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To: KyrosL who wrote (5071)	6/17/2001 5:53:11 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Respond to of 74559

<Try telling this to the Nortel shareholders, who learned the other day that the book value of their stock was reduced overnight by two thirds, because the acquisitions that Nortel engaged in over the last few years, using its stock as currency, turned out to be largely worthless. > That's a game which New Zealand companies played in the 1980s before 1987. They used their inflated share prices to buy other companies, which, unfortunately for the buyers, were also at inflated prices. The whole lot came apart in 1987 in a crash which remains to this day, with companies still being disassembled in 2001 following stupid, arrogant decisions made in the go-go days when borrowing money to buy puff-balls was super-smart. I saw that up close but declined to participate, buying shares in boring companies which made things [financial management was the catchcry then]. Same as now, QUALCOMM is boring and makes things [great CDMA ASICs, software and the like]. Their few attempts at buying puffballs [NetZero] came unstuck, but only a little of the company was aimed at puffball acquisition. Mostly they just sell at a profit. Your points are all very good and are why any currency based on the management of companies would need to be very widely spread. Despite your points though, the value over 100 years of a wide range of companies beats any investment in central banks. Your central point, that a reserve bank owner is likely to be very prudent is why I think there will continue to be a country-backed currency, but many currencies have been hyperinflated and even the great US$ remains in thrall to wacky USA voters who are clueless. See the power debacle in California, where voters have destroyed their power supply. They can't even understand electricity manufacture and supply, so they don't have a hope in hell of understanding money. I bet half of them would vote for printing $1000 notes and giving every voter 10 of them. Each year. The central point about the companies printing more shares to buy other companies is that shareholders control that process and believe it to be in their interests. Otherwise they'd vote against it via their directors or sell their shares. People can't vote against the Fed and they are stuck with using US$ as a means of transaction. But not in my new paradigm. Paradigm Shift Happens, Mqurice