They could send each other emails privately, but that would kind of miss the point, wouldn't it? Their barbs are ostensibly aimed at each other, but we're the intended audience. Without the audience this would quickly die away.
--- Bob Bridges, [email protected], cell 336 382-7313 /* Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing. -Vince Lombardi */ -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Pommier, Rex Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2022 10:04 Would you two take your spitting match someplace off IBM-main? The rest of us don't want to hear it. -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Bill Johnson Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2022 9:03 AM Profits can’t be negative unless the company is fraudulently reporting. You’re out of your league. --- On Wednesday, February 16, 2022, 9:46 AM, Seymour J Metz <[email protected]> wrote: Whoosh! What that means is that there are plenty of examples of massive changes in stock prices that had nothing to do with profitability. I'm not sure why you keep bringing up cash flow being negative; that has nothing to do with the issue. And, yes, pprofits can also be negative. ________________________________________ From: Bill Johnson [[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2022 9:22 AM LOLOLOLOL, what does that even mean? Uber is a prime example of NEGATIVE cash flow. They’ve NEVER turned a profit to date & their negative cash flow has been in the billions since they went public in 2019. Explains why the stock is significantly below their IPO price. And the internet bubble is a real thing. So is the housing bubble. --- On Wednesday, February 16, 2022, 9:15 AM, Seymour J Metz <[email protected]> wrote: Yeah, and the dot com crash never happened. ________________________________________ From: Bill Johnson [[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2022 11:17 PM Again, cash flow can be positive OR NEGATIVE. Profits are what drives stock prices, executive compensation, and investment. Revenue drives SOME stocks, mostly newer ones, who invest big for future profits. Which generates negative cash flow until they reach profitability stage and growth (and investment) begins to slow. Executive compensation has almost nothing to do with corporate profitability. In fact many companies pay executives in stock options not cash. You really don’t know what you’re talking about. The S&P 500 index is a factor of profits times a multiple. Current 2022 estimate of S&P 500 profits is estimated at $235 and approximately a 22 multiple. Giving the index a 5170 valuation right around where most banks and investment houses project the index will finish in 22. --- On Tuesday, February 15, 2022, 9:50 PM, Seymour J Metz <[email protected]> wrote: That's a non sequitur. You've just proven my point. Actions taken to improve profits take a long time to have the desired effect. Stock prices are driven by what happens in the near term. That's cash flow, not profits. Most top level executives seek to maximize their compensation, even if that is at the expense of the long term profitability of their company. ________________________________________ From: Bill Johnson [[email protected]] Sent: Monday, February 14, 2022 8:45 AM Then there was no need for the 1967 age discrimination law! LOL I’m not confusing anything. This article is a continuation of the age discrimination lawsuit filed by IBM employees in 2018. Most companies do it to maximize profits since profits make the stock price go up and the executives and shareholders benefit when profits go up. Cash flow can be positive or negative. --- On Monday, February 14, 2022, 8:34 AM, Seymour J Metz <[email protected]> wrote: You're confusing cash flow with profits. Unless there are external constraints, wages don't increase by themselves. The natural behavior in capitalism is to not give raises unless it would cost you more for the employee to leave.. ________________________________________ From: Bill Johnson [[email protected]] Sent: Monday, February 14, 2022 8:10 AM Profits are maximized by getting rid of the older, higher cost (wages & health care) employees and hiring younger lower cost ones. Pretty standard capitalism. --- On Monday, February 14, 2022, 8:05 AM, Seymour J Metz <[email protected]> wrote: No, capitalism is designed to maximize profits. Out of control speculation has shifted the emphasis to cash flow, which would have appalled Adam Smith. What happens in a rational market is that employees don't give raises unless there is a labor shortage, and that employers try to keep productive workers. This is especially true when they've spent a lot of money on training. ________________________________________ From: Bill Johnson [[email protected]] Sent: Monday, February 14, 2022 7:59 AM I didn’t say YOU pushed them out the door. The cycle of replacing higher priced workers with lower cost ones always happens. Exactly what capitalism is designed to do. --- On Monday, February 14, 2022, 7:55 AM, Seymour J Metz <[email protected]> wrote: When I was young, I worked with older employees; I did not push them out the door. Further, there are legal limits on age discrimination. What we are seeing is the triumph of cash flow over profits, and it is not what capitalism does in a rational environment, any more than the gulag is what socialism does. In fact, there have been times and places where capitalism discriminated against younger workers and, as above, that was not intrinsic to capitalism. ________________________________________ From: Bill Johnson [[email protected]] Sent: Monday, February 14, 2022 7:43 AM When we were young, we helped usher out older workers & we didn’t really think or care about it. Now that it’s our turn in the ageist barrel, we are shocked & dismayed. As Steve said, not really surprising. This is exactly what capitalism does. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
