Gov't could care less, mainly because they don't understand such things. One of my favorite examples is Governor Celeste of Ohio years ago was miffed because so many OH corporations were moving to lower-cost sites, mainly in the South. So, Celeste drafted and passed legislation that would require any company that closed its doors to leave the equivalent of six months wages to cover unemployment benefits and retraining for their workers. Six months later Celeste was scratching his head trying to figure out why there were zero new business startups in Ohio. In less than a year, the legislation was revoked.
Come on, guys, how friggin' stupid to you have to be not to see that freight train coming? Alas, most of the people in Washington aren't even that bright...at least Celeste admitted the problem and killed it. Washington simply passes additional regulations to "fix" the bad ones already in place. Idiots...
Go check how many of those from 1999 and 1996 still exist.
IPO doesn’t mean jack, all it means is the dog and pony show by the execs was good enough to con enough institutioinal investors into buying so they could go out the door, that’s all.
Using numbers from 94-2000 is going to get you a joke of a statistical bubble, most of those companies no longer exist in any form.
Don’t believe me? I’ve got some Webvan stock to sell ya.
Funny thing, Dick Celeste is now President of Colorado College here in Colorado Springs. If I remember right, he was resistant to Ohio raising their speed limit back in 1987 after the states were permitted to post 65 mph on rural interstates.