[Reinhold]

Allan Greenspan has single-handedly led our economy into a protracted slump, and it's time (way past time) for him to go.

He didn't like the "irrational exhuberance" of the tech-led boom, so he raised interest rates too rapidly and too high and killed the tech sector and the general economy as well.

I'd be interested in how some of the California tech guys on this board feel about our current doldrums. I wonder if Greenspan would agree that we're now in a period of "irrational pessimism."

[Aragorn]

Doldrums? What doldrums? We have so much work that we're hiring 2 more techs...and they don't even want me going on vacation cuz' we have so much work on our plate. The Bay Area might be different though.

[schrocat]

Slammed here also.

Cisco is still back ordering parts for some of our projects...which is kinda strange when you consider the fact that the switches and whatnot are suppose to be "rusting on the forklifts" somewhere.

[Boatwizard]

Have you LOST your mind?

You weren't around in the early 70's when the rate for a car loan was 16%.
This day and time is a breeze compared to then.

Also, EVERY year that ends in zero has an economic slowdown, ours was overdue. This fact goes back to the 1860's.

The economy might not be booming, but it's not hurting either.

[Reinhold]

Don't you guys have money in the market? Have you looked at your pension lately? I'm broadly and conservatively invested and I'm down 20% since January 2000. I have friends who were narrowly invested in sectors who are down 60-70%. That looks bad to me!

The market hasn't done a thing for a whole year. I think we're floundering. The Fed should have waited to see what the results of each interest rate increase was doing before initiating further increases, but they were impatient and raised rates repeatedly over a brief period of time. Now we're paying the price and investors have little confidence in our economy.

Cisco: down 80%.
Apple: down 80%.
Computer Associates: down 14% over 5 years.

We look alot like Japan did in the late 80's and early 90's. They still haven't bounced back yet.

[Aragorn]

Oh...I thought you were talking about the job market. I'm not "too" worried about the economy though. Remember Black Monday in '87? The market regained substantially since then. Personally, I don't have much invested in the market. We own 5 pieces of Real Estate in California instead. I feel that real estate is a better way to make money.

[schrocat]

I'm not buying stocks either right now...
Paying off my debt RAPIDLY.


Look ma..no mortgage.

I've had more luck with land than stocks.

[GregD]

Darn....I promised myself I wouldn't get sucked into this "trolling" thread but here goes....



It seems to me that the addage "Buy low- Sell Hi" remains correct. Not sure but it sounds like in previous posts people are complaining about stocks declining and indicate they are waiting for stock prices to go back up before they start investing again...(buy hi -sell low??)


If you are looking at investing for the long term (no long term is not 6 to 12 months away, think years) then this is a good thing as it weeds out overvalued stocks and businesses with poor business models. Yes your 401K might be losing a bit of ground but it will recover and do very well over long periods of time. If you are planning on retiring soon (within 2-3 years then you shouldn't have the majority of your money invested in stocks as an asset anyway) It is very dangerous to tell yourself "I am not a day trader" and still day trade within your retirement investment portfolio.

I do agree with Shrocat....if you have debt, a better strategy is to eliminate debt before doing a lot of investing in stocks. I also have found that real-estate is a much better performer, particularly if you are looking for risk-averse options.

JME,
Greg

[Reinhold]

I wasn't trolling or looking to start flames. I just knew that many IT/IS/engineering types inhabit this site, and I was interested in their opinions on the forced decline of an industry.

I have no other long term debt than my house, and I'll never pay that off. As long as I have a 6.5% mortagage, I'd be foolish to use available cash for debt retirement, when I can use the same money to make more money invested wisely.

GregD: I agree that now is a great buying opportunity, and buying low is what I'm doing now. It's just painful to see account statements from 2 years ago showing a couple hundred grand down the drain in the Greenspan-induced slump.

The tech industry was overvalued, but it would have been better to let the marketplace work it out than to raise interest rates repeatedly without taking time to let the increase work on the economy before doing it again.

[GregD]

Reinhold,

No problem...I wasn't being too serious about the trolling comment and find the thread really interesting.


I just wanted to make sure people weren't falling into day trading traps with their retirement plans. I too, hate looking back at past statements that showed huge paper gains only to see little or no gain now.

Greg

[ranaman]

I really do not blame Greenspan as much as the "tulip mania" aspect of the tech market. After all Mr. Greenspan didn't force the execs at Lucent to cook their books to make their earnings look better than they were. Just found some statments from my trust 1999 lucent, $108/share, new statement says the value is $6.70/share as of last month. Maybe I could make money by selling tar and feathers at stockholders meetings. Even though I've taken quite a hit, I stilll have more money on paper than I did several years ago. The best stock advice I heard stated, "Bulls can make money, bears can make money, but pigs get slaughtered."

[icemark]

Being in the Tel Com Valley in Nor Cal, I haven't seen the big issues of layoffs and the like. The company I work for did have some cuts (that the local newspaper called 20% layoffs) but it was of the dead wood people. The people that were not doing their load.

That isn't a bad thing. We have been hiring ever since. Cisco and everyone else was in the same boat. When the ecomomy slows its time to get rid of the fat and bring in the people that really want to work.

And while our stock is not at the $200 a share it was two years back, it (and many other tech and internet stocks) was seriously overvalued then anyway.

Sorry, that anyone that bought our (and most others like Cisco, lucent or Apple) stock back then didn't have a clue. I mean come on, did you really think paying even $75 a share for anyones stock was a good long term secure investment????

So this year I am only making 10 or 12% on my investments instead of the late 90's when I was making 25%. Big deal. I still made 25% in the late 90's.