Worldnet Daily did an interview with a retired Army General who said the War College has described our age as VUCA- Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. Pretty good description for the NASDAQ these days, if you don't want to apply it to our larger lunatic world. All this new economy mumbo jumbo looks rather strained these days; eventually these young people populating the dot.com ads on television are going to actually turn a profit. You know, make money the old fashioned way: earn it.

One company that can highlight the way is called Kozmo.com. It's one of several dot.com companies that have entered the home delivery business. The best known is called Home Grocer.com. The usual Internet shmooze: interesting ads, no profit on revenue and stock IPO's as funding and operating capital. I did read somewhere that advertising agencies are getting stiffed by some Internet companies going bankrupt before they can pay for their weird ads. The NASDAQ Internet stock craze is a game of musical stock options. You would think people would have figured this out by now. Guess not.

Kozmo.com is part owned by the champion Internet loser company Amazon.com, which to this date has NEVER made a profit on its revenue. Amazon lost 122 million on sales of 574 million dollars, even though revenue increased 95% from 294 million. Normally, a 95% revenue increase would mean something to a normal company, like one with a business plan for instance. Amazon.com losses increased from 36 million to 122 million, which is 72 is 100, 108 is 200 and 122 is almost a 250% increase. In anything approaching a normal capitalist company, even a predator pig one where they eat the worker's for lunch, the executions would have already started. Not at Amazon.com. They can afford to invest in Kozmo.com even though they don't know how to make money selling books after several years.

Kozmo.com must have the same management team in place as Amazon.com. Kozmo.com lost 26.5 million on revenue of 3.5 million dollars. For all of you non Internet buffs out there that means this company spent seven dollars to make one dollar. Never fear, Kozmo wants to have an Initial Stock Offering targeted to raise 150 million dollars. Would you invest in a company that has a balance sheet looking like this? Sure that is what people have been doing on the NASDAQ for several years, but things have changed. Would you invest in a global environment of increasing interest rates and inflation? Maybe there are still 150 million dollars worth of suckers out there; then again, maybe not. We'll find out soon, assuming the IPO goes off as scheduled.

One of these days NASDAQ investors are going to wake up and ask, "Where's the Profit dot.com?" The day they do that, it's all over. Patience is a virtue. No one can deny that Internet stock investors have been a patient, even foolish, lot waiting for the payoff. How much longer they are willing to wait will determine how long the current NASDAQ stock boom continues. At some point, I have no idea when with these greedy people, someone has to notice few Internet companies are making any profit. Faith only goes so far in business and economics. Sooner or later, someone is going to ask for the tangible proof, called profit, that these dot.com's know what they are doing. It's time for the NASDAQ and the Internet to get real or get lost. The 1973/74 market lost 50%, and 1929-33 one lost 90% of its value. The NASDAQ is nothing but a mist of greed and a fog of "new economy faith." Once the sun of higher interest rates and inflation starts to rise, who knows what will happen, or what will be left after the heat.

There is no worse bitterness than to reach the end of your life and realize you haven't lived. -- M. Scott Peck