...and all I got was HUNGRY.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/02/12/yahoo_hit_with_first_shareholder_lawsuit.html
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/02/12/tech-yahoo.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2004177547_msftyhoo12.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=ap8tO3XxVXQw&refer=home
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=alE47ucZHv5k&refer=home
I have many well-meaning progressive brethren and sistren who decry "corporatism" for the greed, and indifference to workers, consumers, the environment, the communities, diversity of choice, diversity of wealth holders, income disparities and so on. Perhaps, many progressives say, there's some element of corporate pleasure at all of these negative social externalities. Guess what? THEY'RE 100% RIGHT, EVEN AS TO THE LATTER. In terms of unearned economic rents, if you can cause harm and not have to pay for it, that is fundamentally equal to earning that much more extra-normal profit.
Leaving aside the political questions, though, how funny is it that these two major corporations are moving heaven and earth to fuck their shareholders over and each corporation's management thinks it's doing right by it's shareholders?
One of the questions I get asked a lot in Panama about America is "why do Americans hate business so much and why are they so bad at it?"
Look, on all counts this YHOO/MSFT thing is fucked. That noise you hear is the whirling in graves of Milton Friedman, John Kenneth Galbraith, Fischer Black, John Maynard Keynes, Karl Marx, Adam Smith, Irving Fisher, David Ricardo, Thorstein Veblen, Bernard Baruch, Abbie Hoffman, Hunter Thompson and Carl Rosen.
That's a metaphor but for those in the back not paying attention, this is what I mean in plain English. I believe that capitalists should be paying plenty of attention to the progressive blog-world. Had they done that in 2004, 2005 or 2006, many would have heard a different point of view on US foreign, fiscal and monetary policy and could have profited by it. I also believe that progressives should be economically and financially literate. Don't believe me. Believe Ann Coulter, Robert Novak and Pat Buchanan. They have all said that Hollywood AND Wall Street are all that prevents their vision of America from becoming complete.
The following series of articles from Fortune have nothing to do with YHOO or MSFT but they're pretty fucking funny.
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/fortune/0712/gallery.101_dumbest.fortune/index.html
Where the fuck did all my readers go, by the way? I actually think this shit is important and interesting and kind of amusing. Jeezie-Peezie. I'll take back all those things I said about Your-Agent-Of-Change (tm) if you pay attention to some of my shit about business and the macro-economy. Fuck. Please. Disagree with me. Call me an asshole. Whatever.
No soap, huh? OK. Final offer. Obama is Frederick Douglass, Nelson Mandela, JFK, Thomas Edison, LeBron James and Phil Ivey all rolled into one. Clinton is a man-hating lesbian who would make the Pfizer logo the US Flag. We cool now?
Kelso's Nuts love you
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5 comments:
I do believe that capitalism works, but that it works best when it is responsibly regulated. Even the big corps themselves eventually are going to run out of customers if they continue to impoverish them all. Who will buy your stuff if everyone's broke?
I agree with you which is one of the reasons that I've been all over the absurdity of this MSFT and YHOO thing.
Quite aside from the shareholder value issue, the MSFT restrait-on-trade issue, which was never really resolved and insofar as they have been an impdiment to the open-source movement, MSFT is a perfect example of yet another example of market failure.
It is a simple matter of fact that Big Business loves Big Government.
The only business of government should be to keep the playing field level. As soon as Big Government gets into the business of "regulating" business, someone or some competitor gets an edge.
Microsoft was once the best in its field. The Windows and Office franchises are still solid stuff. But everything else? No.
Nevertheless, Microsoft intends to protect its turf. But rather than innovate, Microsoft wants to dig a moat, build a buffer, stop the erosion by insulating itself with the border provided by another enterprise.
That will work for a while. But this deal is testimony to the notion that the moment of Peak Microsoft has just passed by.
Kelso, I'm still reading. And you know I love this shit. I just don't have anything intelligent to add.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, No_Slappz! You, "Harvey" and "Gary's Boner" seem to be the only ones who want to discuss it.
I knew there was a good reason I didn't write you off as just another "political opponent."
While we've disagreed on most political stuff, I've appreciated the close attention you pay on blogs and while I think you were out of line once or twice, you know you're welcome to comment on anything here from any perspective.
Furthermore, I agree with everything you've written in your comment about this. I especially agree with you with regard to the opeating system and the Office Suite. While the operating system may not be as robust as some stuff coming out of open-source, I agree that it's good and I am definitely a qualified Office Suite believer, although I think Outlook is still way too buggy.
Nevertheless, from a management standpoint, you are right. NO, their tangential efforts all SUCK. And to throw good money away to add more sucky tangential stuff with the great risk of messing with their cash cows is silly.
Are you a closet liberal? I'm an economic and financial Cartesian and a far-left loony-progressive on social and foreign policy, but I think your first two paragraphs ought to form the rock bottom of everyone's economic thinking ESPECIALLY liberals.
SuziRiot: Please write what you want. You are incapable of adding anything uniteresting. Fuck it, Fairlane's one of the pickiest guys out there. You think he drafted you because you DON'T have interesting ideas on subjects you love?
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