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To: Dealer who wrote (4794)	10/1/2000 4:33:50 PM
From: Dealer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

High-Tech CEOs Not Throwing Money Into Campaign By Tim McLaughlin BOSTON (Reuters) - S&P 500 executives running high-tech companies worth a combined $4.5 trillion have contributed relatively small amounts to the U.S. presidential campaigns of Al Gore (news - web sites) and George W. Bush (news - web sites), according to Federal Election Commission records. Their ranks include several billionaires minted by the Internet economy, but their direct contributions to the campaigns of Gore and Bush have totaled only $55,500 during this election cycle, FEC records show. Nearly one-third of the top executives at 70 high-tech companies in the S&P 500 have contributed nothing to either campaign. Contributions from high tech companies are on the rise but remain far below such old economy industries as tobacco and telecommunications or traditional interest groups such as lawyers. Analysts said the low level of contributions may reflect a lack of government regulation of the industry. ``They're getting absolutely everything they want through Congress,'' said Larry Makinson, executive director of the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics. ``There's still a honeymoon period that's going on. Politicians like to wrap themselves in the flag of this industry. It's been a fascinating courtship to watch.'' Democratic nominee Vice President Gore has received $29,000 from these executives, or $2,500 more than Texas Gov. Bush, the Republican nominee, FEC records show. Makinson said the low level of contributions by the top executives surprised him. ``The computer industry had the fastest growing increase in campaign contributions, which have more than doubled since the last election,'' said Makinson, whose center tracks political giving and spending. ``The industry has moved from being an asterisk to an emerging player.'' Total contributions from the computer equipment and services industry in the 2000 election cycle to federal campaigns and candidates more than doubled to $22.1 million, but less than one-third the contributions of lawyers and law firms which totaled $71.2 million, according to CRR. Soft money contributions by Standard & Poor 500 high-tech chief executives were $1.03 million, according to FEC reports. The majority of the soft money, unregulated donations to political parties and outside interests, came from the wallets of eight top executives in the high-tech industry. Cisco Systems Inc (NasdaqNM:CSCO - news) Chairman John Chambers led the way with bipartisan soft money contributions of $437,750. Other major soft money donations came from Qualcomm Inc (NasdaqNM:QCOM - news) Chief Executive Irwin Jacobs, $80,000 and $60,000 from Sapient Corp (NasdaqNM:SAPE - news) co-Chief Executive Jerry Greenberg, FEC records show. Despite the small contributions from the industry, both campaigns have embraced Internet executives. The Bush campaign's information technology advisory council touts more than 200 chief executives and chief financial officers, including Cisco's Chambers and Michael Dell, founder of Dell Computer Corp (NasdaqNM:DELL - news). ``The new economy leaders have become significant donors, finally,'' said Tucker Eskew, a spokesman for the Bush campaign. ''What's got them activated is that they've had to beg for crumbs from Gore. They've been let down by the current administration on Y2K legislation, tort reform and the expansion of visas for foreign high-tech workers.'' Gore campaign spokesman Doug Hattaway disagreed. ``We think Al Gore has the better agenda for keeping our prosperity going and providing incentives for developing new technologies,'' he said. ``He'll fight to keep this economy going and support high tech development whether or not he gets contributions from them.'' Not to be outdone, the Gore campaign plans to announce soon its own list of high-profile supporters from the high-tech community. ``The high-tech industry is very informed and can see very clearly that Al Gore understands technology and its role in our lives,'' he said. ``Based on that, we expect to do very well.''

To: Dealer who wrote (4794)	10/1/2000 4:40:35 PM
From: Mannie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

To: hueyone who wrote (32681) From: Malcolm Bersohn Sunday, Oct 1, 2000 10:08 AM ET Reply # of 32699 Like everybody that posts here I oppose a one parameter view of companies. In that context I wonder what people think about the following: Sales/employee. This works out to about $400,000 currently for NTAP, $500,000 for Merck, and about a million for SSTI.(!!!) Some businesses automatically have these high ratios and this parameter can be ignored. For example,oil companies operations are highly automated; employee's salaries are a small % of their expenses, which include huge capital outlays. We can eliminate such companies as being nontech, let alone non-gorilla. But among the gorillas maybe this could add some interesting insight? One factor that could influence this ratio is the extent of outsourcing. This obviously increases the Sales/employee count ratio. But if the outsourcing was less efficient than doing it in house then there should be a reflection in the growth of profits. So we might assume that in comparing two excellent companies that each have optimized their amount of outsourcing. Does anybody have employee counts for various gorillas? Is the ratio important? I suspect that a steady increase in this ratio would reveal the importance of intellectual property and the scaling thereof. Many other parameters are important also, of course.