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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Charles Tutt who wrote (59224)	3/8/2004 11:56:12 AM
From: cfimx	Respond to of 64865

some stuff is up today...unfortantely s & p news means sunw micro is not....

To: Charles Tutt who wrote (59224)	3/8/2004 12:54:19 PM
From: steve harris	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

Charles, with the party that lost the 2000 and 2002 election pulling out the stops to get back in control, it appears their media blitz efforts of misrepresentation are having an effect. Local talk shows whining about Walmart today. Capitalism=bad Socialism=good, right comrade? Steve

To: Charles Tutt who wrote (59224)	3/8/2004 1:40:31 PM
From: QwikSand	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 64865

The downgrade to junk really had me thinking over the weekend about what's relevant and what's irrelevant. I came to the following conclusion. What's irrelevant is the cash, debt and anything else on Sun's balance sheet. What's relevant is that Sun is in such sharp decline that it has been kicked out of 'the club'. They can no longer be considered one of America's leading companies, because leading companies don't issue gambler's debt. During the bubble, McNealy/Zander used to boast incessantly about the Fortune 100 CEO's/CFO's who called them personally to say "Hey, we can't get our head around this internet thing, you guys have to come in here and set us up." What CEO, with his enormous fiduciary responsibility--assuming he's not in jail--is going to make that call to a company that has been tagged as a potential defaulter? It's not (yet) a matter of real-world economics. It's a matter of perception, reputation, and shrinking sales, a toilet-bowl spiral. I'm sure companies have been kicked out of 'the club' and gotten back in, even though I can't think of any off the top of my head. But I don't think it will happen in this case, unless of course they have a big home run in consumer electronics. I can't really think of a reason to hold this stock anymore...and I'm bored with trying after three long years. Opteron Shmopteron. Party's over. Merge them with Gateway. --QS

To: Charles Tutt who wrote (59224)	3/8/2004 4:04:49 PM
From: JDN	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 64865

OK, Charles, I hope an intelligent fellow like yourself will read the following and draw your own conclusions. jdn As we approach November 2004 one may wish to consider the following: At about the time our original 13 states adopted a new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinborough, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian republic some 2,000 years prior: "A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship." "The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage." Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the most recent Presidential election: Population of counties won: by Gore, 127 million; by Bush, 143 million; Square miles of land won: by Gore, 580,000; by Bush, 2,427,000; States won: by Gore, 19; by Bush, 29; Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won: by Gore, 13.2; by Bush, 2.1. Professor Olson adds, "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was (mostly) the land owned by the tax-paying citizens of this great country, Gore's territory encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off government welfare..." Olson believes the U.S.is now somewhere between the "apathy" and the "complacency" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy; with some 40 percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.