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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (1831)	7/11/2002 10:11:36 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Cubicle Crimes By SCOTT ADAMS Editorial / Op-Ed The New York Times July 11, 2002 DANVILLE, Calif. — Apparently, without anyone's noticing, our entire universe collapsed into a black hole and emerged in another dimension where everything is backward: Bill Gates (who used to be evil) is spending billions to vaccinate children in third-world countries, while the Catholic Church (which used to be good) is defending priests accused of molesting children. The stock market (which used to go up) now only drifts downward. And the surest way to lose respect is to mention you started a dot-com. But here's the strangest backwardism of all: People seem surprised that captains of industry are stealing vast amounts of money at every opportunity. Back in our old dimension everyone assumed that C.E.O.'s and C.F.O.'s were weasels. Now it's big news. I think it's useful to put these corporate scandals in perspective. Every employee I ever worked with in my old cubicle-dwelling days was pillaging the company on a regular basis, too. But the quantity of loot was rarely newsworthy. My weasel co-workers were pocketing office supplies, fudging expense reports, using sick days as vacation and engaging in a wide array of work-avoidance techniques. Most people rationalize this kind of behavior by saying that corporations are evil and so the weasel employees deserve a little extra. The C.E.O.'s and C.F.O.'s aren't less ethical than employees and stockholders; they're just more effective. They're getting a higher quality of loot than the rank and file, and for that they must be punished. I have some friends in law enforcement who say the only crooks that get caught are the stupid ones. Assuming this holds true for C.E.O.'s, it's bad news for the economy. I have to think that at least a few of the executives who are running billion-dollar companies are smart, so we might be seeing the tip of the weasel's tail here. The typical C.E.O. legal defense — and it's a good one — is to place the blame on plain old massive incompetence, not on evil. If I end up on the jury for one of those trials, I'll be torn. On the one hand, I'm predisposed to believing that executives are indeed clueless. But on the other, I'm enough of a weasel to vote guilty just to watch a C.E.O. cry. I lost a lot of money on Enron, Tyco and WorldCom. (Yes, I owned stock in all three.) So I might enjoy being a juror on one of those cases. I might even volunteer. And when I sign in to the jury room each morning, I'll steal the pen, because frankly, I deserve it. ____________________________________________________ Scott Adams, a cartoonist, is the author of the forthcoming "Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel." nytimes.com

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (1831)	7/11/2002 10:23:04 AM
From: T L Comiskey	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Posted by: George Cole In reply to: None Date: 7/11/2002 10:19:34 AM Post # of 2019 Long-time bears Sandspring Advisors now in the Bull Camp. Long-term subscribers know that if we have a tendancy at Sandspring.com, it is sometimes to be a bit early in our prognostications, rather than late. The basic convergence of a market low at our cycle date in late June together with our espoused 970 target on the Nasdaq 100 beached reached within the same time window, sent us springing though the gate in our Monday subscriber-only missive calling for a significant market reversal. The timing of that article's release was not perfect in the short term, as the market experienced a sharp pull-back Monday and Tuesday, but looking at the chart above of the S&P 500 on an hourly basis, we still feel there is a reasonably strong chance that a triple bottom is in the process of forming here. If we end up being wrong about this, then perhaps one more thrust to the bottom of the depicted red channel line (approx 928) is needed, but we'd still expect a major low to be forming in July. As is our occasional prcoclivity, we may simply end up having been a bit early. But then again, our cycle work and Fibonacci work both jibed, so we had to go with them. Much the same can be said for our dollar view. We have previously espoused a target of 1.00 on the euro and .6833 on the Sep Swiss franc. Both are close at hand. We'll allow for a possible overshoot up to around 1.01 on the euro and .6890 on Sep SF, but likely no further on either. Dollar bears should already be in profit taking mode. Do not get greedy. We would not go short the euro or SF, but we would certainly consider actively selling the yen here. The Fibonacci rhythm depicted on the hourly chart below looks nice and tight and complete.