And maybe there could be a discussion about the effect of the stock market up or down, plus or minus in a 1-10 scenario.We could line up the perveyors of truth from each persuasion and call them, oh lets see, how about pollys and doomers? We could argue whom is leading whom down what garden path and NAIL each other with conflicting facts from authoritative dictums. We could argue fine details, points of order, sentance construction, punctuation and spelling, get rude and crude and then ?????????

-- Just past through (again) (musing@home.com), April 17, 2000

Answers

Gosh! We could start with spelling, grammar, and sentance (sic) construction with just your message and have enough fodder for many days worth of fine details. Thanks for taking the time to post.

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), April 18, 2000.

Just past -

Naaaahhh. Then we'd look just like a whole slew of investing boards out there. Silicon Investor, for one, has whole threads that seem to consist of little else but True Believers castigating those who doubt The Great God Tech and the riches It will bring to all who Believe.

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), April 18, 2000.

Dee,

Wake up and smell the java. Most of last year's pollies were "doomers" by real world standards. You won't see any regular posters advocating buying dot-coms on margin. You won't find anyone predicting a 25,000 Dow this year (though you will find an occasional nut predicting gold at $10,000/oz). This is the real irony of the old and new TB boards. Flint, Hoff, Cooke and I are only "pollies" by the standards of the lunatic fringe. Since we don't advocate building bunkers and storing tons of food... we are reckless fools awash in decadence, uber Grasshoppers. (laughter)

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), April 18, 2000.

Dee,

My apologies... I misread your post. No more writing before my first cup of coffee!

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), April 18, 2000.

Just love those Odd Mints from the Decker Unit.

-- Ahhhh (OddMint@City.com), April 18, 2000.

Ken -

Apology accepted. I'm pretty non compos mentis myself before that first cup o' Joe...

And yes, Old TB2K was too often damaged by "friendly fire" as folks who were "doomers" got into pitched battles with those who were "Doomers". As it turned out, we ALL were far too pessimistic about the ability of IT departments and tech personnel to address serious Y2K problems. You live and learn (or you don't live long.)

The stock market, like Y2K, brings to light some fundamental aspects of human psychology. I'm certainly enjoying the current round of discussions.

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), April 18, 2000.