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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Michael Burry who wrote (6682)	4/11/1999 8:22:00 AM
From: Walter in HK	Respond to of 78594

To: Michael Burry who wrote (6682)	4/11/1999 8:24:00 AM
From: Walter in HK	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78594

(OT) Mike, I hear you and I respect what you say, especially since you are a physician. Let me try and sort that out, see what you say. First - not on this thread ! Right. Would be a wasteful theater. Second - I did buy MO about 5 years ago, saying to myself: a financial decision. Now I am married again (my first wife died if colon cancer, 9 years later in the liver) and said: OK I won't buy more. But even as a financial decision I want to get rid of it at $45. Then my conscience can also be clean. I am a practical guy 8-) Third - Laser Vision Correction. I would disregard financial motivation of the Ophthos. Looking at it in absolute terms, I did at first feel uncomfortable. If it is not necessary, why take a risk? I myself have a birth defect behind the lens of one eye - read only headlines with that eye. Would never risk the other. But most people apparently have both eyes done at the same time. Including my middle child of five, a twin daughter, still playing ice hockey (she was the Captain of the MIT Women's Hockey Team) and not wanting to loose her contacts on the ice. OK, at least not a plain vanity motive. The freight train coming down the track of this “Industry”, I think is powered by that Boomer thinking. I would not reason the way they apparently do. I know a lot of people are vain and do all sorts of things. I had a big-time boss. He has contacts, and being short, had special shoes in which he stood higher but they showed no high heels ! I once sat beside a plastic surgeon on a plane, he told me far more men have plastic surgery than women. So, there is a lot going on behind the scenes. And it has pushed LVC. It is surprising. However, now that so many procedures have been done, apparently over 400 000 in 1998, I would think the track record must be improving, fewer bad outcomes. Are they minimal ? I have no idea. To the affected individual, never. Not everybody can, by definition, pick the Ophtho wo does 100 a week. There is, anyway, the “eager, unknowing patient base” as you say. Everything is a trade-off. I think, in the end, there will be more and more changes to the human body. Before long, they will fix the gene that predisposes you to cancer of the colon. Whatever is done, may involve some risk. Probably people are used to all technical things becoming more reliable. At one time we ground valves on cars. Countless examples, especially when you consider the greater complexity of today's products. My first job was in radio tube production. They had a life of 500 hours. A million transistors on a chip - forever. So, is this trend responsible for the thinking of those who have LASIK done ? Another daughter's husband talked her into not having it done. He has a little company that sells parts for humans - like a glaucoma valve. He says long-term effects are not yet known. I looked into that a little. The Bowman layer does not regenerate. Is it not needed after you have grown up, like the clavicle? Why did evolution put it there ? I never got an answer whether that drives LASIK where Bowman is preserved. This whole LVC grew out of laser surgery. I happen to have met Dr.L'Esperance on New Year's 1995. He explained that , 20 years earlier, he was the first to apply lasers to humans. Then he found this laser that has 6.2 electron Volts of energy per photon and that it takes 5.9 eV to disassociate a lens molecule. (or some such numbers) Well, that is some invention. Now, what do you do with that ? Imagine we don't know what was to happen. I would think of the military. No glasses nor contacts. No use doing thought experiments. My gut says we will see more technology fixing bodies. Where do you draw the line ? At ice hockey or at plain vanity ? I don't know, but I don't see it in quite the same degree of irresponsibilty as you do. The cure would be to stop it, to protect how many ? Right there is the dilemma, I think. We fly airplanes. What is the rate compared to LVC ? Driving a car ?? Yeah, I guess I narrowed it down. Just took too long. Interested in your reaction, which can be short since I covered almost everything 8-) Let me know before Monday - the next decision. Walter in HK