Bill:

I like to follow on the behaviour of money stock and I am very interested inw hat you said about the stock options injecting money supply. How much money do you think is injected yearly and how is it that the FED is not accounting for it ?

-- Carlos Sanchez (clondaje@prodigy.net.mx), May 11, 2001

Answers

Hello Carlos. At Microsoft, recent years have indicated that 60-75 percent of total wages paid were from stock option gains. Sadly, the Federal Reserve does not include these stock option wages in the wage inflation statistics, even though once converted they maintain the same buying power as cash wages. Although stock options are a valid benefit, they have been somewhat overused at many companies in an effort to keep pace with Microsoft's issuance of options.

-- Bill Parish (bill@billparish.com), May 31, 2001.