NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/sci/environm/14074

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From: mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,talk.politics.misc,alt.activism
Subject: Re: Idiotic Japan Bashing
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 30 Dec 92 19:41:32 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tom Leylan) writes:
>mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:

>>No Tom.  You go public or you sell it.  It is pointless to go through
>>the expense and hassle of going public if you intend to sell the
>>company.

>Pardon me, I thought I heard of any number of times where the stock
>upon being traded publicly rises and in some cases and recently it
>rises to extraordinary levels.  But no matter...

Actually, Tom, it does matter.  You have just demonstrated total
ignorance of some pretty basic economic facts that anyone who is
talking about multi-year corporate plans should be well aware of...
unless, of course, that person does not know what he is talking about.

The stock does not go up because it is being traded
publicly.  Before the company is publicly traded the stock does not
have a standard price that can be measured on a daily or weekly basis.

What does often happen is that the stock is sold at an offering price
to the public and quickly rises from that.

Anyway, so what.  The place where you demonstrated your ignorance is
where you said that entrepeneurs take their companies public so they
can sell the company.  That is totally incorrect.  If they want to
sell the company they never take it public.  They find a willing buyer
and sell that buyer the company without going through the pain of
taking it public and then dealing with the expenses and legal hassle
of acquiring a public company.

>>However, this does not apply to reasonably well established companies.
>>Most such companies are already public and do not intend to be
>>acquired.

>The point was you said "thousands of years" and something like "every
>company" and I only claimed you exaggerated.

>>Why do we need a 200 year history to make a 20 year plan?  Also, it's
>>15 years now, not 10.

>Uhhh beats me.  I think a 100 year plan makes more sense if you've
>been in business longer than 100 years so I would say your 20 year
>plan would have been silly the week after Oracle was started unless
>that was the payoff date in which case planning that far would be
>sensible because you have to.

I think your first statement is correct.  Based on what you have said
above, I'm not going to accept anything just because you think it.
You are going to need to marshal some decent arguments if you expect
to be taken seriously.

>>Perhaps I might find your argument more convincing if you told me what
>>the elements of a 100 year plan should be.

>>So far you haven't.  Why?  Because once you start listing what should
>>be in it the idiocy of such a plan becomes obvious.

>I didn't say that Matsushita had a 100 year plan.  Either Robert Reich
>(Clinton's economic advisor (or something)) said it on a special he
>hosted or researchers on Frontline said when they studied the way that
>Japanese businesses operated.

It hardly surprises me that Clinton's advisors are idiots.

>What makes you think that I'm the person
>who can make such a plan ?

I don't think you are a person who can make such a plan.  That doesn't
answer the question.  What are the elements of a 100 year plan?  You
can't come up with any because as soon as you suggest specific
elements everyone will see that they are preposterous.

>I'm not claiming any special knowledge I'm
>suggesting that you can't understand things that fall outside of your
>own realm of business savvy.

You are claiming that 100 year plans are possible based, as far as I
can tell, on a half remembered scrap of dialogue from Frontline and
religious conviction.

>You continue to pretend that you're winning the argument because I can't
>personally devise a plan that meets your requirements,

No.  I contend I have won the argument because you cannot state what
topics a 100 year plan should cover.  For example, 2 years ago I did
not know how to write a business plan.  I did know what the major
topics that belonged in it were - most are obvious.  What belongs ina
100 year plan?

>I continue to
>suggest that Matsushita and the people there are doing whatever they are
>doing and they don't honestly care what your definition is.

Well, I will certainly agree that Matsushita is doing whatever it is
doing, and that they don't care what my definition of a 100 year
business plan is, but you ahven't even told me what you think their
definition of a 100 year business plan is.  So what are we talking
about?  It's kind of like you told me "Matsushita has a boghunfeg and
we don't so we're screwed!!" and when I reply "What's a bughunfeg?"
you say "I don't know, but they do and they don't care what you think
and we're screwed and I won the argument!!"

>You're smarter than Robert Reich or the Frontline researchers and that's
>all there is to it... they were fools and you know everything.

Than Robert Reich, quite possibly.  Than the Frontline researchers?  I
don't know.  Than you?  Definitely.
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