my plan is to do a little sight seeing here at home until the stock and bond markets settle down/ part 2

my plan is to do a little sight seeing here at home until the stock and bond markets settle down/ part 2

fiction
Edward w Pritchard


All these mobile app and ghost in the machine companies like Facebook, Pandora, Groupon, Twitter and LinkedIn have got me nervous. Does anyone do any actual business anymore?

In the 1955 movie " We're No Angels"  Humphrey Bogart plays the convicted Accountant who helps the nice family he stays with while he hides out from the guards at Devil's island, where he is imprisoned for stock fraud. When asked why and how he cooks the books and the balance sheets for the companies he represents suave Humphrey Bogart dryly says " [there are] no factories just stockholders".

That's how these multi billion dollar market cap mobile app ghost in the machine new age companies seem to me, " no factories just stockholders". Not enough hard assets to justify the elevated stock prices and market capitalizations. The new social media companies attract large groups of ordinary followers into a sort of club and then the new generation of social media companies propose as their business model to refer their club members to other potential businesses such as dry cleaners, restaurants and to link job seekers with job providers. Membership and referral fees finance the entire endeavor.

Problem is the club members herded together into the clubs and social networks are having difficulty in starting their economic lives because jobs are scarce. For a hundred reasons real factory jobs no longer exist much in America. The club members are under employed and tapped out.

Does anybody do any real business in America anymore? Don't ask me, I post on a blog while I patiently wait for the imaginary advertising revenues to begin to role in when I attract an imaginary  network of followers.