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Strategies & Market Trends : Graham and Doddsville -- Value Investing In The New Era -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: porcupine --''''> who wrote (1271)	2/16/1999 12:21:00 AM
From: cfimx	Respond to of 1722

my stocks were going down. I wanted to make sure I had some company Porc! <G>

To: porcupine --''''> who wrote (1271)	2/16/1999 7:55:00 PM
From: Freedom Fighter	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1722

Porc, >>Wayne & Twister: I thought technical indicators were "heresy" in Graham and Doddsville --!?!?:<< I consider it heresy to discuss buying or selling stocks based on technical indicators not discussing the indicators themselves.

To: porcupine --''''> who wrote (1271)	2/16/1999 9:46:00 PM
From: porcupine --''''>	Respond to of 1722

Report: Japan Bankruptcies Rise By The Associated Press TOKYO (AP) -- Individual bankruptcies in Japan soared 40 percent last year to a record high amid rising corporate failures and restructuring, a news report said Tuesday. About 103,800 people filed for court protection in 1998, the third straight record high year for personal bankruptcies, Kyodo News reported, quoting data released by the Supreme Court. More than 11,300 individuals filed for bankruptcy in December alone, compared to 11,273 for 1990, Kyodo said. Unemployment in Japan is 4.3 percent as the country struggles through its worst recession in decades. Last month, a Tokyo think tank said corporate bankruptcies in 1998 rose 17.1 percent to 19,171 cases, the second-highest level since World War II.

To: porcupine --''''> who wrote (1271)	2/16/1999 9:50:00 PM
From: porcupine --''''>	Respond to of 1722

Report: LINUX Community Lays Siege to Microsoft February 15, 1999 Windows Users Demand Refunds By The Associated Press FOSTER CITY, Calif. -- Hironori Sato grabbed his laptop, his digital camera and his modem before heading downtown to take on the corporate giants. At Microsoft Corp.'s Foster City offices Monday, Sato joined about 100 computer users demanding refunds for Windows software they say they didn't want to buy and don't plan to use. ''I'm protesting and I'm downloading these images around the world,'' said Sato, a computer engineer. Around him, demonstrators bearing signs, pagers and laptop computers, looked for Microsoft officials to hear their cries. ''I got stuck with this software because I couldn't buy a laptop without it,'' said Charles Lingo, a retired maintenance engineer from San Jose. ''It's a rip-off by a monopoly.'' About 90 percent of personal computers sold these days come pre-loaded with Microsoft's Windows software, which runs all the other programs on the computers. But Lingo and most of the demonstrators are among a growing minority of computer users who don't care for Windows. They have chosen to operate their computers with Linux, a system with a cherubic penguin mascot that has risen to the forefront among the relatively unknown products that can substitute for the Windows operating system. Microsoft spokesman Robert Bennett said his company isn't forcing anyone to buy Windows. ''You have the choice of operating systems,'' he said. ''You can buy a personal computer with a non-Microsoft operating system, you can buy a computer with no operating system at all. Most customers choose Windows but you certainly don't have to.'' He said that although Microsoft won't give them refunds, they could go back to the company that sold them the computer. It's not that simple though. IBM, Compaq, Acer and other computer companies do not offer refunds to customers who aren't going to use the Windows software on their machines. Instead, customer representatives at most major computer companies send callers back to Microsoft. ''How many rounds of Catch-22 do we have to go through?'' asked Eric Raymond, a self-described ''Linux theorist,'' who came to the demonstration dressed like Obi-Wan Kenobi from Star Wars. Linux was developed in the early 1990s by a Finnish student named Linus Torvalds. He wanted to create an operating system for PCs that worked like the high-powered operating system Unix, the main system used on the big computers that run most of the Internet. But rather than start a company and market the system, Torvalds did something that captured the imagination of programmers around the world. Torvalds posted the Linux source code -- the blueprints for the software -- on the Internet. Linux can still be downloaded for free. It's also sold in a commercial version by Durham, N.C.- based Red Hat for $50. The system has an estimated 8 million to 9 million users worldwide. By comparison, Microsoft closely guards the Windows source code and charges about $90 for its operating system. Microsoft's Windows and Windows NT operating systems have about 10 times as many users as Linux. Microsoft officials served refreshments to the demonstrators on the upper deck of their parking lot Monday under an 8-foot banner that said: ''Microsoft Welcomes The Linux Community.'' They said that if the computer makers aren't giving refunds, customers could always just take their entire computer back to the store where they bought it. But dozens of individuals, clutching their brand new Windows license agreements, argued that they want the computer. They just don't want the software inside. ''We don't want your drinks and we don't want your software. We want refunds,'' said Raymond.

To: porcupine --''''> who wrote (1271)	2/16/1999 9:57:00 PM
From: porcupine --''''>	Respond to of 1722

France Prepares Tobacco Lawsuit France Prepares Tobacco Lawsuit By PHILIPPE DOSSAL= Associated Press Writer= SAINT-NAZAIRE, France (AP) _ A local branch of the state health insurance program said Tuesday it is preparing a suit against four tobacco companies for up to $90 million, blaming them for smoking-related diseases. The lawsuit would be a first in France where smoking remains widely tolerated and socially acceptable. The major tobacco companies in the United States have agreed to pay the states $246 billion over 25 years to settle their claims for the government's costs for treating sick smokers. The U.S. Justice Department is considering filing a similar suit against the tobacco companies. The social security office in this coastal city will sue tobacco companies Philip Morris, Rothmans, Reynolds and the French company Seita. The insurance agency said it hopes to recover the cost of treating the 500 people afflicted with smoking-related illnesses in the Saint-Nazaire area, on France's Atlantic coast. ''Smoking has a huge impact on the health of a person. One in two smokers will die from tobacco-related causes and half of those will die before the age of 69,'' Guy Couillaud, president of social security branch, said. ''We believe that tobacco is a highly dangerous substance.'' French tobacco industry officials dismissed the action as ''a local attempt to apply American judicial concepts ... in a totally different context.'' ''This is the latest step in vilifying smokers and the tobacco industry, which is a perfectly legal enterprise,'' said Jean-Paul Truchot, spokesman for the Center for Documentation and Information on Tobacco which represents the tobacco industry. The lawsuit is to be filed in Saint-Nazaire by the end of March. Pierre Rousseau, a director of the social security office known as the Caisse Primaire d'Assurance Maladie, said that the office in the southern city of Avignon may follow suit. He said the action is aimed at proving before the courts that manufacturers are responsible for the health consequences of smoking. Rousseau estimated the cost of tobacco-related diseases in France at aboit $1.8 billion per year. ''We want to show that it is the manufacturers who are responsible,'' he said. ''We are not playing on people's consciences. This suit is not against smokers but for them.'' However, Truchot said the action amounts to the state suing the state. ''From the plant to the packet, from the seed to the consumer, everything is owned by the state. It is a public service,'' he said in a telephone interview, claiming that income from taxes on tobacco products far outweigh the cost of treating smoking-related diseases.