The Facebook Fantasy

This is the week that Facebook launches its IPO, an Internet Gold Rush the likes of which we haven't seen for at least a couple of months. The Facebook IPO is projected to give the company a market cap of at least $100,000,000,000.00, for those of you who are numerically challenged, nine zeros before the decimal point equals One Hundred Billion Dollars. That's more than McDonald's, Disney, Fluor, Kraft Foods, American Express, Boeing, Visa and FedEx to name just a few, not to mention the plethora of "Large Cap" Companies like Microsoft, General Electric and Wal-Mart.  Shades of the '90s  Dot-Com boom.

Not too bad for a company whose product is you. Not too bad for a company that does not recognize Dynes and Ergs.

And, that is the dilemma. This country was built on the principal of reward for production. Make something tangible that serves a real need and you are rewarded for your efforts and so is society as a whole. Create a useful product and you produce both primary and secondary jobs which fuels the economy and feeds our citizens.

Now, what we create are illusionary products and ephemeral wealth, or don't you remember the real estate riches of just 6 years ago, the Dot-Com bust of 2,000 or  the Silver Bubble of the late '70s. Facebook is not an Apple or a General Electric, nor is Linked-in, Groupon, Zynga, Angie's List or Carbonite. 

The point is that creating wealth out of Zeros, Ones, Greed and hope is a Temple built on a foundation deeply grounded in quicksand.