A hopefully informative ICQ transcript
on
Tech Stocks Tumble
·
· Score: 3
Hello slashdotters. I apologise for the size of this posting, but in it I described the stock market to someone who didn't understand it. I hope there is someone else out there I can likewise enlighten, and perhaps whore up some karma points for myself:)
4/15/00 2:57 AM Rommel Ooooh, the stock market makes me wish I had nippels the size of toledo so I could rent them out to survive the coming great depression!
Lemur *points out you have created a terribly confunsed fox with that statement*
Rommel it's badnasty
Lemur rEAL BAD? HOW COME i HAVEN'T EVEN HEARD ABOUT IT? (oops, caps lock) I watch the news every day.
Rommel they're trying to downplay the hell out of it, but the dow was down 744 points on friday, it creeped back up to 612 down, but that's still down
Lemur What does it mean?
Rommel it means the investors are running scared, the stock market was melting like a candle in a quasar
Rommel well that's what it's all about. if you want to know, go there. someone has censored the press of the rest of the country
Rommel the worst stock market drop EVER and no news about it in america? that's bullshit, I watched the mother f'er happen
Lemur Stock fox?
Rommel tell everyone you know, biggest market drop ever and they're trying to sweep it under the rug
Rommel I woke up, I joined a couple channels on undernet, someone mentioned the stock market was disolving. I understand the stock market rather well, so that filled me with an odd mixture of glee and fear. I hit my favorite news sources and they're all pissing in their pants. then the market closed and all the news articles were quietly swept under the rug. that's bullshit
Lemur Who/what does it effect?
Rommel everybody, the last time the stock market crashed was 1920. ever heard of a little thing called the great depression?
Lemur yeah but I don't know what that means... The stock market went down and suddenly everyone is poor... There was no money to back up the numbers... Where does it go?
Rommel it never existed to begin with, that's the secret. the idea of the stock market is that I have some money, and I give it to you in the form of stock, but everyone looks at me as if I still have it. you go spend it and give me some of what you make off of it, and whoever you give it to gives it away again as stock, but everyone looks at him as if he still had it. it just goes around and around until someone figures it out and wants their money back
Lemur When someone ends up with stock they can't use?
Lemur use/sell
Rommel yeah. the only reason people SHOULD by stock is that you get back a pretty good return on what you give out, based on what the company you gave it to is earning. but if the company suddenly doesn't make money anymore nobody wants it's stock and they all want their money back. the company won't give it, they spent it all, and nobody will buy it from them because it's worthless. so they just flushed their money down the toilet
Rommel they they think, "oh shit, maybe I should get rid of the rest of this stock before the same thing happens." something is only valuable if more people want it than has it, if nobody wants it it isn't worth anything, and the only reason managers and CEOs bust their asses for the company is that they have lots of stock and they want to keep it valuable. if they're stock isn't worth shit anymore they tend to shoot themselves and then all us workers don't have jobs anymore
Rommel the dow and nasdaq were pushed up by people saying 'hey! these dot.com stocks may make me a good return someday! I want to buy them NOW so I can make a lot of money later. these companies are never going to make money, and when the stock holders figure that out they find out all the money they spent would have been better utilized to kindle a fire to keep them warm when the next depression hits because of the morons and their dot.com stocks
Lemur oh..
Rommel see why I'm nervous yet?
Lemur yeah
Rommel AND NOT ONLY THAT, but everybody and their sister has been working for years and years to put money into a 401k plan, which is a way to put your money into the stock market. if the market crashes it's just bilked most of america out of their retirement plans. and people won't be happy with that
Lemur yikes
Rommel idiots, all of them. I have no money put into a 401k, because I would rather have that money now than watch it disolve later. like any jar, it only gets fuller as long as people put more into it than they take out. if everyone puts it in at once it looks like it's filling really fast, so people put more in. when people get old and start to take it back out, it turns into the social security system that there won't be a dime left in when I get old
Rommel the difference is that this time instead of a government program run bankrupt it will be the stock market, which is tied to our frigging jobs. IDIOTS. I want to move to the asteroid belt
Rommel the reason you don't hear about this is that nobody wants to hear it. it's making money right now, so screw the future. the ones putting it up will be living in barbados off the cash they milked off the market by the time push comes to shove
There being no quantifiable metric, conciousness can only be measured against other conciousness, IE the turring test. besides, what the heck are we besides excellent question answerers?
I think, and I can make others believe that I can think, therefor I must be
There is an artist web site on the internet that I visit every day, artists from around the world post pictures that they draw free for downloading without a second thought. The ones who want to make money off of their art do so in a way that I believe may be a valid analoge for the present situation with the music industry, they auction off the original picture or sell prints. The artists who create pieces that they don't wish distributed further place a 'please do not distribute' label on the digitized artwork. By and large this is respected by the community.
Best of all, it works. I get the art I want, the artist gets paid by people who have more money than I do, the artist gets respect, the person who paid the artist gets respect, and I am left to oooh, ahhh, and save my pennies for an original piece by my favorite artist. Everybody wins.
The key, however, is respect. The entire system is built around respect, the artists earn it, the fans give it. I have very little respect for the present music industry and they appear bound and determined to make that zero respect. Perhaps the survivors in the comming shakeup will realise that the only thing you earn by holding your fanbase at gunpoint is resentment.
Ooooh, I can't wait for the day they install the entertainment chip in my brain. I mean sure, that leaves me vulnerable to the persuaderon, but if the Company wants it who am I to argue? Hey, I wonder how hard it is to get into Agent training.
Every time I see these giant mergers I am reminded of the plotline of that old game, Syndicate. Giant globe spanning companies controling every aspect of peoples lives, and able to backdoor into their brains at the drop of a hat.
Slashdot Mirror
4/15/00 2:57 AM Rommel Ooooh, the stock market makes me wish I had nippels the size of toledo so I could rent them out to survive the coming great depression!
Lemur *points out you have created a terribly confunsed fox with that statement*
Rommel it's badnasty
Lemur rEAL BAD? HOW COME i HAVEN'T EVEN HEARD ABOUT IT? (oops, caps lock) I watch the news every day.
Rommel they're trying to downplay the hell out of it, but the dow was down 744 points on friday, it creeped back up to 612 down, but that's still down
Lemur What does it mean?
Rommel it means the investors are running scared, the stock market was melting like a candle in a quasar
Lemur *a clueless face greets you...
Rommel http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/2000 0414/aonline210441_000.htm
Lemur That looks not-fun to read..
Rommel well that's what it's all about. if you want to know, go there. someone has censored the press of the rest of the country
Rommel the worst stock market drop EVER and no news about it in america? that's bullshit, I watched the mother f'er happen
Lemur Stock fox?
Rommel tell everyone you know, biggest market drop ever and they're trying to sweep it under the rug
Rommel I woke up, I joined a couple channels on undernet, someone mentioned the stock market was disolving. I understand the stock market rather well, so that filled me with an odd mixture of glee and fear. I hit my favorite news sources and they're all pissing in their pants. then the market closed and all the news articles were quietly swept under the rug. that's bullshit
Lemur Who/what does it effect?
Rommel everybody, the last time the stock market crashed was 1920. ever heard of a little thing called the great depression?
Lemur yeah but I don't know what that means... The stock market went down and suddenly everyone is poor... There was no money to back up the numbers... Where does it go?
Rommel it never existed to begin with, that's the secret. the idea of the stock market is that I have some money, and I give it to you in the form of stock, but everyone looks at me as if I still have it. you go spend it and give me some of what you make off of it, and whoever you give it to gives it away again as stock, but everyone looks at him as if he still had it. it just goes around and around until someone figures it out and wants their money back
Lemur When someone ends up with stock they can't use?
Lemur use/sell
Rommel yeah. the only reason people SHOULD by stock is that you get back a pretty good return on what you give out, based on what the company you gave it to is earning. but if the company suddenly doesn't make money anymore nobody wants it's stock and they all want their money back. the company won't give it, they spent it all, and nobody will buy it from them because it's worthless. so they just flushed their money down the toilet
Rommel they they think, "oh shit, maybe I should get rid of the rest of this stock before the same thing happens." something is only valuable if more people want it than has it, if nobody wants it it isn't worth anything, and the only reason managers and CEOs bust their asses for the company is that they have lots of stock and they want to keep it valuable. if they're stock isn't worth shit anymore they tend to shoot themselves and then all us workers don't have jobs anymore
Rommel the dow and nasdaq were pushed up by people saying 'hey! these dot.com stocks may make me a good return someday! I want to buy them NOW so I can make a lot of money later. these companies are never going to make money, and when the stock holders figure that out they find out all the money they spent would have been better utilized to kindle a fire to keep them warm when the next depression hits because of the morons and their dot.com stocks
Lemur oh..
Rommel see why I'm nervous yet?
Lemur yeah
Rommel AND NOT ONLY THAT, but everybody and their sister has been working for years and years to put money into a 401k plan, which is a way to put your money into the stock market. if the market crashes it's just bilked most of america out of their retirement plans. and people won't be happy with that
Lemur yikes
Rommel idiots, all of them. I have no money put into a 401k, because I would rather have that money now than watch it disolve later. like any jar, it only gets fuller as long as people put more into it than they take out. if everyone puts it in at once it looks like it's filling really fast, so people put more in. when people get old and start to take it back out, it turns into the social security system that there won't be a dime left in when I get old
Rommel the difference is that this time instead of a government program run bankrupt it will be the stock market, which is tied to our frigging jobs. IDIOTS. I want to move to the asteroid belt
Rommel the reason you don't hear about this is that nobody wants to hear it. it's making money right now, so screw the future. the ones putting it up will be living in barbados off the cash they milked off the market by the time push comes to shove
I think, and I can make others believe that I can think, therefor I must be
Best of all, it works. I get the art I want, the artist gets paid by people who have more money than I do, the artist gets respect, the person who paid the artist gets respect, and I am left to oooh, ahhh, and save my pennies for an original piece by my favorite artist. Everybody wins.
The key, however, is respect. The entire system is built around respect, the artists earn it, the fans give it. I have very little respect for the present music industry and they appear bound and determined to make that zero respect. Perhaps the survivors in the comming shakeup will realise that the only thing you earn by holding your fanbase at gunpoint is resentment.
Every time I see these giant mergers I am reminded of the plotline of that old game, Syndicate. Giant globe spanning companies controling every aspect of peoples lives, and able to backdoor into their brains at the drop of a hat.