Just for the fun of it, I answered the Candidate Selecter in the most bleeding-heart, left-wing, idealistic, whiney-assed liberal way possible, and Ralph Nader came up on top with a strong showing at 86.
I think Clinton's plan of having the government invest a portion of Social Security is about the most God-Awful idea I have ever heard of in my life.
Could you imagine the federal government being an influential shareholder in the 500 largest companies in America!?
I would like to see social security either done away with (for individuals under the age of 30 or so), or the ability to invest a portion of that money into (approved) equities... but YOUR ownership, not the governments.
It would be nice to see a candidate come up with a realistic plan of lowering taxes. Definitely estate taxes (the end-all of the small businessman) and capitla gains taxes, but also income taxes. I really do feel we are paying tad more than our forefathers had ever envisioned.
I have not seen one who has come up with such a plan however.
Yes, I read that article... they still have no idea if it is really even there, and most likely it is not a planet, but a small asteroid that found its way in our system's orbit.
About 15 years ago, this was big news... when it came up again recently, it barely caused a murmer.
Whether or not the bug results in disruptions in service anywhere in the world, the process of fixing the bug and guaranteeing compliance has cost the world economy billions of dollars.
It has cost over a trillion dollars in the US alone. All in one-time expenditures... pretty incredible.
How many of you really watch movies on your computer?
Maybe I am weird, but I would much rather have the comfort of my couch.
A quality DVD player is available nowadays at $300 dollars... is that outrageous?
While I fully support and side with the individuals being threatened here, I tend to think both sides are over-reacting. Obviously, pirated DVD's are not the advent of a social apocolypse as the industry claims... but neither is this quite the "fight to save our individual freedoms" as many on this site so loudly proclaim.
As someone pointed out yesterday: We could never watch VHS tapes on our computers... what is the huge deal!?
Hell, there are probably 100's of links to mirrored site on Slashdot alone. Their best move would be to shut down Slashdot itself.:)
This whole thing is so silly... I keep trying to think about what is the worst thing that could happen to the industry as a result of this, and I fail to come up with much at all.
So a handful of people are not going to pa for DVD's and will copy them. Well, the same amount of people have always done it with VCR tapes, cassete tapes, and CD's... are those industries hurting as a result of it!? Plus, DVDs, as pointed out numerous times, are a pain in the ass to copy and store in the first place... more so than any of the others.
I wonder if the industry has spent more in legal fees over this, than they ever would have lost to pirated software.
Is something still a trade secret if it has been reverse engineered? I thought this was the trade off between patenting and keeping something a trade secret. Surely they can't have it both ways?
I would compare it to discovering someone's "secret sauce" and using yourself, and/or marketing it. Not much they can do about that... tough shit in other words.
Or like the time my aunt discovered my grandma's recipe for oat meal cookies... whoa, was there a scandal in the family when that happened!!! While she used many threats, there was not much legal action she could take:)
That literature would not exist if the Persians had accomplished their goal.
Actually, the Persians were wonderful (by any standards) to their conquered lands. They did not rape, pillage, burn like the standard conquering armies. The Persians allowed conquered lands to practice their religions and govern in their own ways. All they did was collect taxes. One reason why they were so succesful.
The Persians weren't all bad, and the Greeks weren't all good.
Correct. The Persians under that time (though not necesarily with Xerces), were much more civilized than their Western contemporaries. The majority of the work in mathematics and medecine (which we still use today) was coming from the Persians. It trully was a great civilization.
You are missing it as well. The point is that science is not ready to handle it's creations. Dr. Frankenstein reacted as anyone might when their experiments go not as planned. He should not have been messing around with life in the first place... because when he did ultimately reject his creation, the repurcusions were more than he ever imagined. Katz uses an appropriate (if not easy) analogy here.
These scientists are not creating an existing life form, they would be creating an entirely new form of life. New being the key word here! Just think of a couple worst case scenarios please. Does Steven King's The Stand mean anything to anyone?
This is pretty scary stuff. Bacteria has not always had the best relationship with mankind.
You would be a fool to get out of the market before the year is over. That is market timing, and not one single person has ever been able to do that succesfully.
If you are invested in the internet bubble, you should be out of it anyways... find yourself some quality growth companies at reasonable prices, there are plenty out there. Hell, if you want help... write me.
The market has come bounding back after every single market crash or correction within 10 years! Ride it out... you will be very happ you did.
Do you think Warren Buffet will be leaving the market?
For those recommending to put your money in oil or gold... that is just ludicrous. Those markets can be just as volatile as the stock market. Interest rates can kill them. The difference is, over time, they do not appreciate... the stock market does.
I recommend putting money in BEFORE the year is over, in an attempt to take part in a possible influx of money when the year is over and the world does not come to an end (we hope). Raise a little cash or place some limit orders so you can catch some quality companies if they are riding any waves down.
What I am trying to come up with is the current operations value of the company.... granted, I ran these numbers a year ago.
This is an attempt to figure out what Amazon.com would be worth if there were no future growth. Obviously, that is difficult because the company is not makin any money now. So we take away what I would consider to be start up costs (well, at least they certainly call it that).
10% is a normal operating margin... I would submit that because of the low barriers to entry and competitive pricing nature fo the internet, that it should be much lower... but I gave them that.
I then believe market value to equal current operation value plus future growth value.... which I did above, figuring on a future growth value of $10.7 billion or so.
Keep in mind, Amazon's market value is approximately 5 times as much as Barnes Nobles and Borders combined! That figures in for some amazing growth in the future. Around $63 billion in sales per year in about ten years from what I came up with at the time.
It also seems strange that any company who's cost of capital is 15% who choose to invest that capital in further operations that only yeild 10%! What a silly idea. I could (a) take the 40 Million I now own (net of Dividend Payments) and invest it in whatever is generating this 15% cost of capital and earn a healthy 15%, or I can (b) reinvest this money into my company which is generating 10% ROI; I think there is no real choice involved. (For reference, I work for a company who assumes a cost of capital of 8% (this year) and won't allocate budget dollars to a project expected to earn under 16%, and I work for a very conservative company!)
Yes, you work for a very conservqative company which actually makes money. Maybe we might agree that their business model is a little *flawed*... the whole idea right now is to pump money into operations yielding nothing, or very little. Hoping that someday, sheer volume and name presence can overcome this. Welcome to business on the internet, you can not use common sense.
VA Linux and amazon.com have a lot of potential... the point here, is that potential has already been reached in it's stock price, and even exceeded.
At the time I ran the model (one year ago... almost to the T), Amazon.com was comparable to VA Linux... sorry for not making that apparent.
amazon was grossly over-priced then, and it is today... even though tons of people have made a lot of money on it... the vast majority are going to lose their shirts. I just do not know when it is going to happen.
Because you actualyl own a share of the company with the stock, the price has to correlate with the business at some point... it has for the past 500 years... no matter how much the internet, biotechnology, computers, TV, cars, the radio, spices and tulips change the world.
Imagine if you had bought Dell stock when they went public.
Actually.. it is not as impressive as you think.
Dell went public in 1988.... for four straight years after their IPO, Dell stock languished without making any real gains.
In fact, in 1990 it was trading at 40% less than what it IPO'd for.
Would you have been able to hold onto it for that long after losing almost half your money after over two years?
It is never that great to get in on an IPO at the ground floor. Dell is a one in a million company where it would have eventually paid off. Get in on a company when it is established, has proved it knows how to make money and trades at a reasonable valuation.
It really is unfortunate that this happens. I also believe VA Linux is an excellent company, and I would love to own a piece of it... but I also want my money to appreciate, and at this level the company has a TON to grow before the stock price has any reason to go up.
The way I see it, VA Linux is not going to be a good investment for another 5 - 10 years (even if the company continues to do wonderfully)... unless the prices crashes back to reality.
As an interesting side note... over the past 20 years, IPO's have had an average annual return of less than 5%... and that only counts the ones that have made it!!!!
Not the best place to be investing... I will go with the proven ones any day.
Let me give you an idea of how ridiculous it really is.
Right now, VA Linux has approximately the same market cap of Amazon.com = $11 billion.
The reason I am going to talk about Amazon is because I recently ran a model on Amazon... but not on VA Linux.
Sales in 1998 for Amazon.com were $590 million. VA Linux had $14 million.
For both companies, we can assume an operating margin (profit) of about 10% (Both are in highly competitive areas, with VA Linux having significantl higher barriers to entry). This will give us abou $40 million in net opertating income after taxes for Amazon.com (exluding startup costs). Assuming absolutely no growth out of Amazon.com, what would $40 million over the next 10 years be worth?
To get that number, we need a discount rate, or the cost of capital needed to generate those earnings. Because the stock is volatile, we assume a high cost... 15%. Divide $40 million by 15% which gives us $270 million.
With no future growth, this is what Amazon.com would be worth ten years from now $270 million Which equals about $2.25 per share.
Obviously, investors are betting that Amazon *IS* going to be growing over the next ten years... but let's find out how much they are betting on ti growing:
Simply subtract $270 million from the current market market value ($11 billion), which gives us $10.7 billion roundly. How much do they need to grow? Well, by putting these numbers into our handy financial calculators we come up with an average annual return of 59.6% a year for ten years assuming margins of 10% and a 15% capital cost. Is this unrealistic? You bet.
Another way to look at it:
Barnes & Nobles and Borders together generate about $5.3 billion in sales with a scant 2% profit margin. People buying Amazon.com right now, are betting that they will completely run Brders and Barnes & Nobles out of business, as well as succesfully stealing a ton of market share from other business areas it is entering into.
Well, VA Linux generates even less revenue than Amazon.com... yet is valued just as high. Throw in increased pressure from IBM, Sun Microsystems, Compaq and Dell, and you are looking at a company with absolutely no room for error.
Slashdot Mirror
Just for the fun of it, I answered the Candidate Selecter in the most bleeding-heart, left-wing, idealistic, whiney-assed liberal way possible, and Ralph Nader came up on top with a strong showing at 86.
:)
That's what I am thinking about.
I think Clinton's plan of having the government invest a portion of Social Security is about the most God-Awful idea I have ever heard of in my life.
Could you imagine the federal government being an influential shareholder in the 500 largest companies in America!?
I would like to see social security either done away with (for individuals under the age of 30 or so), or the ability to invest a portion of that money into (approved) equities... but YOUR ownership, not the governments.
It would be nice to see a candidate come up with a realistic plan of lowering taxes. Definitely estate taxes (the end-all of the small businessman) and capitla gains taxes, but also income taxes. I really do feel we are paying tad more than our forefathers had ever envisioned.
I have not seen one who has come up with such a plan however.
Yes, I read that article... they still have no idea if it is really even there, and most likely it is not a planet, but a small asteroid that found its way in our system's orbit.
About 15 years ago, this was big news... when it came up again recently, it barely caused a murmer.
Whether or not the bug results in disruptions in service anywhere in the world, the process of fixing the bug and guaranteeing compliance has cost the world economy billions of dollars.
It has cost over a trillion dollars in the US alone. All in one-time expenditures... pretty incredible.
How about the elusive 10th Planet?
I remember hearing about this theory about ten years ago the first time. And then didn't Slashdot have a story not so long ago about it?
How many of you really watch movies on your computer?
Maybe I am weird, but I would much rather have the comfort of my couch.
A quality DVD player is available nowadays at $300 dollars... is that outrageous?
While I fully support and side with the individuals being threatened here, I tend to think both sides are over-reacting. Obviously, pirated DVD's are not the advent of a social apocolypse as the industry claims... but neither is this quite the "fight to save our individual freedoms" as many on this site so loudly proclaim.
As someone pointed out yesterday: We could never watch VHS tapes on our computers... what is the huge deal!?
Hell, there are probably 100's of links to mirrored site on Slashdot alone. Their best move would be to shut down Slashdot itself. :)
This whole thing is so silly... I keep trying to think about what is the worst thing that could happen to the industry as a result of this, and I fail to come up with much at all.
So a handful of people are not going to pa for DVD's and will copy them. Well, the same amount of people have always done it with VCR tapes, cassete tapes, and CD's... are those industries hurting as a result of it!? Plus, DVDs, as pointed out numerous times, are a pain in the ass to copy and store in the first place... more so than any of the others.
I wonder if the industry has spent more in legal fees over this, than they ever would have lost to pirated software.
Is something still a trade secret if it has been reverse engineered? I thought this was the trade off between patenting and keeping something a trade secret. Surely they can't have it both ways?
:)
I would compare it to discovering someone's "secret sauce" and using yourself, and/or marketing it. Not much they can do about that... tough shit in other words.
Or like the time my aunt discovered my grandma's recipe for oat meal cookies... whoa, was there a scandal in the family when that happened!!! While she used many threats, there was not much legal action she could take
Let's say Microsoft opens its source code... how is Linux (in general) affected?
Start your commentary (or your subject) with:
This will probably be labeled as flamebate, but...
or a similar variation always works.
As for an idea on how to be constantly moderated down, select a similar sig:
That literature would not exist if the Persians had accomplished their goal.
Actually, the Persians were wonderful (by any standards) to their conquered lands. They did not rape, pillage, burn like the standard conquering armies. The Persians allowed conquered lands to practice their religions and govern in their own ways. All they did was collect taxes. One reason why they were so succesful.
So the libraries would have still stood.
The Persians weren't all bad, and the Greeks weren't all good.
Correct. The Persians under that time (though not necesarily with Xerces), were much more civilized than their Western contemporaries. The majority of the work in mathematics and medecine (which we still use today) was coming from the Persians. It trully was a great civilization.
A full 80% of the Palm spinoff from 3Com will be going to 3Com shareholders.
That is your best way of getting some if you want to take part in Palm's IPO.
If the "point" of Frankenstein could be packaged in a nice, neat, little /. post, then Mary Shelly wouldn't have had to write it.
The same goes for just about every single thing that is ever talked about on Slashdot. Hell, we should just stop discussions all together!
Good point.
He was not wrong to create it in the first place.
You are missing it as well. The point is that science is not ready to handle it's creations. Dr. Frankenstein reacted as anyone might when their experiments go not as planned. He should not have been messing around with life in the first place... because when he did ultimately reject his creation, the repurcusions were more than he ever imagined. Katz uses an appropriate (if not easy) analogy here.
These scientists are not creating an existing life form, they would be creating an entirely new form of life. New being the key word here! Just think of a couple worst case scenarios please. Does Steven King's The Stand mean anything to anyone?
This is pretty scary stuff. Bacteria has not always had the best relationship with mankind.
And where, exactly, is this debate (which Victor Frankenstein's monster started 200 years ago) supposed to occur? Slashdot's Threads?
Yeah, why the hell have these geneticists not consulted with Slashdot yet!?
What is their deal!? We are obviously the experts...
You would be a fool to get out of the market before the year is over. That is market timing, and not one single person has ever been able to do that succesfully.
If you are invested in the internet bubble, you should be out of it anyways... find yourself some quality growth companies at reasonable prices, there are plenty out there. Hell, if you want help... write me.
The market has come bounding back after every single market crash or correction within 10 years! Ride it out... you will be very happ you did.
Do you think Warren Buffet will be leaving the market?
For those recommending to put your money in oil or gold... that is just ludicrous. Those markets can be just as volatile as the stock market. Interest rates can kill them. The difference is, over time, they do not appreciate... the stock market does.
I recommend putting money in BEFORE the year is over, in an attempt to take part in a possible influx of money when the year is over and the world does not come to an end (we hope). Raise a little cash or place some limit orders so you can catch some quality companies if they are riding any waves down.
What I am trying to come up with is the current operations value of the company.... granted, I ran these numbers a year ago.
This is an attempt to figure out what Amazon.com would be worth if there were no future growth. Obviously, that is difficult because the company is not makin any money now. So we take away what I would consider to be start up costs (well, at least they certainly call it that).
10% is a normal operating margin... I would submit that because of the low barriers to entry and competitive pricing nature fo the internet, that it should be much lower... but I gave them that.
I then believe market value to equal current operation value plus future growth value.... which I did above, figuring on a future growth value of $10.7 billion or so.
Keep in mind, Amazon's market value is approximately 5 times as much as Barnes Nobles and Borders combined! That figures in for some amazing growth in the future. Around $63 billion in sales per year in about ten years from what I came up with at the time.
It also seems strange that any company who's cost of capital is 15% who choose to invest that
capital in further operations that only yeild 10%! What a silly idea. I could (a) take the 40 Million I now own (net of Dividend Payments) and invest it in whatever is generating this 15% cost of capital and earn a healthy 15%, or I can (b) reinvest this money into my company which is generating 10% ROI; I think there is no real choice involved. (For reference, I work for a company who assumes a cost of capital of 8% (this year) and won't allocate budget dollars to a project expected to earn under 16%, and I work for a very conservative company!)
Yes, you work for a very conservqative company which actually makes money. Maybe we might agree that their business model is a little *flawed*... the whole idea right now is to pump money into operations yielding nothing, or very little. Hoping that someday, sheer volume and name presence can overcome this. Welcome to business on the internet, you can not use common sense.
VA Linux and amazon.com have a lot of potential... the point here, is that potential has already been reached in it's stock price, and even exceeded.
At the time I ran the model (one year ago... almost to the T), Amazon.com was comparable to VA Linux... sorry for not making that apparent.
amazon was grossly over-priced then, and it is today... even though tons of people have made a lot of money on it... the vast majority are going to lose their shirts. I just do not know when it is going to happen.
Because you actualyl own a share of the company with the stock, the price has to correlate with the business at some point... it has for the past 500 years... no matter how much the internet, biotechnology, computers, TV, cars, the radio, spices and tulips change the world.
Imagine if you had bought Dell stock when they went public.
Actually.. it is not as impressive as you think.
Dell went public in 1988.... for four straight years after their IPO, Dell stock languished without making any real gains.
In fact, in 1990 it was trading at 40% less than what it IPO'd for.
Would you have been able to hold onto it for that long after losing almost half your money after over two years?
It is never that great to get in on an IPO at the ground floor. Dell is a one in a million company where it would have eventually paid off. Get in on a company when it is established, has proved it knows how to make money and trades at a reasonable valuation.
That is how you make money in the stock market.
It really is unfortunate that this happens. I also believe VA Linux is an excellent company, and I would love to own a piece of it... but I also want my money to appreciate, and at this level the company has a TON to grow before the stock price has any reason to go up.
The way I see it, VA Linux is not going to be a good investment for another 5 - 10 years (even if the company continues to do wonderfully)... unless the prices crashes back to reality.
As an interesting side note... over the past 20 years, IPO's have had an average annual return of less than 5%... and that only counts the ones that have made it!!!!
Not the best place to be investing... I will go with the proven ones any day.
Andover didn't want to delay the ipo. Can't blaim them.
Agreed... just look at the beautiful timing right now for anything to do with Linx at all.
Poor Salon.com (which also used a Dutch Auction) now trades below its $10.50 per share initial offfering price... bad timing!
Let me give you an idea of how ridiculous it really is.
:)
Right now, VA Linux has approximately the same market cap of Amazon.com = $11 billion.
The reason I am going to talk about Amazon is because I recently ran a model on Amazon... but not on VA Linux.
Sales in 1998 for Amazon.com were $590 million.
VA Linux had $14 million.
For both companies, we can assume an operating margin (profit) of about 10% (Both are in highly competitive areas, with VA Linux having significantl higher barriers to entry). This will give us abou $40 million in net opertating income after taxes for Amazon.com (exluding startup costs). Assuming absolutely no growth out of Amazon.com, what would $40 million over the next 10 years be worth?
To get that number, we need a discount rate, or the cost of capital needed to generate those earnings. Because the stock is volatile, we assume a high cost... 15%.
Divide $40 million by 15% which gives us $270 million.
With no future growth, this is what Amazon.com would be worth ten years from now $270 million Which equals about $2.25 per share.
Obviously, investors are betting that Amazon *IS* going to be growing over the next ten years... but let's find out how much they are betting on ti growing:
Simply subtract $270 million from the current market market value ($11 billion), which gives us $10.7 billion roundly. How much do they need to grow? Well, by putting these numbers into our handy financial calculators we come up with an average annual return of 59.6% a year for ten years assuming margins of 10% and a 15% capital cost. Is this unrealistic? You bet.
Another way to look at it:
Barnes & Nobles and Borders together generate about $5.3 billion in sales with a scant 2% profit margin. People buying Amazon.com right now, are betting that they will completely run Brders and Barnes & Nobles out of business, as well as succesfully stealing a ton of market share from other business areas it is entering into.
Well, VA Linux generates even less revenue than Amazon.com... yet is valued just as high. Throw in increased pressure from IBM, Sun Microsystems, Compaq and Dell, and you are looking at a company with absolutely no room for error.
Good luck
Yes... that is correct. I jumped ahead of myself a bit.
Sorry again... I am an idiot.