All Good Things.

It was very good while it was good. Unfortunately, all good things come to an end and the Gilder Forum is not an exception.

Why is it that George Gilder, being such a bright person, could not keep up the quality of his forum. He answers the question himself in the June 2001 issue of The American Spectator. Excerpt from his interview:

"Christie Whitman is an upper-class American woman. I come from that milieu.

"We were taught to disdain commerce...

"I was brought up this way. I wanted to be a writer and maybe a politician, but the idea of going into business was far from my mind. We were poets and critics and liberal Republicans and we took wealth for granted.

Gilder, wanting to be a politician, finds that the political content of the Gilder Forum is a gift to the world. What he forgets is that most of the subscribers to the Gilder Technology Report are interested in his opinions on technology, the middle word of the title of the GTR.

One of the things that always bothered me about Gilder is that he does not put his money were his mouth is. His cop out is that it would create a conflict of interest for him to write about companies and to invest in them. I really don't see why. Louis Navellier and many other writers of newsletters dealing with stocks of companies buy and sell those very same stocks. To paraphrase Mark Twain: "Watching your stocks getting killed wonderfully focuses your mind." Gilder most certainly lacks this focus and he makes sure that the sordid world of stock prices does not mar his paradigmatic vision.

In order to remain a poet and critic and liberal Republicans, Gilder disentangles himself from the sordid money making aspects of investing in the paradigm. That's for people who write prose, take the world as it is and who are conservative Democrats.

Unfortunately, many of us saw this too late and we allowed ourselves to be swept up by the Alice in Wonderland poetry that Gilder is so good at. Yes, the world needs people like Gilder and is better for him. But some of us investors are not. Caveat Investor!

With the declining fortunes of his subscribers, a bitter tone crept into the forum. The forum was also infested by maggots and parasites who saw profit the misfortune of others. This could have been quickly cured by someone who is responsive the interests of his clients. But we are not clients. We are fodder for Gilder's upper-class American vanity. We are fodder for his canons and his cannons. Our job was to help him pay for The American Spectator.

Now that the GTR and the forum have accomplished their mission, Gilder does not have time to spend on 10% of his audience (his words, not mine). He now has to write poetry for The American Spectator. I wonder when that audience too will be thrown of the trash heap?

Denny
"REMEMBER GRESHAM'S LAW."