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I am highlighting the simplisticness of your question. Your argument is even more arbitrary than my numbers. You suppose that the purchasing power of the poor must rise but this is not the case.

No, you are spposing purchasing power must rise for the poor if the iPod is made in the US and not in China. They are made in China because it is cheaper to make them there. By making them here, they will neither cost less nor raise the wages of US workers.

The wealthiest of the US, to whom these profits are returning need not, and in fact do not, translate that wealth into dollars to help shore up the US economy.

The wealthy got that way by investing and if they have more money they will invest more which does help the economy. Are you really that dense so you don't understand that? Or are you trolling?

They don't pay much tax, either.

Are you really saying the wealthy don't pay taxes either? The Top 1% Pay More Income Tax Than Bottom 90%. Through 1999 the top 5% pay 50% of all taxes. And that comes from the Congressional Budget Office. For an argument of who pays more How much tax do the Jones' pay? has the arguments for both why the rich pay more and why they don't.

All this is relevant because the notion that returned profits from offshoring increases the wealth of the country, is heavily undermined if that wealth gets put into the hands of a functionally transnational section of society (i.e. people who invest and purchase internationally, rather than strictly domestically).

Do you see what I did there? I understood your reply and made a logical explanation of the problems with it, rather than just make comments about you pulling things from your arse. :)

And what you left out is that international investments go both ways, foreigners invest in the US and US citizens invest internationally. American Depositary Receipts or ADRs allow me, you, and any other American to buy stocks in foreign corporations. That is if the corporation is not listed on US exchanges, but many are. Those Japanese car manufacturers opening factories in the US, they are listed on US exchanges. For those who don't have enough to buy individual stocks, foreign or domestic, there are mutual funds. They allow money from many different people to be pooled and invested. Another way individuals can pool money is with investment clubs. Using them a person can put just say $10, less than the cost of 2 packs of cigarettes, a week into a pool. Add in the money saved by not buying a 6-pack of beer a day and growing some food in a garden and it adds up. There are a number of others ways people can save and invest money as well. Even a McDonald's employee can save and invest money, though they'd be better enrolling in college taking classes part tyme.

The low income can be investors, but it is logically flawed to say that this is a universal case. More frequently, people are living from month to month (sometimes week to week) trying to feed themselves and their families, pay for health care, keep a roof over their heads, etc.

They are also poor because they spent money to buy an iPod and had a family. I myself am one of the poor. Just an hour or two ago I got back from a food pantry where I picked up free food. My medical expenses are paid for with Medicare and Medical Assistance. I get them because I am disabled. So I don't go around spending money on lots of things I don't need. Nor did I get married or have children when I could not afford them

Interestingly, the New York Stock Exchange has reserved the stock symbol M for Microsoft, if they ever jump ship from Nasdaq.

http://invest-faq.com/articles/triv-one-letter-tic k.html

Wrong.

You think that text-only email would prevent people from being fooled online? Let me introduce you to a fellow named Dave Rhodes....

Companies that don't do the minimal filings can get trade on the pink sheets market, but that's not very liquid.

IIRC, I don't think a copy can list on the bulletin board unless they do the necessary filings under the 1934 securities act, like the 10-K and other annual reports. Maybe I'm confusing the bulletin board with something else.

Getting a delisting notice is not good, but not the end of the world. Having that "E" on the end of your symbol until you get your paper work in will get you dropped out of a lot of mutual funds who won't hold stocks that don't conform to the market's rules. If you want to make a bet on SCOX, you can try going short if you think they won't make the reporting deadline. Peeking at the short ratio, looks like a lot of people are thinking the same.

That, and they're a member of the Dow Jones Industrial average, along with GE, GM, IBM, and Microsoft... among others too (evidence: this link)

Also, I remember very vagually that there are laws about getting a computer buying and selling automatically, to try to curb this?

There are curbs put on automated trading programs to prevent single-day surges or plummets in prices. That is to prevent the self-fulfilling problem you mentioned...

Google management will have 6 months after the IPO to find ways of keeping anybody important to their operation that is about to become rich. There are SEC rules that employees are not allowed to sell their shares for 6 months after the IPO. Here is a very good explanation. It is possible that people who "know too much" may not be allowed to sell their shares for years.

The other side is that while most full-timers at Google have either shares or options, they probably did not amount to much compared to their salary. If those shares become worth ten times their value, and the employee decides to cash out, they will probably gain a few years salary. That might be wrong in this case. With a market cap of $36 billion, even a few shares may be enough to retire. Most companies plan at least 10% of their stock to cover employee options. $3.6 billion / 650 employees gives an average of $5.5 million. On the good side (for us), maybe most of those options are not vested yet.

The big winners are the ones who started the company or invested cash for shares. The investors should not matter to operations, and the founders have already made enough to retire if that was their preference.

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Here is a link to the story that Google might be forced to IPO that I should have included in my last post. 500 share or option holders and $10 million in assets forces an IPO.

Here is a link to the actual rules. See "Corporate Reporting".

It's called shorting a stock. Read this to find out more.

Unfortunately, shorting requires that someone loan you the stock in the first place (on the assumption that it will increase in value). Unfortunately, noone seems to be doing so.

Isn't there some way of making money on public stock if you think it's heavily overpriced?

Underpriced is obvious, you just have to buy it and wait.

I remember talking to a stockbroker once at a birthday party (not one of the swingingest parties I have ever attended you understand) just before the tech crash and he said buy "put options".

A little googling later, and I find this, this and this. I can't find any information on what happens to your put-options if the company goes totally titsup. Any (professional) stockbrokers in the Slashdot world can help me make a killing here?

Microsoft resembles IBM, not Enron.

Microsoft resembles the IBM of old in size and market dominance but not in weaknesses. IBM's fall came about because its core business was undermined by microprocessors. Despite open source, Microsoft faces no such threat. It is continuing to enhance and expand its product line and adapt to new trends as they arise.

But I do not believe that they are going to be number one for more than a few more years

And who will replace them? There's no single company that can duplicate Microsoft's complete product line, certainly not in a few years. One can imagine a number of vendors replacing individual products but could any of them, or instance, exterminate Word the way Word exterminated WordPerfect?

The history of business is one of industrial giants falling and even disappearing altogether. Presumably Microsoft's turn will come as well. However, consider General Electric. It was one of the original Dow Jones Industrials over a hundred years ago and it is still there today. Like Microsoft, it glommed onto a fundamental industry (electricity) and rode out the ups and downs of the business cycles, diversified, and marketed itself well.

When you look at Microsoft's strengths (astute management, large cash reserves, overwhelming market dominance, diverse product line, brandname recognition) and the fact its market is still growing, it's hard to imagine it losing its number one spot in our lifetime. The most likely scenario is that it will use its huge cash reserve to diversity like GE and become even bigger, although perhaps not as a software vendor.

Wade Cook ... Dishonest ... ha ha ha ha ... you're killing me. That's about the tamest thing you could say about the guy. A friend of mine really got taken by his stuff.

check out these links for more info. Personally, I think that the lawsuit is just a publicity stunt. I mean he mentions Yahoo and all of a sudden he gets tons of press coverage. They guy is a clasic flim flam artist.

http://invest-faq.com/articles/warn-c ook.html
http://invest-faq.com/articles/adv-p aying.html
http://www.fool.com/Featur es/1997/sp971006WadeCook97.htm

- Anonymous Coward

Wade Cook ... Dishonest ... ha ha ha ha ... you're killing me. That's about the tamest thing you could say about the guy. A friend of mine really got taken by his stuff.

check out these links for more info. Personally, I think that the lawsuit is just a publicity stunt. I mean he mentions Yahoo and all of a sudden he gets tons of press coverage. They guy is a clasic flim flam artist.

http://invest-faq.com/articles/warn-c ook.html
http://invest-faq.com/articles/adv-p aying.html
http://www.fool.com/Featur es/1997/sp971006WadeCook97.htm

- Anonymous Coward