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To: bosquedog who wrote (162)	10/24/2000 4:32:16 PM
From: tradermike_1999	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Stamps.Com Lays off 40% of its staff: nypostonline.com STAMPS.COM CANCELS 40% OF ITS STAFF Tuesday,October 24,2000 By JOSEPH GALLIVAN -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stamps.com did the dot-com thing yesterday and let go of 40 percent of its staff. The ailing online postage site, which lost its president and CFO two weeks ago and its CEO three days later, said 240 full-time, part-time and contract employees were getting the ax. Stamps.com's stock closed up 6 cents, or 2.3 percent, at $2.78, down from its high last January of $98.50. Company spokesman Seth Oster said the layoffs were across the board, from the executive suite to the mail room, and that they were designed to streamline operations. "It was completely unrelated to the earlier departures," said Oster. "These cuts were being considered before." The company is being run by the chairman, Marvin Runyon. "A lot of companies conduct layoffs because they have no cash," said the spokesman. "We have $300 million, and we have 70 percent of the online postage market." The USPS estimates that 380,000 individuals have licenses to print postage. "We've hated online postage from the beginning," said Jupiter Research analyst Melissa Shore. "There's a decreasing need for postage anyway, plus the value proposition was never enough. If they had got the 4 percent discount they lobbied for, maybe more people would have done it. As it is, a lot of people have to go to the Post Office anyway, and Pitney Bowes franking machines [used in mailrooms] can be refilled over the phone now." In other gloomy tech news, Kentucky printer maker Lexmark will cut 900 jobs and move some manufacturing to Mexico and China to save $100 million annually. According to job-placement consultant Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Web-based companies fired 5,677 workers in the four weeks ended Oct. 20, reported Bloomberg. In the last year, sites offering information on finance, consulting and other industries cut 8,113 jobs, or 36 percent of the total.

To: bosquedog who wrote (162)	10/24/2000 4:33:45 PM
From: THOMAS GOODRICH	Respond to of 74559

I would be extremely skeptical of such a dire prediction. It seems every year someone is publishing a book on a coming financial collapse the following year. A lot of people subscribed to that thinking last year in anticipation of Y2K. The month of April typically declines especially following significant uptrends as we have experienced this year. While a slowdown is expected by the second quarter of 2001, there are no indications thus far of any significant problems on the horizon emerging such that would cause both the equity markets and interest rates to plummet. Fundamentals still favor a continued robust economy although at a slower pace then we're accustomed to. Is the writer predicting a world war?