for 23 April 2001. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Tim Cavanaugh
Special Guest Editor

Terry Colon
Art Director

Heather Havrilesky
Senior Editor

Joey Anuff
Publisher

Dear J:

Anybody been ta Vegas knows this: money on-the-table ain't yours, ain't theirs... it just ain't so when it vanishes nothing had ta go anywhere...

ray hartman, spokane, wa
<rayhart@spkn.uswest.net>

Ray,

Freedom's just another word for nothing left ta lose.

Ta,

Johnny Cache

Dear Mr. Cache,

You are not really asking where the "money" went, right? I mean, some of it was leverage, some is in cash (money mkt accounts), some in bonds. Most was, of course, inflated asset valuations. That is, a small number of shares affecting the price of the total amount of shares, thus driving prices up and then driving them down.

Because of mark-to-market considerations, the additional "value" of an asset due to increased prices is real in a market sense but there is no accounting increase until the asset is disposed.

In other words, if you bought $1000 worth of Yahoo in 1999 and by March 2000 it was worth $1500, mark to market tells you that you have a $500 increase in asset value but your accounting value is unchanged at $1000. When/if the stock sells off to $750, then mark to market tells you that you have $750 in asset value, though accounting still tells you that you have $1000.

Which leads to a concern that there could be even more selling in store as investors give up and dump their tech shares (though they may already have done so, I have no idea).

Scott G
<Scott.Grimberg@bankofamerica.com>

Scott —

No, not really.

I know you're right about how fairly few shares traded at high prices can artificially inflate the paper value of the entire company.

But if I'd paid attention to that I'd scarcely have had a premise for the piece; and without that I wouldn't have been able to earn the princely sum Suck pays for its daily content; and without that sum of money — a bank check for which I expect to receive any day now — I would not be in a position to pump needed consumer dollars into our faltering economy, rescuing it from sure recession.

Just trying to do my part,

Johnny Cache

Hey, JC.

I might be wrong, but I'd guess that $3 trillion is tied up in one place you didn't think of — short-term credit markets. The proliferation of virtual fortunes would have made it a great time for the credit card companies, I'd guess. It makes sense to leverage debt, no? Yes. Only problem — too many people trade on volatility, sell off hits, fortunes no longer, more selling to pay mortgages and credit card bills, so all the money goes to Providian national bank and some savings & loans.

And maybe the OPEC chieftains were buying up oil futures before their expected summer production cuts.

Hmm?

Yours in poverty,

TJ Kelleher
<tj_kelleher@graffiti.net>

TJ,

You seem to have confused me for someone who knows about actual economics, but I do like the notion that OPEC is a giant insider-trading operation.

Buy APWR. But you didn't hear it from me.

Johnny Cache

Subject: funny you should mention this...

Just the other day, we were wondering: whatever happened to (cue rimshot) THE S&L CRISIS? You know, the one that was going to cost every American something like $35,000 & have all of us living in grass huts by the turn of the century?

David Menconi/Raleigh (NC) News & Observer
<dmenconi@nando.com>

Eureka! I think it *did* cost me $35,000. I certainly always thought I'd have at least $35,000 more by now than I do, and now I understand why I don't.

Does the grass hut get cable? I like Jon Stewart a lot.

Johnny Cache

Your review of "11 Days" is brilliant.

David Cogswell
<DCogswell@Cahners.com>

Your review of the review is meta-stupendous.

yr pal,

Addison

Alberto Fujimori????  Japanese Prime Minister?!?!?!?!?   Please tell me that was an intentional goof, or Japan has become a part of South America.  

Best wishes,  

T.A. Martin
<tamartin64@yahoo.com>

Read the papers, smart guy. Hard-nosed Peruvian Fujimori fled to Japan in November, and has been there ever since. Japan is in need of a hard-nosed prime minister. Sounds like a perfect fit, and our reviewer from the future obviously has information we can only dream of.

Then again, maybe the joke just wasn't that funny.

yr pal,

Addison

Dear Sucksters...

Your recent vacuum job on the fluxual infotainment highway is a remarkable testament that flushed my cheeks with existential euphoria. I'm sure JP Sartre got a rise out of it as well.

And those guys at pop.com must be recalculating powerful possibilities now that you've provided them with their biggest user spike to date.

But I'm wondering, have you ever dared to set your geek behavioral studies to melody and streaming in quick time?

Watching the data flow,

jambo
<jambo@soulselects.com>

If the pop.commers have any plans for us, they will undoubtedly involve fetching coffee for Mr. Grazer. While wearing bellhop caps. All under the rubric of "behavioral studies."

Sucksters