181–190 of 440 posts
Bringing back Glass-Steagall was in Trump's platform in 2016.[1](p. 28) [2] That went away as soon as he was elected.
[1] https://prod-static-ngop-pbl.s3.amazonaws.com/media/document... [2] https://money.cnn.com/2016/07/19/investing/donald-trump-glas...
Some of these criticisms are just irrelevant personal abuse - like saying he doesn't think Neumann's t-shirt is fitted well.
Defending those of poor character and moral fiber (not my judgement, facts reported) from a jab about their clothes is low priority. The other issues presented are far more pressing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because with the rise of 401k and lately low interest rates a lot of people were forced into the market who simply don’t have skill or time to learn these skills to make investments in an unregulated market.
Most 401ks are invsted in public companies, not private ones
Some of these criticisms are just irrelevant personal abuse - like saying he doesn't think Neumann's t-shirt is fitted well.
If anything we need way more people making fun of elite billionaires. Sharpen up your wit and sarcasm folks, we're gonna need it in the years ahead.
> WeWork then used this cash to underprice competitors in the co-working space market, hoping to be able to profit later once it had a strong market position in real estate subletting or ancillary businesses. > This is of course Amazon’s model, which underpriced competitors in retail and eventually came to control the whole market. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. The difference is Amazon saw what the marginal costs coul…
>Amazon saw what the marginal costs could be, and had a specific roadmap to drive investment into bringing them down. WeWork fundamentally has no way to drive down the margin on real estate in any meaningful way. Especially as a lessee. It absolutely has a way; hold landlords hostage. They've got another WeWork 4 blocks away. WeWork can walk, and leave landlords with a lot of space to lease and an expensive buildout…
> If you know Dimon’s actual reputation, him getting suckered isn’t surprising.
Jamaie "doesn't give a shit about Bitcoin" Dimon. So he won't just hop on any bandwagon.
> [Masayoshi Son is] an owner of Sprint, and he’s currently trying to force an illegal merger of Sprint with T-Mobile
Not sure how it's "illegal," it's a healthier merger than the previous T-Mobile-AT&T attempt, and a lot of people don't think Sprint is a sustainable business than can last as the number four player, so giving AT&T and Verizon a run for their money is the best outcome for consumers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The difference is Amazon saw what the marginal costs could be, and had a specific roadmap to drive investment into bringing them down. WeWork fundamentally has no way to drive down the margin on real estate in any meaningful way. Especially as a lessee. That's what the article says: >At first, with companies like Walmart and Amazon, predatory pricing can seem smart. The entire retail sector might be decimated and co…
Totally agree with the last pint, people completely tend to ignore the effort and attention to detail Amazon puts into executive and planning. That plus a very sound strategy. Also Amazon was profitable, even if just barely, for the most time while growing appr. 20% constantly. Not comparable to, say, WeWork from what I know. But it shows how powerful that narrative can be.
Wework does that via the private market, hence the game is up when it needs access to the public markets.
Amazon does that via AWS. AWS is the money that fuels the eCommerce side. The game will be up when:
1) Kubernetes will move AWS customers back to on-prem, or at least turn clouds into a commodity. Amazon knows that and this is the reason for the push toward lockin (aka lambda / serverless).
2) Amazon will be divided into two companies.
For me, this whole WeWork fiasco has shown just how valuable the SEC and the S-1 filing process is. Let's be clear -- Neumann was fired because any investor who read the S-1 was mortified and wouldn't touch the company with a 10 foot pole. If anything, this shows how lawless the private markets are and the lack of guardrails that are present to protect private investors -- perhaps this will lead to some reform in the…
Why do private investors need protection? Why can't they be held responsible for the foolishness of their actions?
Because it's politically difficult. Sometimes, infeasible. The public often pays for defrauded grandmas' mistakes.
There are also positive externalities to stable business environments. Diligence costs money. Putting some of that cost on the issuer, once, is more efficient than each investor incurring it. Consistent rules around fraud and disclosure thus prompt new capital formation.
The best examples of the need for this protection are the cesspools that are ICOs.
> WeWork then used this cash to underprice competitors in the co-working space market, hoping to be able to profit later once it had a strong market position in real estate subletting or ancillary businesses. > This is of course Amazon’s model, which underpriced competitors in retail and eventually came to control the whole market. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. The difference is Amazon saw what the marginal costs coul…
> This is wrong, wrong, wrong.
I agree with your analysis, that Stoller is wrong in this case (and I say this as a non-fan of Amazon)
> > Endless money-losing is a variant of counterfeiting, and counterfeiting has dangerous economic consequences. The subprime fiasco was one example.
> The subprime crisis is completely unrelated!
Here I don't really agree with you. That whole subprime market collapse was not due to monopoly (the ostensible focus of Stoller's blog) but it was an excellent example of the phenomenon he was talking about:
1 - some people saw opportunity in subprime.
2 - they made very good returns on their relatively small and carefully chosen working set
3 - they therefore got gobs of cash to try to duplicate those returns.
4 - the gobs of cash and the early outsize returns caused many others to rush in as well, not just the many charlatans but also honest fools.
5 - All that money turned into a smoking hole in the ground that swallowed up people who had nothing to do with it.
While the example is interesting, it is indeed irrelevant to the thrust of the article, serving more for the author to show off his cleverness.
I look forward to his book but I hope his editor is able to apply some focus.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They control close to 50% of e-commerce which itself represents less than 12% of total retail sales. Both of these numbers are surprising to me, can you source them? Particularly the first one, which I assume is a global measure, and I'd be interested to know what % of North American e-commerce Amazon controls. I wager I could walk outside my home and ask 100 people on the sidewalk to name one e-commerce site and f…
I would struggle to name a single online general retailer that isn't Amazon. Unless you count, like, Walmart. Basically everyone else has some kind of niche. Amazon sells everything.