<>you will realize that he is either senile, a hypocrite, a liar, or any combination. <>
<I did not assert that he was senile, though it's an option, better read my post again. >
ODB, It would be easier if you say which you think he is. Okay, so he's not senile. You should have left that one off the list if you don't think he is. You could have put ax murderer, thief, fraud, in the list too.
By saying any combination, you are suggesting that any combination of those options would be correct, but perhaps that's not what you meant. I don't have such difficulty with Uncle Al's language.
So, you've reduced the options to hypocrite or liar, or any combination of those two.
So, let's take a look at your samples of his work:
<Still, the evidence strongly suggests that new technologies will present ample opportunities to earn enhanced rates of return. Indeed, anecdotal reports from businesses around the country suggest that the exploitation of available networking and other information technologies was only partially completed when the cyclical retrenchment of the past year began. Many business managers are still of the view, according to a recent survey of purchasing managers, that less than half of currently available new, and presumably profitable, supply chain technologies have been put into use. >
That makes perfect sense to me. It means, for example, that if QUALCOMM exploited the other half of the new supply chain technologies, their costs would go down and their profits go up. QUALCOMM's royalty rates are fixed, so if they can cut their supply costs, the savings all drop to the bottom line [less depreciation for buying the new technology and little details like that].
Which was the hypocrisy? Where the lie? I could make an argument that the supply chain technology efficiencies will be competed away, but since any profitable business above safe interest rates involves transient monopolies, I'm not convinced of my own argument sufficiently to make it. But if I did, that would be an argument that he is wrong, not that he is a liar or hypocrite [or senile, which you don't claim].
<While these opportunities remain abundant, they will now play out against the backdrop of a major uncertainty that we all must deal with these days--the specter of further terrorist incidents on American soil. It simply is not possible to predict whether there will be any such incidents or to forecast their possible consequences for the economy. But we can have little doubt that the tragic events of September 11 have left obvious marks on the economy that will not soon fade even though some of the initial impact of the shock has receded. Importantly, as I suggested shortly after the event, adjustments to new levels of perceived risk will cause a one-time downward shift in the level of productivity. >
Huh? What's the point there. Makes perfect sense. I disagree and think that any further terrorist attacks will be inconsequential. Osama hit the jackpot with the attack on the WTC. It was spectacular beyond belief - it was like my world literally crumbling before my eyes in a surrealistic nightmare.
But even that attack was a pinprick on the global stage [though the psychological effect was profound - I think perhaps it might drive some improvements to the world, but peoples' memories are short and imaginations pathetic, so I'm not too hopeful that the necessary changes to the world's political system will be made]. 3000 people killed, relatively few injured [people were either dead or escaped - mostly]. Three aircraft destroyed. A couple of 30 year old huge buildings destroyed. Even the worst hit company's production and records were back up the next day in a cloned computer-driven base over the river [more or less]. It was no big deal out of 6 billion people, millions of buildings, $trillions in production.
Osama isn't going to crash another plane, or if he does, it'll be a pathetic shoe-bomb or some other attack by an ignominious person like Richard Reid. Another aircraft lost in the long litany of aircraft lost. Big deal!
There'll always be another Guy Fawkes [heck, I might even become one myself if things move in certain ways which I find intolerable - we each act according to our own will, values, motives and determinations and sometimes we find it necessary to oppose what we believe to be malevolent people, such as Hitler and cronies, Stalin, Pol Pot, Hirohito's armies]. But they don't stop the world and barely slow it down.
But Uncle Al isn't saying all that. All he said was that the bangs frighten people and kill some and cause people to add costs such as extra security and restrictions, which reduces productivity. I didn't see lies or hypocrisy. Did you really and can you please point them out in excruciating detail for those of us who aren't as percipient as you?
Now, for some nausea [makes me think of going on the rides at Knots Berry Farm a couple of years ago with one of our daughters - I couldn't take much of it and needed lengthy rests between rides].
<Moreover, despite recent short-term earnings disappointments, many corporate managers appear not to have measurably altered their long-standing optimism on the future state of technology. At least this is the impression one gets from the persistent upward revision through most of this year of security analysts' long-term earnings projections. Analysts, one must presume, obtain most of their insights from corporate managers, who are most intimately aware of the potential gains from technological synergies and networking economies. According to IBES, a Wall Street firm, the three- to five-year average earnings projections of more than a thousand analysts, though exhibiting some signs of flattening in recent months, have generally held firm. Such expectations, should they persist, bode well for continued capital deepening and sustained growth of structural productivity over the longer term. Admittedly, however, shifts in the growth of structural productivity are clearly visible only in retrospect. >
Well, that leaves me comfortable and my otoliths happily stable: nsbri.org
I guess you are feeling nausea because he is using the much-maligned analysts as a reference point to predict the future, which he sagely points out at the end is "clearly visible only in retrospect".
Malign them though people do, my reading of their analyses [such as Gregg Powers who used to analyse QUALCOMM's business] is that they are generally very good. Tim Luke is good too. I used to disagree with some of Gregg's ideas, but that doesn't make me suffer nausea. If there was no disagreement about predicting the future, returns on shares would match T-bonds and both would be at about 1%.
The future is notoriously difficult to predict and I don't think we should expect dramatic changes in that any time soon.
I suppose you picked a couple of the more egregious lies and hypocrisy to demonstrate your points.
I think in that case, you have shown about Alan Green$pan that he remains fully cognitive, well-informed and generally capable. You have shown more about your own ideas, which I don't value quite as highly as my idol's.
Mqurice |
