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From: daford@watdragon.UUCP
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: market crash
Message-ID: <3972@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Date: Thu, 29-Oct-87 20:55:23 EST
Article-I.D.: watdrago.3972
Posted: Thu Oct 29 20:55:23 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 31-Oct-87 10:47:59 EST
References: <167@bby-bc.UUCP> <1060@looking.UUCP> <3962@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <11436@orchid.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: daford@watdragon.waterloo.edu (Daniel Ford)
Distribution: can
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 28

In article <11436@orchid.waterloo.edu> rbutterworth@orchid.waterloo.edu (Ray Butterworth) writes:
>
>Most share holders owned .000001% of some company before the "crash"
>and they still owned .000001% of that company after.
>The real value of that company, and hence those shares,
>hasn't changed in the least.
What is the "real" value of anything?  It just what someone else will give
you for it (e.g. three pigs for a cow).  The number of things called "dollars"
that people would give for the shares most certainly did change.  The
"real" value of the shares dropped.  
>
>that much.  Then, when these artificial prices fall, they think
>they have lost a lot of money.
>
Just try to cash your buggy whip shares and pay your grocery bill with the
proceeds.  People don't just think that they lost a lot of money, they DID lose
a lot of money.

>The whole thing should be considered a joke.
>Unfortunately, no one is laughing (except the commission collectors
>who's self-appointed function is to encourage such speculation).

The stock market isn't quite that simple.
-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Daniel A. Ford 					daford@watdragon.uucp
CS Department                         daford%watdragon@waterloo.csnet
U. of Waterloo       daford%watdragon%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa