[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]Dave: The next question becomes: How much of an impact did someone like Frank Quattrone have in the dot.com era? How many deals for companies like Kozmo.com, Pets.com and eToys should have never taken place, but did because they were pumped by someone like Quattrone? Someone who wasn’t paying attention to the fundamentals, and told everyone listening that this was the “new economy, stupid” and all of the old rules no longer applied? Someone who either did know better or should have, someone who should have paid far better attention to the business plans (or lack thereof), the financials and how the money was being spent.
How close are those slogans to “it’s different this time”, and “they’re not making anymore land” and “real estate never declines in value”?
It’s all the same boondoggle, just with different players and in a different market. Yeah, you can blame Greenspan for both and justifiably so, but much of the blame goes to the Quattrones, and the Mozillos and all of the traders, brokers and shills who were just in it for the short-term profit.[/quote]
I think Quattrone (and others like him) played a very important role – mostly negative in the end – in the dot.com bubble/bust. And it doesn’t bother me. I never lost (or made) a dime in any of these companies because I never invested in them. And anyone who did lose money deserved to.
(Mozilo falls in a very different category because his institution – with FDIC insurance – was ultimately backed by the U.S. taxpayer. I’ve got a big problem with that asshat.)
I see very few victims in the capital markets; mostly what I see is gullible, willing participants with bets gone bad.
One thing that we are learning in this crisis is that a lot of folks are not equipped to own equities. They don’t understand them, can’t value them, and are temperamentally ill-equipped to accept the volatility. I don’t blame that on the promoters (like Quattrone), but rather on the investors themselves.
“The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.”
