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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (7697)	8/24/2001 11:07:26 PM
From: LLCF	Respond to of 74559

LOL, hard to believe all these folks still have jobs! No doubt they won't if the current WS funk continues. I would think that firms would use this stuff as a way to lop off some large salaries. DAK

To: Ilaine who wrote (7697)	8/25/2001 12:16:34 AM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

Hi CB, <<Deluge>> there is that word, right on time, per script, with correct emphasis ... Message 16222275 <<First a trickle, turning into a torrent, and then transforming into a flood. Deluge will soon be a commonly used word>> ... leading on to disaster, debtblosion, devaluation, debasement, depression. By the back and forth postings through SI, one would think the bulls and bears live on different planets. I suppose it is true. Matters look pretty dire from where I am crouching. Tomorrow I will pilot the motorized Chinese junk to an isolated beach not reachable by land. A bunch of pals and their kids will accompanying me. On the excursion will be one Hong Konger who is thinking of getting out of traditional core (textile) business passed down from a generation ago, and an US expatriate who will be going home after having done 20 year's of private money management in Asia for US based folks. My college buddy (CIO for Asia, Euro/US insurance company) and family will also be with us, and he skipped a 'promotion' in the US to present a more mobile target in Asia. Events feel much more despondent than at the onset of Asian Financial Crisis. Amazingly, we are really just getting started, with plenty of cheerful headlines to numb our mind and weaken our conviction. Last night's equity action was a good example, with Mr. Chamberpot of CSCO seeing the unseen, and knowing the unknowable. Oh, yes, no caviar and champagne for the picnic, and no expensive seafood lunch. We are doing the folksy thing of sandwiches and such, but still catered, as deflation in HK has made service and food more reasonable. See, I believe I know what will soon be, and am on auto-pilot in response, because the environment tolerates no innovative response - just duck, run, dive, craw, hide, position, crouch, observe, and only then take aim. Maurice prefers to stand in the open, under the glare of the sun, flak jacket open, facing the dark foliage, and screaming, "Hey, I am here, where are you!? Come get me if you dare". Chugs, Jay

To: Ilaine who wrote (7697)	8/25/2001 9:38:08 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

<ATHM shareholders got scrod worse than GSTRF shareholders> CB, zero is a great leveler. Whether somebody paid $1 a share, $10, $100 or $1000, it's all the same when the price is zero. The past couple of years have seen a most spectacular techwreck. I am consoled that the only real loss in Globalstar is the opportunity cost of about one year due to marketing mismanagement. With about $5 billion invested so far, that's only $500 million or so in actual costs, but a LOT more than that in opportunity cost [at $1 a minute which I guess is the equilibrium price of the current system when full]. Which is not a big deal in the context of Globalstar though it's a lot of money if found in a pile somewhere. Globalstar LP shareholders [which include GSTRF] have done their dough. I don't believe they'll get any money back at all. But in actual value, the system is going to earn a huge return on capital by 2010 [which is about the life of the current constellation]. So, unlike many dot.bombs, which were bad ideas and the money is gone and the systems closed and there will never be a return on the capital deployed, Globalstar will not be a drain. It was and remains a good idea which will return high profits on the capital invested for the new owners of that capital. The losers are those who entrusted their capital to an inadequate management, marketing concept and contractual basis. That's me. But I don't care too much because my Globalstar system will go on to provide a great service around the world. As they say, you can't take it with you and investing in great, but risky, ideas is a good thing to do with money. If it succeeds, that's great. If it fails and it was a waste of capital, that's a shame for all concerned [the equivalent of digging holes and filling them in again]. But if it fails as a business, but goes on to earn return on capital anyway, that's still okay. Somebody has to have the courage to do innovative stuff and risk some losses or we'd all stay threading beads, beating tom toms, living in teepees and wearing animal skins. Call me a philanthropist. Mqurice