To: TimbaBear who wrote (15220 ) 8/17/2002 2:47:28 AM From: Seeker of Truth Read Replies (3) | Respond to of 78714 Timba Bear, your analyses of DELL and INTC are masterpieces and everyone that invests should read them. But I don't see the conclusion that the bear market will continue to claw, i.e. the general market will drop lots further. Why should your conclusions about stocks which were prominent players in the tech bubble apply to, just for example, Wells Fargo Bank? It certainly looks like the tech stocks should drop much much further. But even there, the CEOs can save the situation if most of the stockholders are getting to understand matters. They can simply take cognizance of the fact that engineers nowadays are quite happy to stay with companies like DELL and INTC without any stock options, just with their good salaries. So the granting of stock options, even to management, could simply cease for a long while until the public goes back to sleep. This would have the effect of multiplying the true earnings by a big factor. Instantly Dell and Intc would become much more reasonable investments. Another point. Stock options are just one of the ways to deceive. Basically I think we have to look at the whole society to see to what extent honesty is insisted upon. Of course no country is perfect but I personally would give the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands the highest marks in that regard. After that I would place the U.S. and slightly under the U.S. comes Canada. I'm not sure where to place the UK but I'm certain that Japan should be at the bottom of the industrialized countries because democracy there is still nascent. Stock options in Japan are still rare; outright deceit is common. A company there can report good earnings and at the same time have a subsidiary to which it is secretly lending huge sums for speculations. When the speculations collapse so does the main company, very suddenly. It's a common pattern. We've been talking about numbers; there is also attitude. When reading the annual report do you get the sense that the company is incomparably great, well nigh perfect --- is it a paean of self praise? If so then you don't have to bother analyzing the numbers. Sober honesty and the surrounding regulatory and societal attitudes are as important as the numbers, which is saying a lot.