Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : High Tolerance Plasticity -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steeliejim who wrote (14801)	7/2/2002 12:58:35 PM
From: kodiak_bull	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23153

Jim: I, for one, have missed your posts. My responsibility here (it's soooo lonely at the top) is to safeguard the thread so it remains an interchange entrepot of good questions, good hypotheses and good ideas. Nada mas. Occasional, passing commentary on politics, etc. (the stupid pledge decision, stupid in all its aspects and a pox on all parties, imho) are fine unless they derail the thread. Ray might be happy to post 25 times a day here but that would change the nature of the thread, and drive away most of the people I value, and it would simply create another Balkanized thread which might even drive you away. Nobodaddy wants that, Jimbo. I agree, Krugman's piece was fine, but it was preceded by a lot of politcal stuff and then followed by the exact same article with Ray's "helpful" boldface. I thought it better to act sooner than later, if only to keep my p.m. box relatively clear. For better or worse, this is a site about trying to make a buck, immoral as that may seem to a few. As for Martha, I was only trying to figure out whether or not her peccadillo was going to give me a buying oppo in the stock, or whether it was going to be her unravelling. As I said, I can pretty much understand what she might have done and why. I like Martha, I think she's smart, and if she did try to beat the market with insider information then she should disgorge those ill-gotten gains (to go along with the personal $400 million hit she's taken to her personal portfolio in MSO). I bet she didn't realize when she made herself the brand that she'd have to keep it sooooo virginal to keep what she made. I was actually hoping for a fundamental type to look at MSO and determine what the likely damage was going to be to the income statement from whatever lost revenues she might suffer, which in turn would probably depend on whether or not she can go in and get her wrists slapped by people who want to be known as the Martha Stewart prosecutor, or whether she is going to be hung out to dry. As I noted, I was the recipient of shares in an IPO where my friend was the CEO. When the shares started dropping it was really my securities law training which kept me from calling up Prez and asking should I hold or fold. There's a little sense of loyalty and gratitude for being included in the offering which makes the phone call a logical, if dangerous, step. My technical take on MSO is to steer clear for the summer and fall unless we get a blast furnace style meltdown to $5, since I don't believe all the sellers have exited the stock, and I'd expect it to trade in sympathy with Martha's [mis]fortunes for a while. Kb

To: Steeliejim who wrote (14801)	7/2/2002 1:33:54 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23153

Soros says Bush's policies caused dollar to fall By Tom Burroughes Tuesday July 2, 1:13 pm Eastern Time LONDON, (Reuters) - Billionaire financier George Soros repeated on Tuesday his charge that U.S. President George W. Bush's administration was to blame for the recent drop in the dollar's value. "There is no confidence in the Bush administration's management of the global economy. This is a vote of no-confidence by investors in the world," the 72-year-old Soros told a committee of lawmakers in the British parliament. Speaking to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee, Soros said, "The Bush administration is following a policy similar to the Reagan administration of the early 1980s, which is of an increasing budget deficit, expansion of defense spending and a financing of it from abroad." Late last week the hedge fund king-turned-philanthropist made the same criticism in a speech in London. He said the fall in the dollar's value had taken him by surprise, however. The European single currency, the euro, did not present an ideal alternative store of value to the dollar while the recent appreciation of the Japanese yen presented a threat to the fragile Japanese economic recovery, Soros said. "Earlier, the strengthening of the yen could be attributed to a possible cyclical recovery in Japan. But now the Japanese market is declining, which means people are going home (into the yen) out of fear," he said. Soros's comments come in the wake of the dollar's recent fall to a two-year low of $0.990 against the euro. The dollar's decline has coincided with falls in U.S. stock markets which have been hit by a number of high-profile U.S. corporate scandals, with the latest at telecoms firm WorldCom. Soros, whose assault on the British pound in 1992 resulted in the ejection of sterling from the European exchange rate mechanism, described the current bout of dollar weakness as the "Bush bear market". Elsewhere, in comments spanning issues such as globalisation and financial crises in Latin America, Soros urged the world's leading central banks such as the U.S. Federal Reserve to help holders of Brazilian debt cope with high interest rates. "It is an unsustainable situation. This would be an occasion where there would be a need for a lender of last resort," Soros said. Soros said he favoured some kind of tax on global financial transactions to raise revenues, although he doubted whether a suggested "Tobin Tax" on foreign exchange dealings, named after the late Nobel Prize-winning economist James Tobin, was a practical idea. Last year European Union finance ministers asked the bloc's Commission in September to evaluate the feasibility of the tax, but they viewed it with little enthusiasm. Soros said the Tobin Tax could cut liquidity in global foreign exchange markets, making price movements more, not less, volatile.