Fraudulent Financiers Caused The Dot Com Crash

from the who-to-blame,-yet-again dept

We're always looking for people to blame. The popular thing these days it blame the whole dot com collapse thing on the financiers. Though, the speaker here goes particularly far in saying that it was a pyramid scheme, and thus a full fledged fraud. While you certainly won't find me shying away from trashing many venture capitalists and investment bankers for the way they acted over the past few years, I have trouble believing they were performing an outright fraud on everyone. They simply got caught up in their own hype. I also find it amusing that the speaker suggests that we've now "learned our lesson" and this sort of thing won't happen again. History is pretty clear. This sort of thing happens often enough.
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  • identicon
    sb, 9 Oct 2001 @ 8:32am

    No Subject Given

    The people who BOUGHT the fake junk stocks are the people to blame. IF suckers are buying, who's to blame the Banks for selling them stocks? Capitalism. Just like the guy who sells you a $6 steak for $22. Smae logic applies to the VC's....Banks were able to sell stocks of fake companies, so the VC"s made em,...

    If the SUCKERS who bought the dotcoms didnt buy them, the rest would never have happened. The "blame" is clear as day.. Wake up.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Ed, 9 Oct 2001 @ 9:39am

      Re: No Subject Given

      I love analogies. In this case, I think it's not just a matter of selling a $6 steak for $22. In this case, the $22 "new economy steak" was made out of some synthetic matter devoid of all nutritional content (so eventually you'd starve if you ate nothing else) but was marketed as a real steak.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        sb, 9 Oct 2001 @ 10:06am

        Ed....Ed...Ed....lemme explain

        Dead wrong Ed. Have you bothered to read any of the domtcom prospectuses ? The risks and realites were VERY clearly laid out from day 1. Banks and VC;s knew they were selling junk. And they said so. Covered their asses well. Thats why the lawsuits are all about the allocation kickbacks, not over the fact that the entire things was a sham,. In fact, the prospectuses made things seems WORSE than reality. People just didnt listen /w they went up 100% a week.
        What did you lose the most money on, Ed? VERT? ETYS? AMZN?

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Ed, 9 Oct 2001 @ 10:21am

          Re: Ed....Ed...Ed....lemme explain

          I'll stretch the analogy some more. On the one hand, you have the prospectus, which outlines all the risks. This is like the nutritional labeling. You can ask McDonalds for the nutritional value of a Big Mac, and they'll give it to you, but they don't make a big deal about it. On the other hand, you have analysts setting $400/share targets. This is like McDonalds advertising, pretty pictures in the menus, etc.

          BTW, I didn't invest directly in any dot-bomb, but like a lot of people my portfolio took a hit when the secondary effects of the shakeout took their toll on the rest of the tech sector.

          The whole boom/bust ran the gamut from pure-scam (can't think of a high-profile example) to nearly-scam (TGLO, KOOP) to opportunism (ETYS) to wishful thinking (AMZN). (All IMHO.) I'm not trying to lump hundreds or thousands of companies under one label.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

          • identicon
            sb, 9 Oct 2001 @ 6:38pm

            pure scams

            WBVN was a nice one....How about LFMN? where does ATHM fit in? It was a scam. what about TURF? Did anyone think it was real?

            oh wait!! I got it, XLA was a ultimate scam.

            http://XLA article.com

            link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    sb, 9 Oct 2001 @ 8:39am

    babba booey, babba booey

    Oh, we're looking to blame about the "collapse", not the phenomonon in general. Well, that was almost inherent in the concept. Things will eventually reach their intrinsic value. babba booey, babba booey. dotcom stocks were ownership in fake junk companies. The collapse was inevitable. The price of a stock is a result of supply/demand. babba booey, babba booey. The collapse of new issues? Too many IPOs...more supply. or less demand? Everyone already bought in,,,no more money to sustain prices. But, again , thats splitting hairs, bottom line = stocks of fake companies, bought in a mania, will eveentually implode. babba booey, babba booey. Blame who you will. Blame no one but yourself. no one was forced to buy a dotcom. babba booey, babba booey

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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