Re: For anyone that doesn't already know

[mstorer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Mark Storer)]

>>This is actually a little scary... Their stock value has NO BASIS IN REALITY!
>
>You must live a very paranoid existance,  very few stock prices have any
>basis in reality.  In fact, the economy as a whole has no real basis,
>civilization exists on faith, faith that nothing will be drastically diffrent
>tommorrow than it is today.  And since the vast majority don't really want
>things to change, they don't, and the rich stay rich, etc... (for the most
>part).


First:  Just because you're paranoid does not mean that They are not out to get
you.

Okay, let me drop the exclamation points and pretend to be rational for a while
;).

It "concerns" me that so much of the value of the stock market (that I actually
hear about, probably some relatively small fraction) is, as you say, based on
hype.  Sooner or later, reality has a way of sneaking up on this sort of thing.

>>I wonder what IPO's were like just before the Great Depression...
>
>Small.  But my Grand Father became a millionaire DURING the great depression,
>because everyone paniced about the banks, and he quietly bought up thier
>"worthless" shares as they dumped them.

Aye.  Anyone who doesn't get burned when most of the market tanks can make a
real killing.

It just worries me that the stock market as a whole seems to be getting further
and further from some realistic numbers, where market capitalization is firmly
grounded on <last years sales * 3-5>.  Yes that multiplier can flop around,
depending on who you ask.  But VA's sales last year were what, about 14 mill?
And there market cap is somewhere around 1 billion?  We're talking orders of
magnitude here...

No, my economic theory isn't anywhere near as strong as my computer theory (not
that that's particularly amazing either), but from what I DO know, I have
reasons to worry.

--Mark

p.s.  Wow.  Linux didn't even come up once in that whole message.  I guess the
moral of the story is "If you're about to IPO, make sure people think of you as
a Linux company; you'll make a mint".