Typewriter ribbons for sale.
I walked into an office supply store in an old part of town last week. The store had some of the neatest journals I had seen in years with beautiful inlaid covers. I love to write so I picked up a few. In one dusty corner of the store the owner had sorted and labeled a few hundred assorted typewriter ribbons.
It got me to thinking about how we view technology and the ups and downs of the market. Here is a simple question, which is more important to an Executive…there, phony baloney job (and stock price) or the purchase of additional technology to meet the ever growing corporate demand for application availability?
It’s a pretty stupid question, but one I heard serious people debate just before the Tech Wreck in 2000.
A friend of mine had received founders stock in 1995 from a major tech firm whose name would be instantly recognizable, so I can’t mention it. He had watched the value of his stock climb from $50k to $500k. He was contemplating early retirement. In 1998 I suggested he begin to diversify his portfolio. I felt the stock price was about to go down.
My very astute friend told me that his stock would never go down in price, because, “the demand for technology would continue to grow for the next ten years”. Oh my goodness. I fainted on the spot. When I came to I told my good friend that he was an idiot. I said that if the stockholders of corporate America (you and me) saw our investments begin to lose value and CEO’s started getting sacked, demand for technology would mysteriously go down…quickly. Well, this story does not have a happy ending. My friend lost his entire investment.
I knew the stock price would go down because of something my father had told me years ago during the run up of energy prices in the early 1980’s. In 1982 oil was over $30 a barrel. My father was in the energy bidness. Everybody was flying to lunch in their helio-copters and tipping $100 for a $50 meal. I asked him if the price of oil would just continue to rise “for the next ten years”. He laughed. A scornful laugh. “Everything goes up in value and everything goes down in value”, he opined.
How many times do we have to get smacked across the head with this simple truth to realize the implications? And yet, I read articles everyday where some expert states unequivocally that there pet technology is bullet proof. Now, I don’t want to get all Milton Friedman on you, but these up and down cycles are a good thing! Just think what the inflation rate would look like if prices just went up. We are talkin’ serious Weimer Republic circa 1930!
There are of course some exceptions to this rule. I just bought a very promising stock. It was a big investment, but I am not worried. This is my retirement ticket. It’s some video technology that I don’t really understand. I guess it used to be around a few years ago in a cruder form. It’s called “betamax”. Interested?
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