> Re: Steve Sickle's Hyde Park plan.
This seems to be the most reasonable alternative to me.
> Re: James Rogers' stock recommendations.
Cisco & Intel dominate their markets. In order to grow their revenues to
match the expectations shown by their current P/E ratios, they will have
to grow the market itself substantially, as well as fight off competitors
who would love to grab market share, and the associated profits.
I have trouble seeing the PC market growing substantially, or Intel's
market share (>90% ?) growing. In fact, I see signs that many people are
buying lower cost PC's when they do eventually buy. I don't see anything
sparking a drive towards P2's by the public, either. Windows 98 will run
fine on a Pentium with enough RAM & HD. Excel, Word, et cetera. Quake II
will be helped more by a Voodoo graphics card than a new processor. The
internet, Netscape on a 56K modem certainly doesn't require more than a
Pentium, even including all the current Java mini-apps.
As for Cisco. Well, I work for Newbridge, so I'm biased. Obviously, I
think this market will grow substantially. But, will Cisco continue to
dominate so completely? They don't have the advantage that Intel does in
that competitors (like Newbridge) don't have to clone Cisco products, just
interwork with them.
I'm new to the stock market -- 6 months ago I was a farmboy going to
school, now I'm an engineer in a market short of engineers. I certainly
timed my graduation right. :)
> Re: books.
Because of this list, I just finished reading Rucker's Infinity & the
Mind, and Drexler's Nanosystems. So keep referring to books so I know
what to pick up! (That recent conversation concerning updating the
Extropian recommended book list was great).
> Re: politics.
This list finished converting me to Libertarianism. I was close before, I
just needed the push. If you're familiar with Canadian politics, I kept
flipping back and forth between the socialist New Democrats and the
extreme right wing Reform Party, and found myself very confused. Now I've
found a home. :) I joined the Freedom Party in Ontario here, but haven't
received anything from them yet.
Partly, it's a reaction, because I now live in perhaps one of the most
over-governed regions in the world -- Ottawa, Canada. The suburb I work
in, Kanata, is much worse.
So, are there any extropians here in Ottawa, or a surrounding area, like
Montreal? I'd be interested in meeting with anybody. Unfortunately, I
don't speak French, although I can stumble along in Japanese...
And now back to lurk mode,
Bryan