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To: PAL who wrote (2998)	12/30/1998 4:30:00 PM
From: j_b	Respond to of 4903

Re: AOL accounting methods - that's called creative bookkeeping, not profit maximization. Once again you have fallen into the short-term outlook trap. Remember, I said maximize over the long-term. Those accounting methods only work once or twice, not over a five or ten year period. After that last bout of creativity, news reports regarding the methods used began to appear. The stock immediately took a dive (from which it has since recovered). Analysts are now looking for that every time an earnings release is made. Of course, all this is still short-term thinking. The question regarding AOL stock really is - will it still be valued this highly 5 years from now. Not unless they create a consistent and growing profit/earnings stream. <<Look at NCSP. The stock lingered around. Want to maximize profit and go against MSFT?>> Good idea - look at NSCP. When their outlook as a company was rosy, people were willing to pay a premium for a company that had only the promise of earnings. When that outlook lagged, so did the stock price. It was never valued on actual earnings, only on a dream and a prayer - the same as many companies are now valued. Because there was no long-term profit probability for NSCP, I would never have invested in them. I am a long-term investor. NSCP never showed the consistent growing earnings/profit that I keep insisting is the only real way to measure the long-term potential of a stock or a company. Had NSCP been doing as I said, and maximizing their long-term profit, they would have begun offering the browser for free (at the cost of short-term profits) and would have opened their architecture sooner for developers. They were too greedy on a short-term level, trying to appease investors that only look at the current stock price and this quarters earnings report.