Because it is your duty as a privileged member of this (what I consider excellent) country to help your fellow citizens.
This is the price you pay for living here.
The most Darwinian society I can think of was Europe in the Middle Ages... people only cared for themselves, and the best rose to the top. Well, progress was only set back about 300 years under this system.
Capitalism is not Darwinism. We are better than that.
But unfortunately, you are in the minority. Most people are not able to rise above this. I am sure it was a struggle for you, and not everyone can do that without help. It is not wrong to want to help other members of our society... especially a portion that we have literally held back for countless generations, and whom the majority of children are now born to this awful predicament. The U.S.A. created this problem... it is not because black people were simply lazy, it was because they were forced to be that way. And I believe we need to fix it.
But i need to state again that I do not favor welfare at all. The parents are esssentially hopeless... we need to give that money to the children, by means of scholarships and computers. They are the ones with the chance to rise above their situations.
Your first paragraph is an economic argument -- not a racial one. You are making the mistake of equating correlation with causation.
The subject of your first paragraph could be black, white, hispanic, or asian, etc. Using racial instead of economic methods to identify such an economic situation is simply racist.
No, it is not. Black people in the U.S. have taken more shit than any other members of our society (with the possible exception of American Indians). They were not even awarded full citizenship until 30 years ago for Christ's sake!!! You have to remember that. That is a huge disadvantage!!!
The majority of this culture has grown up knowing absolutely nothing but poverty and ignorance... it is not as simple as many have suggested to just state that they now have the oportunities as everyone else. They do not.
these people were not awarded full participation in our society until only 30 years ago! You have to remember that. No other ethnicity in America had to work so hard just to become equal.
Blacks in America have grown up with poverty for so many countless generations that it takes a rare individual indeed to rise above this. If all you, your family, your friends and community know is ignorance and poverty... your chances of overcoming this are very slim.
Yes, many are able to do it, but the majority are not... and it is not because they are lazy, they just know nothing else!
we live in a civilized society. It is not insulting to "pamper" one aspect of our society that has been shit on for hundreds of years.
And by pampering, i do not mean welfare... i mean going out of our way to see to it that black children receive scholarships (not the parents, they will never be able to get out of it) and computers. We need to give them the chance that they really do not have now.
It is unfortunate that African Americans are continuously used as a substitute for "the underclass". Largely true, but unfortunate.
There is often a reason why people are poor. Some were born poor, without the means to rise above it. Whether lacking skills or the ability and oportunities to learn those skills, it rarely happens that someone is able to overcome their birthright. If all you know is based on ignorance and poverty, chances are, that is all that will ever come out of you.
Then there are people that are lazy. Their job or trade gets "replaced", and they simply do not want to learn another. Our society has made it relatively easy to live by essentially doing nothing. For many of these people the effort to get educated and get a job that might pay a smidgin above wellfare is not economically sensible.
Why are blacks considered poor and lazy?
You have to consider where these people come from. Here you have an entire race that did not earn their full participation in this country until only 30 years ago!!! That always blows my mind. This culture has been associated with poverty in the United States since the country was born. The majority of these people have known nothing but ignorance and poverty, and it is only because they had the bad luck to born black in the U.S.
It takes an exceptional person to rise above this. We all have seen it done on many occasions, but unfortunately the majority are not able to. And it is not because they do not try and are lazy, but because they have been ingrained that life is this way from the day they were born.
As to the people who state, "well now they have every oportunity as everyone else and we should not bend over backwards to accomodate them!", I do not really agree with. They do not have every oportunity in the world. Not when the a large number of them are born poor. That is a huge disadvantage, and the reason they were born poor is because of the direct (or lack of) actions of our country.
So I do think we need to go out of our way to help this society of poor black americans. I do think we "owe" it to them in a way. Not to go so far as to disadvantage others, but to concentrate more on giving more opportunities to rise above the poverty they have known for generations and generations. These are not people getting "replaced" and are now lazy... they never had a place!
And I guarantee that those that now and hopefully will have a place in our society, will stay there! We need to go out of our way to give them the oportunities that we kept away from them only 30 years ago!
They are members of our civilization, and whether you like it or not, we have a duty to see that all of us can make it. Pure Darwinism worked in the middle ages... and society was set back 100's of years.
Yes, but that is exactly how most of these companies measure their success now. They certainly do not have any type of profits to brag about. But they can say that the traffic to their site has increased 75% over the past quarter.
That is exactly what advertisers (what many of these sites depend on) look for when determining where to put up banners. A lot of time all they really care about is how many people will merely glance at their ad, because only like.001% will even click on it.
That the web contracts is certainly what those "first come" internet companies are banking on. While I think it is true to a point. I do not think these companies can ever let up and let their profit margins widen (like a "real" company could) as their brand name becomes more widely instated in peoples' subconscious. A "click" is still only 10 seconds away (less shortly), as oposed to a 15 minute car drive.
I still would not place a big bet on any of the Yahoo's, Amazon's and Ebays' will still be number ones in ten years to come.
Makes you wonder why Microsoft does not have its own channel yet.
As internet providers are leaning more towards the free side, AOL needs new sources of revenue. No matter how happy people are with their service, eventually, the offer for free service is going to make an impression on them. I am sure AOL sees this coming.
but remember that Compaq has recently laid of about 8,000 employees. and a lot of their top-brass has left (whether fired our on their own). Definitely a lot of restructuring going on.
Do you mean a "Rise up and fight" revolution? I do not see us needing that.
One thing that I see that I do like is someone like Jesse "The Body" Ventura getting elected to political office. That sends a message. Granted, he is not going to be able to accomplish much at all, but the fact that American people have supported him, and other non-politicians (including Ross Perot) is a good sign. While i may not agree with everything they stand for.. at least they are making some room for people to come along and actually make those changes.
This country is great... we just have to hope that people do not become so content that they sit back and watch TV as their rights are taken away.
Things are not that hopeless as to warrant revolution.
Exactly... this comunity loves to tinker. If not, then Mindscape(?) for Legos would not have been so popular. People did not crack the code in the hopes of getting paid by Lego, they did so to in order to be creative, and perhaps, to make a useful tool that was above and beyond the scope of what already existed. I do not feel the open source community is in danger of falling completely to the evils of money (yes, obviously some will)... but as long as the code remains open, hackers are going to continue to tinker. Linux will continue to evolve.
The average person feels powerless (yes, I am average, and yes, I feel powerless).
Do we write our senators, congessmen and mayor? I think most people would consider that a waste of time, and instead, just *hope* that someone is willing to stick up for the average person.
I will write the letter however, I will sign the petition and I will voice my opinions. But I still feel relatively powerless. My main hope is that there are politicians and law makers out there who will denounce this, and these plans will not go through.
In the midst of this anti-hype, it's still important to keep in mind that short term profits aren't everything: Amazon.com, which has never turned a profit, is worth much more than a mom and pop store making a modest profit.
Yes, but the stock price of Amazon.com has already realized that potential.
If you buy Amazon.com right now, for a long term investment, you are betting that Amazon.com will be able to succesfully run Borders and Barnes & Nobles out of business. They need to, in order to justify their market capitalization at the moment.
So yes, you are buying on potential... but in this case, it has already gone well beyond what would be even remotely sane growth estimates
I can give the numbers to back this, if anyone wants to dispute me.
For every company that has established a name for itself on the Internet, there are hundreds more each week that are coming out with the same products or services. The barriers to entry are that low. Already we are seeing some Internet companies give service away for free, planning on relying completely on advertising. That is not a strong business plan in my opinion.
Another problem with pure internet companies is that while there is some loyalty, a better price on exactly the same service or product is only a "click" away.
While this is wonderful for consumers, it makes it very dificult for the companies.
Personally, I believe that the companies that make it will be the late-comers. Portals will be owned by "established" companies (many, such as Infoseek and Altavista already are). AT&T and Microsoft will become the largest ISP's. Wall Mart, Toys R Us, Barnes & Nobles, etc... will become the largest goods providers on the Internet. These companies have the revenues and profits to support a losing game like the Internet. Venture Capitalists throwing money left and right to anything with a "dot com", and insanely high stock prices are not going to last forever. The profits have to be there.
I do not think you can put Yahoo and Cisco in the same boat. Yahoo is a pure internet company, Cisco is far from it.
A company like Cisco, which supplies much of the backbone and the "means" of the Internet has a much more solid foothold. While Yahoo has name recognition, I would not bet that they will be around ten years from now (though it certainly is possible).
Never had the opportunity (well I suppose I could get them for $71). But I would not want Redhat to compose more than 10 or 15% of my portfolio, at the most. There are plenty of established, quality growth companies out there at the moment "on sale".
While I have agreed with just about everything you have posted, it is a little general to just say that Price to Earnings Ratios have averaged around 20 (though I assume you wanted to keep your posts less than a full blown essay:). This differs (sometimes greatly) from industry to industry. Brand name companies warrant a higher P/E. Technology and growth companies have similarily deserved higher ratios. Small caps will also typically have a high P/E ratio (which is why many say they are a great buy right now). Historically, they have been going up... though not any where near a point to warrant some of the valuations out there. But historically, a P/E of 15 is considered normal, with 10 being low! You would be tough pressed to find any large-cap companies trading that low (with any growth prospects at all). This could be a result from the stock market slowly, over time, losing a lot of its risk in my opinion. Debate is open. But the stock market does change. There was a time when a great sign to sell stocks was when dividend yields in dropped below or near bond yields. But in the 1950's this changed.
My only (small) point is that using 20 as a standard for rating P/E's is probably a mistake (albeit a minor one).
I chagrins me to no end that 401k's are not self-directed, but I guess they are that way to protect idiots from losing all their retirement money... but then, isn't that what social security is for?
While I am a huge advocate of a long-term buy, hold & accumulate philosophy. IPO's do not fall in this category. Especially if you are a younger investor, and do not have a core holding of quality companies already. If you took out your student loans, or barely squeezed out enough to buy your shares of Redhat, the responsible and best thing for you to do is sell. Historically, IPO's have had less than a 5% average annual return over their first 10 years, and that is only counting the few that actually make it that long. Sell the majority of your Redhat shares and invest that in a (or a few) quality company. If you feel strongly that there will be huge profits in linux, invest in IBM, Intel, Compaq, Dell or any of the other more established companies that have begun to use Linux. Redhat is not a safe investment... do not put your retirement money there.
I expect the stock to level out well below $50/share (based on value of company and emotional attachment to stock by affinity program members), and when that happens I will add it to my 401K tax-defered account and hold on to RHAT.
What kind of 401k plan do you have that allows you to buy individual stocks!?
You could buy the shares in a self-directed regular or Roth IRA however.
Wait a couple months.. till they report earnings a few times..
Companies report earnings quarterly. Redhat is planning on going further into the red in the future, so the next earnings report is not going to show too much.
Shorting is a quick way to bury yourself by the way. You can't short a stock after its IPO, whether you got it at the opening or not, anyways.
"people made a lot of money on RHAT stock" - Really so if I got in on the IPO, then I can't short the stock until 30 days by SEC rules right? so if it goes down to $25 I got (from $12.. ~doubled my money) not some of these claims...
Or if I got in on the price of $47 dollars on IPO day and now its $67 ~ I made about 150% gain so what..
I think you either have very poor grammar skills, or very bad math skills... or maybe a combination, but this does not make any sense to me.
Despite this, I see no reason for this post to be moderated down to a -1.
E-Trade quite simply was not able to handle this sort of thing. They tried their best.
In the future do not invest through on-line brokerage accounts. You will not have the service when you need it (it is even legal for them to freeze your account for up to 60 days).
Transfer your accounts at E-Trade to a full-service brokerage firm. The extra commision you pay will be serve you much better over the long-haul. And, there is no fee to do a transfer.
If they can not handle a bevy of slashdot investors with questions, how are they going to be able to handle a market crash!?
Slashdot Mirror
Because you live in a civilized society.
Because it is your duty as a privileged member of this (what I consider excellent) country to help your fellow citizens.
This is the price you pay for living here.
The most Darwinian society I can think of was Europe in the Middle Ages... people only cared for themselves, and the best rose to the top. Well, progress was only set back about 300 years under this system.
Capitalism is not Darwinism. We are better than that.
That is wonderful and applaudable (seriously).
But unfortunately, you are in the minority. Most people are not able to rise above this. I am sure it was a struggle for you, and not everyone can do that without help. It is not wrong to want to help other members of our society... especially a portion that we have literally held back for countless generations, and whom the majority of children are now born to this awful predicament.
The U.S.A. created this problem... it is not because black people were simply lazy, it was because they were forced to be that way. And I believe we need to fix it.
But i need to state again that I do not favor welfare at all. The parents are esssentially hopeless... we need to give that money to the children, by means of scholarships and computers. They are the ones with the chance to rise above their situations.
Your first paragraph is an economic argument -- not a racial one. You are making the mistake of equating
correlation with causation.
The subject of your first paragraph could be black, white, hispanic, or asian, etc. Using racial instead of
economic methods to identify such an economic situation is simply racist.
No, it is not. Black people in the U.S. have taken more shit than any other members of our society (with the possible exception of American Indians). They were not even awarded full citizenship until 30 years ago for Christ's sake!!! You have to remember that. That is a huge disadvantage!!!
The majority of this culture has grown up knowing absolutely nothing but poverty and ignorance... it is not as simple as many have suggested to just state that they now have the oportunities as everyone else. They do not.
As i have posted down further...
these people were not awarded full participation in our society until only 30 years ago! You have to remember that. No other ethnicity in America had to work so hard just to become equal.
Blacks in America have grown up with poverty for so many countless generations that it takes a rare individual indeed to rise above this. If all you, your family, your friends and community know is ignorance and poverty... your chances of overcoming this are very slim.
Yes, many are able to do it, but the majority are not... and it is not because they are lazy, they just know nothing else!
we live in a civilized society. It is not insulting to "pamper" one aspect of our society that has been shit on for hundreds of years.
And by pampering, i do not mean welfare... i mean going out of our way to see to it that black children receive scholarships (not the parents, they will never be able to get out of it) and computers. We need to give them the chance that they really do not have now.
It is unfortunate that African Americans are continuously used as a substitute for "the underclass". Largely true, but unfortunate.
There is often a reason why people are poor.
Some were born poor, without the means to rise above it. Whether lacking skills or the ability and oportunities to learn those skills, it rarely happens that someone is able to overcome their birthright. If all you know is based on ignorance and poverty, chances are, that is all that will ever come out of you.
Then there are people that are lazy. Their job or trade gets "replaced", and they simply do not want to learn another. Our society has made it relatively easy to live by essentially doing nothing. For many of these people the effort to get educated and get a job that might pay a smidgin above wellfare is not economically sensible.
Why are blacks considered poor and lazy?
You have to consider where these people come from. Here you have an entire race that did not earn their full participation in this country until only 30 years ago!!! That always blows my mind. This culture has been associated with poverty in the United States since the country was born. The majority of these people have known nothing but ignorance and poverty, and it is only because they had the bad luck to born black in the U.S.
It takes an exceptional person to rise above this. We all have seen it done on many occasions, but unfortunately the majority are not able to. And it is not because they do not try and are lazy, but because they have been ingrained that life is this way from the day they were born.
As to the people who state, "well now they have every oportunity as everyone else and we should not bend over backwards to accomodate them!", I do not really agree with. They do not have every oportunity in the world. Not when the a large number of them are born poor. That is a huge disadvantage, and the reason they were born poor is because of the direct (or lack of) actions of our country.
So I do think we need to go out of our way to help this society of poor black americans. I do think we "owe" it to them in a way. Not to go so far as to disadvantage others, but to concentrate more on giving more opportunities to rise above the poverty they have known for generations and generations. These are not people getting "replaced" and are now lazy... they never had a place!
And I guarantee that those that now and hopefully will have a place in our society, will stay there!
We need to go out of our way to give them the oportunities that we kept away from them only 30 years ago!
They are members of our civilization, and whether you like it or not, we have a duty to see that all of us can make it. Pure Darwinism worked in the middle ages... and society was set back 100's of years.
Does anyone know how the internet connection is going to work?
I have heard that AT&T was in talks with Sega to provide free connection to the Dreamcasts, but I am not sure if it happened.
Is it something you are going to have to add on to later?
I think this is the most exciting thing about the new consoles coming out.
Yes, but that is exactly how most of these companies measure their success now. They certainly do not have any type of profits to brag about. But they can say that the traffic to their site has increased 75% over the past quarter.
.001% will even click on it.
That is exactly what advertisers (what many of these sites depend on) look for when determining where to put up banners. A lot of time all they really care about is how many people will merely glance at their ad, because only like
So these statistics do mean a lot.
That the web contracts is certainly what those "first come" internet companies are banking on. While I think it is true to a point. I do not think these companies can ever let up and let their profit margins widen (like a "real" company could) as their brand name becomes more widely instated in peoples' subconscious.
A "click" is still only 10 seconds away (less shortly), as oposed to a 15 minute car drive.
I still would not place a big bet on any of the Yahoo's, Amazon's and Ebays' will still be number ones in ten years to come.
Makes you wonder why Microsoft does not have its own channel yet.
As internet providers are leaning more towards the free side, AOL needs new sources of revenue. No matter how happy people are with their service, eventually, the offer for free service is going to make an impression on them. I am sure AOL sees this coming.
but remember that Compaq has recently laid of about 8,000 employees.
and a lot of their top-brass has left (whether fired our on their own).
Definitely a lot of restructuring going on.
Do you mean a "Rise up and fight" revolution?
I do not see us needing that.
One thing that I see that I do like is someone like Jesse "The Body" Ventura getting elected to political office. That sends a message. Granted, he is not going to be able to accomplish much at all, but the fact that American people have supported him, and other non-politicians (including Ross Perot) is a good sign. While i may not agree with everything they stand for.. at least they are making some room for people to come along and actually make those changes.
This country is great... we just have to hope that people do not become so content that they sit back and watch TV as their rights are taken away.
Things are not that hopeless as to warrant revolution.
Exactly... this comunity loves to tinker. If not, then Mindscape(?) for Legos would not have been so popular. People did not crack the code in the hopes of getting paid by Lego, they did so to in order to be creative, and perhaps, to make a useful tool that was above and beyond the scope of what already existed.
I do not feel the open source community is in danger of falling completely to the evils of money (yes, obviously some will)... but as long as the code remains open, hackers are going to continue to tinker. Linux will continue to evolve.
The average person feels powerless (yes, I am average, and yes, I feel powerless).
Do we write our senators, congessmen and mayor?
I think most people would consider that a waste of time, and instead, just *hope* that someone is willing to stick up for the average person.
I will write the letter however, I will sign the petition and I will voice my opinions. But I still feel relatively powerless. My main hope is that there are politicians and law makers out there who will denounce this, and these plans will not go through.
In the midst of this anti-hype, it's still important to keep in mind that short term profits aren't everything:
Amazon.com, which has never turned a profit, is worth much more than a mom and pop store making a
modest profit.
Yes, but the stock price of Amazon.com has already realized that potential.
If you buy Amazon.com right now, for a long term investment, you are betting that Amazon.com will be able to succesfully run Borders and Barnes & Nobles out of business.
They need to, in order to justify their market capitalization at the moment.
So yes, you are buying on potential... but in this case, it has already gone well beyond what would be even remotely sane growth estimates
I can give the numbers to back this, if anyone wants to dispute me.
For every company that has established a name for itself on the Internet, there are hundreds more each week that are coming out with the same products or services. The barriers to entry are that low. Already we are seeing some Internet companies give service away for free, planning on relying completely on advertising. That is not a strong business plan in my opinion.
Another problem with pure internet companies is that while there is some loyalty, a better price on exactly the same service or product is only a "click" away.
While this is wonderful for consumers, it makes it very dificult for the companies.
Personally, I believe that the companies that make it will be the late-comers. Portals will be owned by "established" companies (many, such as Infoseek and Altavista already are). AT&T and Microsoft will become the largest ISP's. Wall Mart, Toys R Us, Barnes & Nobles, etc... will become the largest goods providers on the Internet.
These companies have the revenues and profits to support a losing game like the Internet.
Venture Capitalists throwing money left and right to anything with a "dot com", and insanely high stock prices are not going to last forever. The profits have to be there.
I do not think you can put Yahoo and Cisco in the same boat.
Yahoo is a pure internet company, Cisco is far from it.
A company like Cisco, which supplies much of the backbone and the "means" of the Internet has a much more solid foothold. While Yahoo has name recognition, I would not bet that they will be around ten years from now (though it certainly is possible).
Never had the opportunity (well I suppose I could get them for $71).
But I would not want Redhat to compose more than 10 or 15% of my portfolio, at the most.
There are plenty of established, quality growth companies out there at the moment "on sale".
While I have agreed with just about everything you have posted, it is a little general to just say that Price to Earnings Ratios have averaged around 20 (though I assume you wanted to keep your posts less than a full blown essay:). This differs (sometimes greatly) from industry to industry.
Brand name companies warrant a higher P/E. Technology and growth companies have similarily deserved higher ratios. Small caps will also typically have a high P/E ratio (which is why many say they are a great buy right now).
Historically, they have been going up... though not any where near a point to warrant some of the valuations out there. But historically, a P/E of 15 is considered normal, with 10 being low! You would be tough pressed to find any large-cap companies trading that low (with any growth prospects at all). This could be a result from the stock market slowly, over time, losing a lot of its risk in my opinion. Debate is open.
But the stock market does change. There was a time when a great sign to sell stocks was when dividend yields in dropped below or near bond yields. But in the 1950's this changed.
My only (small) point is that using 20 as a standard for rating P/E's is probably a mistake (albeit a minor one).
I chagrins me to no end that 401k's are not self-directed, but I guess they are that way to protect idiots from losing all their retirement money... but then, isn't that what social security is for?
sorry to be anal...
While I am a huge advocate of a long-term buy, hold & accumulate philosophy. IPO's do not fall in this category.
Especially if you are a younger investor, and do not have a core holding of quality companies already.
If you took out your student loans, or barely squeezed out enough to buy your shares of Redhat, the responsible and best thing for you to do is sell.
Historically, IPO's have had less than a 5% average annual return over their first 10 years, and that is only counting the few that actually make it that long.
Sell the majority of your Redhat shares and invest that in a (or a few) quality company.
If you feel strongly that there will be huge profits in linux, invest in IBM, Intel, Compaq, Dell or any of the other more established companies that have begun to use Linux.
Redhat is not a safe investment... do not put your retirement money there.
I expect the stock to level out well below $50/share (based on value of company and emotional attachment
to stock by affinity program members), and when that happens I will add it to my 401K tax-defered account
and hold on to RHAT.
What kind of 401k plan do you have that allows you to buy individual stocks!?
You could buy the shares in a self-directed regular or Roth IRA however.
Wait a couple months.. till they
report earnings a few times..
Companies report earnings quarterly. Redhat is planning on going further into the red in the future, so the next earnings report is not going to show too much.
Slow day at work.....
Shorting is a quick way to bury yourself by the way. You can't short a stock after its IPO, whether you got it at the opening or not, anyways.
"people made a lot of money on RHAT stock" - Really so if I got in on the IPO, then I can't short the
stock until 30 days by SEC rules right? so if it goes down to $25 I got (from $12.. ~doubled my money) not
some of these claims...
Or if I got in on the price of $47 dollars on IPO day and now its $67 ~ I made about 150% gain so what..
I think you either have very poor grammar skills, or very bad math skills... or maybe a combination, but this does not make any sense to me.
Despite this, I see no reason for this post to be moderated down to a -1.
E-Trade quite simply was not able to handle this sort of thing. They tried their best.
In the future do not invest through on-line brokerage accounts. You will not have the service when you need it (it is even legal for them to freeze your account for up to 60 days).
Transfer your accounts at E-Trade to a full-service brokerage firm. The extra commision you pay will be serve you much better over the long-haul. And, there is no fee to do a transfer.
If they can not handle a bevy of slashdot investors with questions, how are they going to be able to handle a market crash!?
If you want help or more info., e-mail me.
I've heard stories that companies like Microsoft have $1B war-chests
that they rarely dip into....
Actually, Microsoft currently has over $20 billion sitting in its coffers. And no debt.
Cash is King.