduction] of the wealth effect as people cancel all sorts of things and re-orient spending to CDMA phones instead of air travel, SUV purchase, oil purchase etc. Housing starts will drop. But, since the actual drop versus the Nasdaq and Dow levels of just 4 months ago is trivial, that effect should not be too bad overall. I doubt Alan Green$pan will even think intervention and a change of monetary policy is justified at this stage, painful though many might think that is. When stock prices have dropped enough, the vast bank accounts will start to be used to buy up bargains. None of the money ceases to exist, so it is all still there, waiting to be used to arrange a stock transfer from the defeated [or fearful] to the new owners. So, although the Dow could [and should according to my theory] drop to low 9000s and the Nasdaq could halve again, that won't actually damage the economic activity of the world. It will just mean different people sitting in the deck chairs on the cruise ship, which is NOT the "MV Titanic". It is "MV The New Paradigm" and it is the most luxurious and unsinkable ship in all of human history. Those who have to get out of the deck chairs will have to go below decks and cook the meals, make the beds and man the oars. I've been keeping an eye out for icebergs and there are none! It's clear sailing; barring unfortunate events like the odd comet splash in the Pacific or silly Jiang Zemin mania over Taiwan. Say I, Mq Dow 16,000 Feb 2002.

To: gdichaz who wrote (1626)	4/17/2000 4:39:00 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 12233

Gee Chaz, How come it's so quiet? It's like the lull before the gunfire at El Alamein when Rommel was defeated. Which, so I heard, got quite noisy and continuous. geocities.com Everyone holding their breath or what? There aren't 200 posts a day in the Q! SI streams now. The cdma2000 vs W-CDMA moves in Japan should be interesting. Meanwhile, Q! quarterly results on Tuesday. I don't see that it's dumb. Irwin Jacobs has for 40 years [give or take a few] started businesses, spun them off, created new ideas, spun them off, enjoyed a long and successfully creative time. Spinning off and starting heaps of things. There have been no real failures. Even the infrastructure business was only a moderate failure and only because competition did what it was supposed to do. Now, he's going to introduce cdma2000 to Japan by way of a new service provider if necessary. Seems fair enough to me. There must be a lot of companies interested in joining in there. There is not much CDMA at present and a bit of competition wouldn't go amiss. Maybe Leap Wireless International might like to have a go. Or perhaps NextWave Telecom. Or Telecom New Zealand? They would like to take on a bit more than they have here. NTT should be a pushover. Actually, a lot of little guys didn't decide to sell; it was decided for them. Mqurice