[geeks] (Almost nothing to do with )Carley Fiorina

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On Sunday, December 1, 2002 at 18:54:08 (-0800), Lionel Peterson wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [geeks] (Almost nothing to do with )Carley Fiorina
>
> --- "Greg A. Woods" <woods at weird.com> wrote:
> > [ On Sunday, December 1, 2002 at 16:35:13 (-0800), Lionel Peterson wrote: ]
> > > price/market cap. I own shares in several companies, and I expect
> > > the leaders of the companies I own stock in to maximize value...
> > 
> > That's _ALL_ you expect of your investments!?!?!?
> 
> Investments are based on business decisions, using money to further a
> social cause is called charity.
> 
> We were discussing businesses, not charities...

Indeed.  I didn't say anything about charity either -- you're the one
jumping to conclusions and using bogus assumptions in your argument.

> Using money to further a social cause is not an investment.

I didn't say anything about social causes either.

(despite that, it is an investment -- just not a pure capitalistic
investment.  pure capitalism has no morals and no social conscience)

> > Beyond that I wish investors who choose the stock market to pour
> > their money into would get the stock value out of their minds,
> > especially the daily prices, (and just be damn happy if it stays
> > level so that they don't lose their original stake), and instead
> > focus more on dividends.
> 
> I don't understand how that would work

It seemed to work just fine in days gone by.....  Historically it had
always been the best way to guarantee an investment (other than in a
bank or government, I suppose).

>  - I'm sure my confusion has more
> to do with the way you described it, not the intent of your statement.

What I'm talking about is the difference between investing money for the
dividends that would be paid back vs. just gambling on the day-to-day
(month-to-month, or even year-to-year) face value of share prices.

Did you know that Micro$oft, for a perfect example of company with a
very bad leader, has never ever once paid even one penny of dividends?
Did you know that they don't ever intend to pay any dividends either?
(despite the fact that they have enough cash reserves to pay enormous
dividends and still not "hurt" their cash-flow position)  Why would any
sane non-gambling person ever buy even one dollar's worth of shares in a
company like that!?!?!?!?

The problem is that despite the lessons taught by previous stock market
crashes, some people are just fundamentally greedy and would rather
gamble their money on the changing face value of share prices than on
simply using shares as a means of buying stock in companies who will
repay the investment with dividends.  Unortunately this makes it
"dangerous" for anyone who wants to invest money in a company (or group
of companies, or even in a managed mutual fund) because the gamblers
will try to leverage against even the base investment value to steal
money away from honest investors.

To this end most of us who detest the stock market as it exists today
will invest only in private companies.  Some of us don't even like to be
directly employed by publicly traded companies.

There should be a happy medium, but it seems the financial community has
only gotten further away from it, rather than closer, and most of the
shift has been due to computing and telecommunications, unfortunately.

Very strict democratic government regulation of the stock market is the
only way I know of that could possibly turn things around.
Unfortunately some of the greedy people have amassed enough money and
power to influence the democratic system in their favour (thus making it
decidely un-democratic -- which is why the USA is no longer a democratic
state).

> You really seem to be talking about bonds, not stocks...

I suppose it depends on how you define each term.  If a bond buys stock
in a company then what is it?  (yes I'm purposefully fuzzying up the
terms here -- I don't want to discuss these issues within the confines
of the current terms of reference used by the financial community :-)

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098;            <g.a.woods at ieee.org>;           <woods at robohack.ca>
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