Insurance early warning?
 

I can give you an excellent example- HP buying Compaq, a
move which threw tens of million$ down a rat-hole and helped
neither company. Voted down by HP stockholders, of which I
was one at the time.




Mys Terry wrote:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=HPQ&t=5y



And your point is? That chart doesn't go back far enough to
see the huge drop in HP stock value.

When I sold our shares in disgust (which apparently many
other people also did) it was over $125/sh

Today's price $32.43/sh wow!

If you look at this chart
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=HPQ&t=my

you will see the drop.

DSK

Insurance early warning?
 

Mys Terry wrote:
HP bought Compaq in 2001.

Please point out on the chart you referenced, where HP EVER reached
$125 between 1965 and this afternoon.


You know what a stock split is?


Yet another DSK lie.

Wrong

DSK

Insurance early warning: ? for USAA Dave
 

Hi Dave:

Thank you for such a fast reply.

I'm off to make a phone call to usaa. I have my fingers crossed.

Thanks again.
Bob

Insurance early warning?
 

I can give you an excellent example- HP buying Compaq, a
move which threw tens of million$ down a rat-hole and helped
neither company. Voted down by HP stockholders, of which I
was one at the time.


Dave wrote:
Doug, that transaction was approved by the stockholders.

Actually, it wasn't. Read the minutes of the stockholders
meeting.

At one point I had saved HP quarterly report & meeting
notes, to use as lesson materials for a group of people I
discuss such things with. But in our recent household
downsizing, I threw all that stuff (along with a lot of
other material) away.

This is really a long long ways away from the actual topic
of this thread, and I intend to drop it (having proven my
point to those who can understand it).

DSK

Insurance early warning?
 

You know what a stock split is?



Mys Terry wrote:
Yes


Wrong

If you did, then you'd easily have seen that the charted
price of ~ $80/sh before a split represents an actual stock
value of $160/sh

Oops

Better get out another sock puppet, this one ain't doin' so good

DSK

Insurance early warning?
 

Ya gotta lookit them funny little triangles on the chart. The stock split 2
for 1 in October of 2000. At the time it was trading, on a post-split basis,
at $80 per share. That would have put it at about $160 per share pre-split.


Mys Terry wrote:
Doug said it was trading at $125 a share, which never happened.


Quick! Call up Edward D. Jones & Co and tell them they've
made a horrible mistake, paying me over $125 per share for
my Hewlett-Packard stock holding! Hurry before the statute
of limitations runs out!

DSK

Insurance early warning?
 

Doug, that transaction was approved by the stockholders.


Actually, it wasn't. Read the minutes of the stockholders
meeting.




Dave wrote:
I'd be happy to read the minutes of the stockholders' meeting to confirm,
but minutes of stockholders' meetings are not generally available to the
public. In fact about the only way one can read them is to be a stockholder
and go to the next annual meeting, where the minutes of the last meeting are
generally available for inspection. How did you get a copy of the minutes?


Because I was a stockholder at the time. My impression was
that a synopsis of the minutes was made available to the
public by the SEC after some amount of time had passed, but
that may be outdated.


HP's press release of April 17, 2002 (Exhibit 99.1 to Form 8K filed on April
18, 2002) says:

"The preliminary vote tally, prepared by the independent inspectors of
election, shows that HP shareowners voted in favor of the merger by a margin
of approximately 45 million shares. Moreover, shareowners not affiliated
with the Hewlett and Packard families and their foundations voted for the
merger by a margin of roughly 2:1."

Hmm, that's a surprise.

IIRC the measure was passed by the directors allied with
Carly Fiorini issuing themselves new stock after a challenge
to their proxies was made by individual stockholders &
institutional investor's reps. Some of those challenged
proxies were undoubtedly included in the count you cite. At
the physical shareholder's meeting, sentiment was
overwhelmingly against the merger.... by "overwhelming" I
mean at least 10 to 1 among common stockholders.

In any event, the whole thing stank, it was a clear case of
driving the company off a cliff, and I got out while the
getting was good.

Regards
Doug King

Insurance early warning?
 

News f2s wrote:
"prodigal1" wrote in message
...

News f2s wrote:


As for those who have been criticising the profit motive of
insurers (and suggesting public insurance) earlier in this
thread, most of them did not understand the business model.

Au contraire mon frère,


Ah. French. Strong believers in the (old soviet idea) that the
state can always do things better.

No, just a polyglot. A belief in the importance of public oversight of
free market activities is not exclusively associated with the "old
soviet". A perusal of the USA Patriot Act might provide some
eye-opening reading.

I understand the business model perfectly.


I did say 'most', so you're allowed to differ in your views.


What I don't understand is the lemming-like response of
consumers of insurance products. The product marketed by
private companies don't meet the consumer's needs, yet for some
inexplicable reason the consumer continues to purchase a
poor-quality good.


It's called persuasive marketing.

okay, we're you grinning when you typed that?

By all means let public insurance compete with private
insurance. But you need some safeguards to make sure that that
cash flow doesn't disappear into the public spending maw.
Because it's going to have to be re-paid! By whom? The
taxpayer.


Nonsense.


Why nonsense? If I accept that your one public example is well
run, that does not prove that what I said is nonsense. It merely
means that (in this instance) appropriate safeguards are in place.

It's nonsense because you advance as a priori the idea that somehow
private industry -in this case- insurance, sets standards of operation
that are to be used as reference points for quality.

Publicly run insurance companies such as the Insurance
Corporation of British Columbia are profitable entities. These
profits reduce the pressure for increases in property tax rates
in BC. Roads, schools and hospitals are not a "public spending
maw". Private insurance companies have outlived any usefulness
they may have had to their customers.


I would hazard a guess that private insurance had set the
standards which public insurance had to improve on. And I would
hope that private insurance is still available to compete with the
public products. If not, you have a classic monopoly problem - no
checks on costs, no incentive to innovate and improve.

Guessing "private insurance had set the standards" is being pretty
generous. I think we can imagine how low those standards might have
been. Private insurance for autos has not been sold in BC for over 30
years. Curiously though, even after a landslide victory in the last
provincial election which sees now a rather right-wing government in
power, no attempt has been made by that party to privatise the ICBC.
Evidently the monopoly condition is enjoyed by the customers i.e, the
voters.

The fact that the public insurance business is used to finance
infrastructure development may (or may not) be a good investment.

I'm trying to imagine how investment in infrastructure _could_ be a bad
investment.

I'm sorry I called it a 'public spending maw'. This finance
reduces the public borrowing requirement - improves the balance
sheet. This is a popular wheeze with governments and companies
alike. Disguise the debt.

True, it _can_ reduce public borrowing requirements.
but we digress
Roger opens the insurance can of worms, and I, as the owner of a 40 year
old boat, who has had unsatisfactory experiences with private insurers
wanted to raise a question that few in the US seem capable of
conceiving. I am no more wrong than my critics in here deem themselves
correct.
Safe boating!

Insurance early warning?
 

On Wed, 12 Apr 2006 19:26:38 GMT, Mys Terry
wrote:

I know all of this Dave. It's just way more fun to wind him up.

You've got too much time on your hands. Go cruising.

Insurance early warning?
 

"prodigal1" wrote in message
...

big snips, areas of differing beliefs noted

Roger opens the insurance can of worms, and I, as the owner of a
40 year old boat, who has had unsatisfactory experiences with
private insurers wanted to raise a question that few in the US
seem capable of conceiving. I am no more wrong than my critics
in here deem themselves correct.

Fascinating response - no I'm not being sarcastic. We obviously
differ in our attitudes about the efficacy of state ownership of
businesses. Also, the insurance market in Europe is obviously very
different from that in US or Canada. I'm aware that in the USA
there were some serious cartel issues a year or two ago, and that
these affected (particularly) the property and product liabilities
of major corporations, but I would not have expected them to
affect the fragmented car insurance market.

My big surprise is to discover that BC only offers public
insurance for cars. Is this because private insurance is forbidden
by law? or because of competitive pricing?

If competitive pricing, then BC is not making a profit (by
international accounting standards) on its car insurance
activities. Otherwise there would be others around trying to chip
away some of the business.

If law is preventing private competition, then in addition there's
no incentive to improve the product.

Either way, I wold expect the consumer to lose out.

As you can see, I'm a rampant free marketeer. No apologies for
that!
--
JimB
http://www.jimbaerselman.f2s.com/
Describing some Greek and Spanish cruising areas