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Strategies & Market Trends : MDA - Market Direction Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sandeep who wrote (64698)	12/19/2000 6:27:15 PM
From: Square_Dealings	Respond to of 99985

MSFT was warning of slowing sales a year ago but no one listened. These stocks are pyramid schemes. If anyone accounted for all the stock options that have been granted on stocks like CSCO and MSFT (the cost of which is not accounted for) they would realize the companies dont really make money. M.

To: sandeep who wrote (64698)	12/19/2000 6:31:15 PM
From: Stephen	Respond to of 99985

sandeep, liquidity has dried up. There have been many discussions about the market being a pyramid scheme ... and the pyramid is starting to collapse. VC's won't fund start-up's, banks won't lend money, investors have lost a bunch of their capital, capex is drying-up, Uncle Al's not been feeding the money supply, and investments used by the big companies to buoy failing earnings are now write-offs as they get marked-to-market. Funds have few cash reserves by historical standards, redemptions are coming into play ... and the level of leverage in the market is still near to all time highs. And the world economy's slowing!. And goodness only knows what the derivative & loan situation is. And with more corporations acting as credit houses for 'customers' (who couldn't get money elsewhere is some cases) ....yeuk!. As someone mentioned ... I don't see tax revenue being so great this year !!. Here's something else I just thought of ...not withstanding increasing expense as employees demand salary rather than option compensation, the other catch is that with the falling market, employees at CSCO, MSFT and other techs probably haven't exercised the same value of stock options as usual. That means the company won't get the tax break ... and hey presto ... will actually have to pay some taxes.!!. Now there's something novel !!. Well ... I feel better for that rant ... ! What a mess !! Let's hope the 'cascade effect' doesn't kick in before intervention... Regards Stephen

To: sandeep who wrote (64698)	12/19/2000 7:19:48 PM
From: James F. Hopkins	Respond to of 99985

It goes deeper than MSFT missing numbers; below the surface it's also how many State , County, & City, pension funds were turned over to the Wall Street crooks when the market was in it's upswing, huge sums of money were taken out of Government Securities and given to the Stock market not by individuals but by the guardians of "retirement money". Remember Orange County ? People tend to think maybe that was an anomaly, but it's like rape in as much as only 1 out of 10 ever get reported. Officials do every thing they can to cover up the facts that they lost the retirement money, the The Wall Street crooks know that they got people who can't afford to squawk and feed on them like a school of piranhas. Meanwhile we have shit like the CNBC talking heads who are no more than dressed up well trained carnival hawkers pretending to give you the inside scoop. They use terms like "how many people were made rich" shit most of those shares were not bought by people, but by some pension fund, but the people in that fund would never see the "increased value any way as their payout was set" The States etc used the increased value to "dress up their books" and show a surplus instead of a debt. The rub is the money was never there and now the so called surplus is gone but we won't hear about that for a long time as they can put off doing their books and will jack up Local Taxes in an attempt to cover up the damage. J6P focuses on Federal Tax and doesn't even have an idea of how much he is paying on the local level as all types of gimmicks are used. In Our county every City has stop running their own water supply and created a "water authority" which they sold bonds to create..( Dow Chemical owns controlling interest ) so Dow now sells their rotten surface water to the "water Authority" it gets them out of the liability crack by running it around that way. They get to sell the rotten water they have and collect the interest on the bonds they bought all in one sweep. We can't sue the Water Authority as it became protected by a law that made it part of the county government. Water Authority sells the water to the Cities for $1.30 per thsnd gal. then the Cities who read the local meters charge $ 10.30 per thsnd with a 2 thsnd min. This 1000% mark up in the water is never talked about and god help you if put anything in the local "voice of the people" about how this is really a TAX that they never talk about. ----------------- Garbage and sewer the same way "they contract it out now" with the cover that contracting it out is cheaper. HA the cheaper never gets passed down, they mark up what the contractor charges them and then brag about how they didn't increases taxes last year but by 1%. And you can bet the contractors that win the bids are in "sweet heart deals " or "a bother in Law" to some of the commissioners. But this is Texas and that's been going on for years as standard policy in one form or another; they are just finding new ways to play the game. -------------- County employees can opt out of S.S. too, and put more in their "pension fund" but keep in mind that pension fund don't pay them any more latter on than the set rate by what they put in no matter how good it does. In other words they get about "bond rates" no matter what. The thing is I don't like the idea of States' or other Gov agencies leveraging that "retirement" money in stocks as I know in time they are going to lose it and then Taxes will have to go up to make the payments to the retirees. O ya they will lose it, The Wall Street parahnas will see to that as these pension fund managres are wine & dined and "given little tips" but are also peddeled the worst kind of junk. Jim