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Technology Stocks : Rambus (RMBS) - Eagle or Penguin -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (80896)	2/4/2002 2:40:58 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Hi Skeeter Bug; Re the alleged Rambus AMT suicide... What's interesting is that the article on the reformAMT website has "Rambus" carefully excised, and "our company" replaced. Or vice versa. But what's particularly interesting is that even with "our company" it's obvious that Rambus is what he's talking about. I mean how many companies fit this criteria: "The hi-tech industry started to slump, our company encountered some very adverse legal rulings on patents, and some of our critical business partnerships starting wavering. From its high, our stock tumbled 50% in just two weeks. In the end, our stock tumbled from a high of $120 to a low of $5 and has now settled in the $7-8 range. It has never recovered substantially, and may not for quite some time." 208.56.129.199 First, if true, this is a hell of a statement about Rambus. One of their own employees is publicly admitting that that (1) their business partnerships (read "Intel") started wavering, and (2) the stock may not recover for "quite some time". Personally, I wouldn't expect to see the stock get back into triple digits until a couple of months after never. But I'm not convinced. Even though the name Abramson seems somehow familiar, I can't find it connected to Rambus. On the other hand, the story sort of rings true. That is, I can't immediately bust it. So far, there's no FAA preliminary accident report. With fatal "accidents", they tend to get these in rather quick. For example, see the departure dates in the latest report here: faa.gov This is from the preliminary accident and incident report page: faa.gov You can search back through them for a year if you know the date. For instance, here's the 9/11 terror attack: faa.gov I looked back through to 12/01/01, and there are no reports of a SU-26 crashing. At least not yet. Re: "I surely hope that there is some evidence that this man committed suicide. If not, then the reformAMT group is swimming BENEATH pond scum to use this TRAGEDY to bolster their own continued GREEDY SELF INTEREST." (1) It wasn't reformAMT, it was just one poster on their discussion board. So I don't think it's fair to paint reformAMT as the culprit. On the other hand, there is no doubt at all that reformAMT is basically in favor of giving dot com millionaires a free option to avoid the AMT tax. This is a bit of "getting their cake and eating it too". (2) In the absence of a written note, if I were the coroner I'd sign a statement saying that their very likely was no suicide. Basically, his flying style was an accident waiting to happen. After reading this next little report, I wouldn't let the guy ride in my car, much less me climb into a plane with him at the controls: (And yes, this is the SU-26M registered to him.) Difficulty Date : 3/2/98 Operator Type : General Aviationon ATA Code : 2730 Part Name : IDLER SUPPORT Aircraft Manufacturer : SUKHOI Aircraft Group : SU26 Aircraft Model : SU26M Part/Defect Location : ELEV CONTROL Part Condition : CRACKED Submitter Code : Other Precautionary Procedure : NONE Nature : OTHER Stage of Flight : INSP/MAINT District Office Region : Western/Pacific US office #27 A/C N Number : 12SU Aircraft Serial No. : 0102 Discrepancy/Corrective Action: PILOT OWNER REPORTS SNAP ROLLS WERE NOT CRISP. UPON INSPECTION OF ELEVATOR CONTROL SYSTEM, THE ELEVATOR IDLER SUPPORT MEMBER WAS FOUND CRACKED IN HALF AT THE FACTORY WELDMENT. THE SU26M SUKHOI IS CAPABLE OF UNLIMITED AEROBATICS, AND IT IS NOT UNCOMMON TO SEE +/- 10G ON THE METERS. SUBMITTER SUGGESTED CAUSE OF THIS FAILURE AS THE HIGH G-LOADNG ON PILOT'S SEATBACK AGAINST THE MEMBER DURING HIGH POSITIVE G-MANEUVERS. www1.drive.net43128667!_h-www.landings.com/_landings/pages/search/search_sdr.html Ten Gs are probably a bit much for guys who are pushing 60.* Heck, it's probably a bit too much for a 25 year old driving a carefully made American aircraft. Sort of reminds you of the Rambus attitude towards engineering and manufacturing margin. "What?! Margin? No, we don't need no stinkin' margin! We don't make mistakes, and our transistors are perfect!" The whole thing smells to me like just another stunt flying accident. But like I say, I haven't found any web indication that he even crashed, or that he's connected to Rambus. So I have just a tiny amount of doubt about the whole story. But I do have to give at least the Rambus and crash part (but not the suicide part) the "Bilow ring of truth" test. Re: "He CHOSE to GAMBLE his FUTURE in order to GET MORE (rather than be THANKFUL for what he HAD) - a gamble he couldn't AFFORD to LOSE." You got this exactly right. The guy was a big time risk taker. He did with his plane exactly the same things he did with his finances (if what is alleged is true), and the results for each were the same. It's very hard for me to imagine someone as sophisticated about risk and chance as a PhD in Mathematics who would put their financials at such an incredibly high risk as to sit there and hold RMBS in the face of devastating losses. Or flying an aerobatic aircraft hard enough to bend the seatback even though I was in my late 50s. I mean really! Re: "Don't let a bad decision RUN so that it DESTROYS your financial future." Exactly. The fact is that he could have sold his RMBS at any time during the remaining 8 months of 2000 and he would have avoided the AMT tax for that year completely. It was only because he held through the end of the year that he ended up with AMT. I know for a fact (from experience) that the employees at high tech companies that have significant stock options know the rules on AMT inside and out. We're not idiots, what is he doing, taking a risk like that? I have always got shares out of my hands with absolutely no delay after exercising. If I were going to try and game the long term investment stuff, I'd have sold enough to pay the AMT tax, and then bought put market options against the SOX to cancel most of the rest of the risk. (I.e. 70-20-10 and all that.) -- Carl