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To: FACTUAL who wrote (553)	7/20/1998 12:02:00 PM
From: Arik T.G.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 686

Hello FACTUAL and any bookmarkers of this thread. It's been two months since the last post here. Meanwhile, the divergence between equity pricing and the state of the economy has grown substantially. Inventories, which had grown dramatically in the 1st Q, kept on building in May. NAPM under 50 for the first time in how long, two years? Trade deficit up. GDP expected to be almost flat. Two months ago it was expected that the 2nd Q will be slow, but there were great expectations from the 2nd half of the year. Now there are no clear visions for the 2nd half. Dear Abbey had set a year end target for the Dow at 9300 some months ago. Well, here we are, barely into the 3rd Q and the Dow (being the weakest of the leading indices) looks at 9300 from above. >>the Western world seems to have cornered the market on high margin business ( consumer brands, software, pharmaceuticals, financial services, etc) This answer may come two months delayed, but it is relevant. The western world, America in particular, cornering of brand names and high tech is old news. The whole world drinks Coke and watches American movies and TV series for years. The whole world uses Microsoft's mediocre products on Intel Inside machines. If anything, America is losing some monopolistic ground in Aerospace-Airbus announced today it expects a 30 planes, $2.7B order from UPS, and many countries- not only western countries- now offer satellite launch services. The cuts in NASA's budget, and the lack of an ambitious long term space project, are a big disappointment to me. JFK promised to put a man on the moon before the turn of the decade. It's almost 30 years, a generation, since that historic "giant leap for mankind", and the best America can offer the world today is virtual portals. ATG