GNP, M&A, EBITDA, P/E, NASDAQ, Econo-thread Part 10

[DanS]

"Names like Video Velvet and Video Silk evoke images of porno productions."

And the problem with this is...?

Just ask Ming how many pictures of models he has in his office. Sex sells! Especially in this demographic. I haven't received an order for a board from a woman yet.

I'm really leaning toward "Digital Silk" or "Visual Silk", unless you guys think that it would be a dreadful mistake. The connotations might be there, but just like the company "Virgin", you make of it what you want to make of it. I want to avoid an overly techie name.

Colon: you convinced me on the "video" versus "visual". I like the verb "Looking" and the noun "Lightning". A future card could have a sound component, so "thunder" is also a good idea. However, the Soundblaster Live has a thunderclap on bootup of your PC, so the sound is already associated with them. Not sure whether that would be a barrier.

Minerva is interesting, but I think that would be a good icon, rather than a name. For the target audience, Minerva won't mean anything. In fact, a good portion of the target audience will be lost at the reference, because they aren't Western. I've already received orders from Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan, for instance.

[el freako]

Colon,

"how do you calculate the output gap?"

Well I start off using the OECD's estimates for the output gap at the peak of the last boom (1989-90) and then I use my own estimates of the trend growth rate to take it up to the latest year for which data is available (2000) I then use the average of what my estimates for the output gap was in 2000 and the OECD's estimate.

I used to rely solely on the OECD estimates of output gaps until they said that the trend rate of growth for the US was 4% - implying 3% productivity growth! - which I felt was totally unrealistic.

I have also done a series of forecasts using only my own estimates of the output gap - but I really hope that they are not more accurate than the ones I published above beacuse they say that the recession we are due now will be the worst since the 1930's with the G3's output actually falling by 0.5% in 2002 - something that is hasn't done since WW2 - with output rising by only 1.5% between 2000 and 2003 (that's a total rise not the average!) that's even worse then 1979-82 when output rose by 2.75%.


BTW I have also done some very long-range forecasts for GDP in 2050 for the US, EU, Russia, Japan, China and India - I did offer to post them up but no-one took me up on it, that was on September the 10th though...

[Colon™]

True, virgin isn’t associated with sex, but they have Richard Branson and you don’t.
Silk has a connotation with sex to me, but I don’t believe it would be a dreadful mistake and I admit that, on it's own, it’s a nice name. Of the two, Visual Silk and Digital Silk, I prefer the latter because “Digital” counterweights the sexual connotation and sounds more powerful to me.

Regarding Minerva, I don’t believe it really matters whether people know what it means or not. I didn’t know what it meant when I thought of it either (it was the name of an Antwerpian car manufacturer decades ago) and most don't know what "Thales" or "Consignia" mean either. It just has advantage that it sounds nice and that it provides you a story to tell when people ask after the origin of the name. (always nice to tell your Japanese customer you named your company after the Roman goddess of arts )

BTW, how about Eve (Enhanced Visual Engines/Energy),
Eva (Enhanced Visual Applications) or Ave (Advanced Visual Engines/Energy)? You can’t complain about a glut of syllables here.

[DanS]

ef: those September 10 postings probably got caught up in the September 11 storm. I would like to see your 2050 numbers, but I think I've seen some of your 2025 numbers in the past and have a sense on where you stand.

The thing about these numbers that seems to be most variable is immigration. I would love to see the political will there for continued and perhaps even drastically increased immigration, but, as you know, some of that follows the changing political winds. In that respect, September 11 might have a much greater impact on the economy than we give it credit for, one way or another. We'll see how it shakes out. (As an aside, in the past, American society has shown the ability to assimilate up to 2-2.5% per annum immigrants).

My sense is that in the US pre-September 11, there was will across the political spectrum to at least maintain the current high rate of immigration, especially since the majority of immigrants are from Western, but second and third-world societies. It's a quite strong political argument here that we're a land of immigrants and that to deny others a chance to immigrate is somehow unfair. There is a lot of nuance attached, that would take a psychiatrist to figure out, I'm sure. In any event, I absolutely love our population age distribution--nearly flat for the foreseeable future.

I would have thought that Europe and Japan would see the benefits of immigration, but don't know about the political will. From what little I see from this side of the pond, there is almost no political will available in Europe and the face of immigration to the majoriy is riots and other "aggressive" behavior (this might be a misimpression--if so, tell me). In Japan, I see very little hope. In contrast, the general view in the States is that immigrants will work (or need to work) to the bone, and that seems to be widely respected as an excellent net plus to society and the economy.

Colon: what? I'm no Branson? Bite your tongue!

"Digital Silk" it is? What does "Digital Silk" translate into other languages? Does it work well?

Re Eva, I really like it. It reminds me of a girl I met in Prague in '98. She worked for Andersen Consulting, which was nearly working her to death. It was the dead of winter, she was probably pulling 16-hour days, and she looked really tired. She seemed to have a slavic-cum-communism jaded fatalism that was especially touching to me at the time.

Anyway, the pension I was going to stay in shut for the holidays, and we hooked up in a crystal shop, where she was doing last minute gift shopping and I was doing the dumb American "you know anyplace I can stay?" routine to the cashier. I ended up staying with Eva's mom.

Btw, she was really good looking.

Alas, www.eva.com is taken.

edit: digitalsilk.com is also taken. So too visualsilk.com. videosilk.com is still available, though.

[Roland]

EF:

"Maybe you are confusing the activity rate with the employment rate - which is ar 75%. The activity rate also includes the unemployed."

Not confusing anything, I had employment at 72 % and participation at 75/76 %.
Gotta check that. Did you adjust for the 2000 census ?

Dan:

The Japanese decided to have no immigration despite their demographics, IIRC.
As for europe, the EU has about 1 million net immigration per year. At least that's what gets counted. Most people's attitude is neutral I'd say.

But I find it piss funny when the former Vienna chief of the FP rambled against immigrants, while his name was Pavkovic. Sheesh, Austria has been an immigration country for at least 3000 years.

In recent news I saw some surprises.... I didn't know we had about 8000 hindus, 8000 sikhs and (officially) 25.000 chinese/chinese origin here... and we naturalised more Indians than Czechs last year...

[Ted Striker]

DanS:

Digital Silk is very sexy.

All this arguing about statistics between Herr Stats (Roland) and Stats Jr. (el Freako) is getting me all hot and bothered.

[Roland]

"...is getting me all hot..."

[DanS]

Roland: thank you for a rundown of the political realities and the on-ground realities. Of course, I am skeptical that even if the political will is there to crack down on illegal immigration, that it will actually happen.

Re the company name, I'm now leaning for "Video Silk". The connotations aren't that great, but the domain is available. Would this name be a grave mistake?

[Roland]

Dan:

"Of course, I am skeptical that even if the political will is there to crack down on illegal immigration, that it will actually happen."

Well estimates here are for 100k-200k "submarines" on a population of 8.1 million.
And with ID cards and registration systems, control should be easier here.

But ours wouldn't get counted in a census. Yours would ?

"Re the company name, I'm now leaning for "Video Silk"."

Don't know. I'd really consider some talking abbrev....

[Colon™]

EF, how do you know for sure that the output gap is correct if you know that structural productivity rate is disputed and itself hard to discover?
Besides, the structural rate is a long-term rate which doesn’t rule out significant variation from year to year, under the influence of macro-economic policy, crises, confidence and so on.

Dan, I don’t like Video Silk very much, it sounds corny and lame and it makes me think of a video renter.

[el freako]

Roland,

"Did you adjust for the 2000 census ?"

Aha! that's were we were getting our different figures - no I have not mainly beacuse in the spreadsheet used I wanted a consistant run of yearly data and AFAIK there are no revised estimates of US population for the period 1991-1999 yet.

Colon,

"how do you know for sure that the output gap is correct if you know that structural productivity rate is disputed and itself hard to discover?"

I don't! That's what a 'forecast' means it's just a best guess!

"the structural rate is a long-term rate which doesn’t rule out significant variation from year to year"

Which is why I am far more confident about the averages for the period 2001-2005 than for any single year in them (with the exception of 2001 which is half over anyway).

DanS,

I will post up my 2050 forecasts (with my methods and sources) if I have another person interested as well.

[Colon™]

”I don't! That's what a 'forecast' means it's just a best guess! “

Well EF, that was exactly my point, so would you please friggin’ stop arguing with me.

Do you know what methods IMF, OECD and other dominant international organisations use to compile their forecasts?

Go ahead and post your 2050 forecasts, we have seen worse spam around here.

[Ted Striker]

blah blah

NASDAQ GDP

uSA!

[Saras]

Minerva is taken, there's a software firm in UK.

Video silk is SEXY and cool

[DanS]

We decided to go with something simple and workmanlike, but good...

SDI Silk

The silk forms the brand here, so the name can grow with our product line (if it does grow). Unfortunately, "Digital Silk" just had too many encumberances. SDI Silk is easily remembered in our market space and doesn't suffer from any encumberances.

Our first product is the SDI Silk 100 OEM card.

Thanks for all of the suggestions!