Month: September 2003

FAIR AND BALANCED

Read Al Franken’s book. It will energize Democrats, for sure. But, more important, it will plant a seed of doubt in the minds of any ‘ditto heads’ brave enough to read it and think for themselves. The perfect gift for fans of Ann Coulter.

BOREALIS

Kevin Crawford: ‘You can’t be serious about this company. Look, I understand speculation, which is fine, but this is bordering on fraud. Did you read the annual report? What caught my attention was the line that net income in the year 2007 should, according to business plans, be in the neighborhood of well, $16 billion. It’s right there on page 7: $4 billion from the Chorus motor and another $12 billion from the Cool Chips. For those of you keeping score at home that means this little company should be the most profitable company on the planet in 5 SHORT YEARS. With no current revenues! This would be the world’s biggest success story. Be real! The fact that they would print that in an annual report – it’s just not right to make such outlandish statements. It ruins their credibility. Are you comfortable with the board being compromised primarily of family members? Seven of the 12 directors are named Cox. It’s right there in the annual report also. This Borealis is one whopper of a story.’

Juan: ‘One day, over a few beers (I actually favor champagne), we will talk about the world of scammers. I have seen the best. When my company was acquired by Level One and then by Intel, I was asked to ‘baby-sit’ a new company with a revolutionary technology but no management savvy. As my boss at the time said: they had invested in that company, and its technology would either be the biggest scam ever or would make us all so rich that we could close the companies and just live out of the royalties. Understand that this CEO was not stupid: bachelors and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from MIT or Berkeley and had taught at Berkeley. He was also a past venture capitalist. We had the patent reviewed by a board member (the dean of the electrical department at Berkeley). He said the patents were good (I said, humbly, that they weren’t). Well, it was a scam. The inventor had also taken advantage, before us, of IBM, Blockbuster, one of the baby Bells, etc. I could go on and on, but that will require some champagne and time. In the meantime, live on in hope.’

☞ As I’ve said from the outset, this is highly speculative and you have to assume Borealis is going to zero. Friday, Cool Chips closed at 15. Borealis – which owns slightly more than one share of Cool Chips for each Borealis share – closed at $5. Nuttier and nuttier.

Read Al Franken’s book.

Tomorrow or soon: Social Security (and, yes, John Adams)