taking stock
2006-03-31 20:40:04.919578+00 by Dan Lyke 0 comments
Boston Conman: Charles Ponzi would be so proud, on evaluation of Google stock. One of the things wrong with our economy is this disconnect between money and its meaning. There's been some screaming recently about a big box bookstore wanting to locate in one of the malls in Corte Madera, and as a part of that I read that said mall is owned by some organization like the Florida teacher's retirement fund. I'm not sure exactly what it is that connects the Google situation with the ownership of malls, but in both cases you have people saying "I have no idea how to be productive with this money, you do something with it".
When Google says "our IPO wasn't enough, we need another two billion" and people pony up, the message is that something about Google as an institution allows them to use that money more effectively than the investors could in other ways. So what about that institution allows them to create more cool stuff than individuals working in their garages and basements? Corporate culture?
Similarly, were those Florida public employees thinking "San Francisco's culture is bound to lead to more success than ours, let's buy shopping malls out there?"
In both cases I think that the investors involved haven't thought about it, they've handed their dollars off to some fast talker in a suit. Which is fine, except that it creates a gulf between "regular people" and those who handle money. As long as there's a return on the overall fund, it's hard for individual investsors to get too up in arms over shyster CEOs collaborating with the aforementioned fast talkers, because those guys know just how much to leach out of the system.
But there should be opportunity there, there should be room, in between what the money guys are leaching and the investors are getting, to start up innovation outside of the established power structure, and it isn't happening. I'm not quite sure why (although I believe that the ever increasing alignment between that structure and government is a large part of it), and I'd like to understand more.
(Oh, and just so I can find it later searching, this is part of my "401k plans are evil" (even though I participate in 'em) thought processs.)