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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: runes who wrote (60208)	2/8/2002 1:25:44 PM
From: John Trader	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Runes and Mike, I certainly hope the economy is on the mend. My gut feeling is that it is, but of course many see the other view. Prominent bears include Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet, who a while ago said he thinks the markets will do poorly for about 8 years in fact. It is hard for me to contain my enthusiasm for technology, so I have to struggle to see why techs and also the overall economy won't rebound. On the positive side, Tom Siebel of Seibel Systems thinks were are heading out (recent Fortune cover article). Also memory prices have been moving up, which is a good sign. Here is an article that was posted on Samsung. taipeitimes.com Also, bandwidth is being used up, per this which came out today: "FCC: Broadband Grew Steadily in First Half 2001 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. households and small businesses signed up for high-speed Internet access at a steady clip in the first half of 2001, according to a U.S. government report released Thursday. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) found that 9.6 million customers had signed up for high-speed, or 'broadband,' Internet access by the end of June 2001, an increase of 36 percent over Jan. 2001 figures." What am I missing? We did great in the war, so that threat should hopefully be diminished quite a bit. At some point there has to be pent up demand for tech products. Also, never had 3 years in a row down on the Naz (for whatever that is worth). Also, inflation and interest rates are low, energy prices are low, there is large pile of cash on the sidelines. At this point, I think if everyone decided the recession was over, it would be over. It seems to me to be more about psychology right now than anything else, but perhaps I am missing a few key elements of this whole thing. John

To: runes who wrote (60208)	2/8/2002 1:31:40 PM
From: Sam Citron	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

My biggest fear here is Japan which still seems to be reeling. This topic deserves more discussion IMO. Care to work through some scenarios?

To: runes who wrote (60208)	2/8/2002 7:18:10 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 70976

re: Japan which still seems to be reeling: Maybe all we're seeing here is a shift in where growth is happening. In Asia, in the 1950s through 1990, Japan was the center of growth. Going forward, the growth will now happen in China (if they can peacefully make the transition to democracy) and India (if they don't fracture violently into their constituent ethnic parts, like every other multinational nation has), and a collection of smaller East Asian nations (Malaysia, Korea, etc.). Applied's management is certainly making the bet that China is where the growth is. I've been reading, for 10 years now, convincing arguments about the immanent collapse of Japan. These articles are all well-reasoned, and full of impressive facts and historical analogies. And they have been wrong, year after year. Japan's capacity for "muddling through" seems infinite. There always seems to be one more stop-gap patch-up job that puts off the day of reckoning. IMO, the future for Japan is going to be more of the same. It's a boring prediction: no growth, no collapse, no resolution of systemic problems, no spectacular finale. A series of events labelled " final crisis", which aren't. Just more "muddling through", while the rest of the world catches up, passes them, and gradually forgets about them. Sort of like what's happened to Argentina in the 20th Century. In the year 1900, Argentina had a per capita income higher than France. Sad that Japan seems to be travelling that same road. But, IMO, the implications for the rest of the world are underwhelming.