M&M:
Call it a self-induced Ponzi scheme, another Dutch Tulip bubble, a market gone crazy. Whatever label you choose, it's still the same old NASDAQ, land of the spree, home of the wave. Collapse seems inevitable. The only questions are 1) when, and 2) how big. The "when" part is the stuff of Palm readers and MSC-guided psychics. The "how big" part maybe we can talk about. One at least wants to try to talk about it to soothe one's own fluttering little heartlet, because this thing (NASDAQ madness) has now gone so far so fast that when collapse comes, it could take us all with it. Wouldn't that be a pretty pass, to start the new millennium with a
depression so much bigger than the last one that font designers would have to go back and
develop really really super-upper-case "D's". Even myopic yuppies are aware of
the awe with which their parents and grandparents viewed the "Depression." Scrounging through my mental attic, I've come up with two hopeful ideas which could maybe, maybe indicate that whatever is at hand won't have to be the End but may just be a pause for breath. First a quick review. What's driving NASDAQ? Sure, on the surface it's technology, bio-stuff, telecomm, etc. Under the surface is the real motivating force and it's simple: plain, old-fashioned greed. But it's greed on a grand new scale. The other day, I started reading a newspaper story about a newly rich guy, retired at 35, with some new philanthropic idea about what to do with his money. In the second graf, the writer mentioned that the guy's silicon payoff had amounted to some $800 million. Yawn. I stopped reading, because the actual thought immediately went through my mind: "Aw, what does he know? He's not so rich." Jeez. Does anyone remember a world in which Howard Hughes was famous, infamous, and notorious because he was the only billionaire in the world? And here I am instantly bored by a story about someone with only $800 million. Yes, my friends, it's greed of a kind to make Croesus blush. "Unbridled" seems a hopelessly wimpy word to describe it. Which of course is why it's so dangerous. The mother of all lotteries, except it's our civilization (such as it is) and our future (such as it may be) that they're playing with. |
