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To: jelrod3 who wrote (8157)	12/5/1997 3:03:00 PM
From: Beachbumm	Respond to of 25814

I dunno. Chambers is somewhat closer to his industry than Biggs and he's still saying CSCO expects 30-50% growth. The last cycle peaked in '84 -- with what, selectric typewriters? Who's so leveraged anyway? LSI, BAY are loaded with cash, minimal debt. Many others too. DELL can't buy back shares fast enough. Maybe we should just forget about the chips. If LSI puts its cash into treasuries and bonds go to 5% we'll make great money. Beachbumm

To: jelrod3 who wrote (8157)	12/5/1997 3:49:00 PM
From: E. Graphs	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 25814

jelrod, You forgot to say when he said these things. IAC I agree with Beachbumm. Not all tech companies are leveraged to the max based on their high growth potential, and exactly who are these users who wonder what the heck to do with their new technological advances? This man sounds like an alarmist who's afraid of or has no faith in progress, and may be more focused on the rearview........jimho. E

To: jelrod3 who wrote (8157)	12/5/1997 6:34:00 PM
From: shane forbes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25814

jelrod: Depressing guy that Barton fellow. Here's my take on some of his points (I'll refer mainly to the semiconductor sector): 1.) Order growth slowdown to 10% Even if true in a disinflationary enviroment as he foresees that would be fantastic. Where else would investors put their money since other companies would be contracting... But I think we'll see growth a lot higher than 10%. Even if the competitors in other parts of the world chew up some of the growth rate (i.e., the growth rate for an individual company slows down because the gains have to be spread out amongst many new competitors) we still have a semiconductorization and digitalization and communicatization and INTERNETization (all made up words) about to take place in the world. And we have 1.2 billion or at least half that many eager new consumers in China. 2.) Leveraged for growth Presumably he means high fixed costs for the semis. The Koreans are learning what happens when you have excessive debt. Again maybe a Darwinian survival of the fittest. Can't argue against the high fixed costs. 3.) Questioning of techonology investments payback O really and now we have the highest productivity of most nations in the world and one of the highest uses of technology. And now the companies in the States are some of the most competitive companies in the world. Somehow I think this (and the fall of labor) had something to do with this. 4.) Price deflation tricky to argue against this - current DRAM prices (and gold) shows that if you do overbuild they will not come. Hopefully we'll pick up on the monopolistic companies or high IP companies that add value to products. These may have some hope of preserving prices. Remember a few months ago the talk of the Street was the Inflation bugle boy. 5.) The guy's an alarmist. Reminds me of a mirror image of Harry Browne in the '80s who advocated investing in gold because of the high inflationary environment at that time. An inflation hedge he said then. Today we are at a 12 1/2 year low for Au. (Which makes me want to buy a mutual fund in gold stocks - being the perverse nut that I am.) Bond yields of 5% could happen. Heck these days the yield curve looks to be getting ready to invert. But I can't keep my money in bonds / cash. Like reading annual reports and 10-Ks - must be a sickness. Anyway long term I see the glass half full not shattered and destroyed as Mr. Biggs does. 6.) Finally deflation is not necessarily a bad thing. If prices don't hold for chips then maybe they won't hold for semi-equip. Further the companies won't need to raise wages. Also stocks do not get nec. killed in mild deflationary environments. There have been other times when the U.S. has had deflation and stocks have done quite well. --- Which is enough... SO you did not tell us - when was the piece written?

To: jelrod3 who wrote (8157)	12/5/1997 8:29:00 PM
From: sea_biscuit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25814

Dividing stocks into broad sectors such as : Energy Financials Consumer Durables Consumer Staples Industrial Cyclicals Services Retail Health Technology it should be obvious that "Technology" has outperformed all of the other sectors over the last 5 years or so. Now, that is an almost sure indication that some other sector (and maybe more than a few sectors) will outperform the technology sector during the next 5 years. Seems to happen all the time, over and over. Also if you consider another broad classification of investments along the lines of : US Large Stocks US Small Stocks US Bonds Foreign Large Stocks Foreign Small Stocks Foreign Bonds the outperformer in any 5-year period (the normal duration of a business cycle) has been found to significantly underperform the others in the next 5-year period. Seems to happen all the time, over and over!

To: jelrod3 who wrote (8157)	12/5/1997 9:36:00 PM
From: Bernard Levy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25814

More fundamentally, Barton Biggs powers of observation seem to be singularly lacking. The last few years have seen the emergence of Internet as a powerful new mode for the distribution of goods and services. May be mature gentlemen of a certain age such as Barton do not use Intenet much, but most persons I know use it to buy books, shop for cars, and for their investments (what are we doing here otherwise?). This means that our coountry is undergoing a huge shift in resources from old distribution mechanisms (old style car salemen will soon be an endegered species, thank god) towards high tech. All sorts of persons who never used to buy computers will now buy new computers and new softwae every 2 or 3 years, not speaking of spending more money with ISPs, telcos, etc. Within this big picture, it is easy to understand why the share of high-tech in the global economy will double within the next 10 years. Old fashioned high-tech bears such as Barton Biggs keep viewing high-tech as a bunch of devices used by companies to increase employee productivity. This is the 70s or 80s view. They should stop, and see that the landscape around them has changed.

To: jelrod3 who wrote (8157)	12/5/1997 11:37:00 PM
From: Duane L. Olson	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 25814

J -- Some thoughts in the BB post that we would ignore at some risk to our tech portfolio... However, what would you think BB would modify in that assessment if he knew we were going to have the lowest unemployment rate since Nixon, and that the SEA competitors to our tech companies would have their finanacing ripped out from under them for quite some time? IMHO, the possibility of sharp margin improvements for the techs leads me to increase them as a percentage of my portfolio -- and especially after the blood bath that has enveloped quite a number of them. Do you see something of that advantage for the well-off companies in the stable growth countries (read:USA) over the next couple of years? dlo