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Samsung group chairman Lee Kun-hee has died

reuters.com

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Re: Samsung group chairman Lee Kun-hee has died

#41

Post by AmericanChopper »

H8crilA wrote: post #16
AmericanChopper wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to many he’s been dead since then, and his heir has just been trying to keep it all hidden because SK’s inheritance taxes could threaten the family’s majority stake in the business.

So is this the heir "buying the dip"? Staging the death at the moment in which the inheritance is likely to have the lowest market value?

Regardless of what you think of the conspiracy theory, they've had quite a long time to plan what they do next, so you'd presume they had something figured out.

Re: Samsung group chairman Lee Kun-hee has died

#42

Post by plorkyeran »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #32
godelski wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that this only happened in this case because Samsung is "too big to fail" for the Korean economy. Kia, LG, and Samsung combined make up 2/3rds of the economy. Worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRzysFhyZ8Y (@11:45 they talk about TBTF)

They are too big to fail and that’s why the government wants a single family to control it?

TBTF is the public justification they give, but the actual reason is probably that the chaebol and government have always been very intertwined, and not always in the direction of the government exerting influence on the chaebol.

Re: Samsung group chairman Lee Kun-hee has died

#43

Post by jbay808 »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #32
godelski wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that this only happened in this case because Samsung is "too big to fail" for the Korean economy. Kia, LG, and Samsung combined make up 2/3rds of the economy. Worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRzysFhyZ8Y (@11:45 they talk about TBTF)

They are too big to fail and that’s why the government wants a single family to control it?

I don't know why you're being downvoted, it's a fair question.

I assume that the government doesn't necessarily care to have a single family control it. But they'd perhaps rather not push a legal campaign against that controlling family, and risk causing harm to (or retribution from) Samsung in the process.

Re: Samsung group chairman Lee Kun-hee has died

#44

Post by rgbrenner »

stanrivers wrote: post #35
smabie wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think zeroing out home equity to buy bonds is a bad idea. After all, you either have real estate exposure or some other one, bond or equity exposure. While I haven't done the analysis, I would venture to guess that investment grade bonds at the very least have lower volatility than real estate.

Do you think the investment grade bonds are going to yield better than the interest rate on a home mortgage ?!?

Yeah I doubt a bond would pay that well.. but he does have a point about risk exposure. Your mortgage could be thought of as an investment in the local real estate market.. diversifying that risk by buying shares in a REIT could be a good strategy... especially if you're in a low-growth area (ie outside of the big cities, midwest, etc).

Re: Samsung group chairman Lee Kun-hee has died

#45

Post by fakedang »

someperson wrote: post #25
notyetcrazymimi wrote: post #3

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/24/obituaries/lee-kun-hee-di...

> In 1995, as part of the emphasis on quality, he visited a Samsung plant in the town of Gumi after a batch of cellphones was found to be defective. > [...] > Together they watched as $50 million worth of phones, fax machines and other inventory was smashed to bits and set ablaze. The employees wept. Interesting, in a documentary (puff piece) by Singapore-based news organisation CNA, I heard a near identical story ab…

Ngl, heard a similar story about Konosuke Matsushita at Panasonic. I think it's a cultural thing, but why would Haier do it in the 1980s, I don't know. Chinese products were known as being shit well into the 00s.

Re: Samsung group chairman Lee Kun-hee has died

#46

Post by peteretep »

H8crilA wrote: post #16
AmericanChopper wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to many he’s been dead since then, and his heir has just been trying to keep it all hidden because SK’s inheritance taxes could threaten the family’s majority stake in the business.

So is this the heir "buying the dip"? Staging the death at the moment in which the inheritance is likely to have the lowest market value?

In the UK if you get a (sizeable, asset) gift from someone and they die within a certain number of years you then need to pay inheritance tax on it. Could be the same mechanism here? Date has passed so turn off the ventilator or whatever?

Re: Samsung group chairman Lee Kun-hee has died

#47

Post by godelski »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #32
godelski wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that this only happened in this case because Samsung is "too big to fail" for the Korean economy. Kia, LG, and Samsung combined make up 2/3rds of the economy. Worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRzysFhyZ8Y (@11:45 they talk about TBTF)

They are too big to fail and that’s why the government wants a single family to control it?

It has been working well so far. There's the old saying "don't fix it if it ain't broken." I think there's plenty of arguments to make that it is broken, but there are plenty to say it isn't. There are different views on this held by different people and different countries. Some would say break it up so it isn't too big to fail. Others say it is the size that allows it to do so well. Unfortunately the nature of the conversation is extremely complex and often these discussions turn reductionist.

Re: Samsung group chairman Lee Kun-hee has died

#48

Post by dmos62 »

xwdv wrote: post #23
dereg wrote: post #9

What a brutal way to go. It has been widely speculated that he has been in a vegetative state since 2014, kept on life support to give the company time to restructure its assets and consolidate power under Lee Kun-Hee's son, Lee Jae-yong, so that their family's power persists even in the wake of paying South Korea's enormous wealth taxes. Samsung undoubtedly played a key role in South Korea's economic ascendance, but…

One could only hope to be so useful even when nearly dead.

That might be a type of usefulness that some of us could do without.

Re: Samsung group chairman Lee Kun-hee has died

#50

Post by adventured »

JoshTko wrote: post #20
alexpetralia wrote: post #6

This reminds me of this tweet: https://twitter.com/oniontaker/status/1214540491577942017

50% Inheritance tax would do wonders in the US. Honestly if you want the best people at the top then no one should start with a billion dollar advantage.

> 50% Inheritance tax would do wonders in the US.

The US is already at 40%. The Feds want 40% of anything over $11.58 million when you die.

Going to 50% isn't going to do wonders.

If you wanted to severely adjust the wealth inequality caused by the extreme wealth of the top 0.01%, you'd want a 80% or 90% rate.

Increasingly the US Senate is rich enough it'd never be allowed to become law.

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