SI
SI
discoversearch

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.
Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: paul_philp who wrote (21782)7/28/2002 4:51:16 AM
From: Maurice Winn  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 74559
 
Paul, I can't pass up that one! Overall, I agree with the sentiment, but I don't agree that the business mistakes were not mistakes. They were definitely bad things to happen and capital was destroyed on a grand scale.

However, a bit like entropy and the idea that you can't make scrambled eggs without breaking a few of them, perfection isn't possible. In any system there are losses. The question is whether the losses are justified by the eventual success.

The driving force, as you said, is the excitement of a vast new profit opportunity when something as big as rail, cyberspace or CDMA is involved the excitement is justifiably huge and hordes of people pile in.

The reason that mistakes are made is that the unknowables are huge but so is the profit opportunity people think they see. Many pile in with the hope of being a winner and making a fortune.

There are other rewards, apart from the financial ones. There is the excitement and fun of participating in a great new possibility. Investors risk a percentage of their assets in the hope of having a lot of fun and making a lot of money and achieving great things. Philanthropic investing is part of the deal; people get involved to create great things, not just to make money and those things will benefit everyone and enable other things to happen [the shared assets].

Sure there was a bubble. But there have been huge quality of life benefits created even if no profit and that is a good thing. That's part of what was achieved. If the survivability of the species was enhanced, then even in the absence of profit, that's part of the mechanism of nature [nature is about gene propagation, not profit].

I wonder what the total losses are compared with the total gains which will be made. The losses are not the reductions in market capitalisation [those are just arbitrary paper figures, though they feel real to people]. The losses are the capital put in which will not earn a return.

But even a total loss like Globalstar is a bit more complex when looked at broadly. With any product, there is a consumer surplus - many people get benefits far above the cost of the service and few people don't get sufficient benefit to justify buying the service [the white elephant problem - and we've all experienced a dumb purchase and buyer's remorse]. So the value of a product needs to be measured not only in the profit line over the life of the product but should include the consumer surplus.

Okay, that's enough rant from me.

Suffice to say that I agree - the technological revolution was born in mass excitement in Y2K and it is growing rapidly, even as the market capitalisations tumble. The value created is enormous - more value than has ever been created before, even if almost no money changes hands [as is happening right now as I type and you read - okay, maybe my words aren't that valuable but the cyberspace experience is, which is why we all spend so much time in it].

Thanksf for the thought-provoking comments.

Mqurice



To: paul_philp who wrote (21782)7/28/2002 5:06:27 AM
From: TobagoJack  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 74559
 
Hello Paul, I agree with you 100%, if I understood you 100%.

I just got back from a long lunch and a couple of hours on the beach with wife and sister-in-law. The apartment’s balcony doors were left open, and so the tropical air is permeating throughout, and, together with the teak woodwork, tropo-decorations, and the salt on my skin, I feel I am on vacation again. The best I can do under the recession circumstances, as I did yesterday:

Message 17801766

In order to efficiently check to see if my understanding of your post is correct, let me sum up what I think I read from your post:

(a) The bubbles that leave useable infrastructure are worth it;
(b) America is better at creating worthwhile bubbles that destroy creatively;
(c) We are just getting started on the ride that creatively destroys.

A senator asked the Maestro Greenspud whether the bubble, if it was a bubble, was worth it, the answer was also yes.

History is paved with a series of events over which the majority of folks have little understanding or choice. War is an example. They are destructive, few vote on the initiation of conflict, a lot of bad stuff happen, and yet history makes progress because of them. Afterwards, if asked whether the war was worth it, the answer would be, ‘yup, given that some of us are alive to enjoy what resulted’.

Perhaps war is an extreme example. Maybe the Spanish Inquisition better suit our discussion purpose. Or perhaps … oh, you got the picture.

So, back to topic, was the 1995 Bubble worth it? So far, to me, the answer is yes, definitely, and I am ready to do it again, any time, and next time I will get in earlier, leverage up, and get out sooner:0)

Who here does not want to feel like so again:

Message 12355669

Message 12853201

For the majority of threaders on BBR, the answer would also be yes, and so I agree with your contention (a), (b), and (c). We are even looking forward to quickly bury the dead, abandon the wounded, sacrifice the village idiot, and get on to the next abracadabra.

Message 16212324
August 15th, 2001
“Now, should the cataclysm be unobstructed, a new dawn may arrive sooner. We must lead the village idiots to the volcanic abyss of Inflation or the black hole of Deflation, to be sacrificed to the gods of work, thrift, family and savings. I am being optimistic and am of course assuming that all the market noise and propaganda smoke is not in fact camouflaging an inflection point connecting Silicon Glory to an as yet unknown “next abracadabra”, as the Rust Belt was once transformed into Silicon Glory but accompanied by much dying anguish and birthing pain.”

Is it worth it for the majority beyond the surviving SI threaders? Well, less and less so, with each downward tick of the indices and disappearance of proforma wealth. They would even probably also agree with your (a), (b), and (c), for now, especially if they get another opportunity to do it right before their hoped for retirement in 12.5 years.

On (b), it is of trivial importance who is better at creating creatively destructive bubbles. It is of Darwanian importance who is better at escaping the more unpleasant of the after-foam.

On (c), my wager is the ride will require <<seat belts>>.

Chugs, Jay



To: paul_philp who wrote (21782)7/28/2002 5:31:33 AM
From: TobagoJack  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 74559
 
Hi Paul, Something more about bubbles that result in infrastructure ...

Message 17803400

Chugs, Jay



To: paul_philp who wrote (21782)7/28/2002 1:51:14 PM
From: portage  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 74559
 
I've read a lot of sophisticated theories on the bubble aftermath and whether it's really that problematic. Good arguments on all sides.

Then I always keep coming back to common sense. During the Nasdaq bubble, I kept looking around at 22 year olds just out of school with poli sci degrees, being paid 100k to work at a dot com, granted huge stock options, and having lavish parties at the office every other week. Something's wrong, I thought.

Now, I look at lawyers raking in hundreds of thousands or millions per year, CEOs with options packages worth hundreds of millions, financial guys raking in hundreds of millions for having a little bit more clever ways of tuning the books and access to inside info, McMansions everywhere costing over a million dollars, and millions of average people in the US expecting a life style like no other in history.

Question : does knowledge alone equal increasing wealth, in a post bubble society ?

My simple little bit of common sense tells me this is going to end badly. Not forever, but for a good while.

Reversion to the mean, baby.