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Amazon is reportedly negotiating to acquire MGM for about $9B

businessinsider.com

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Re: Amazon is reportedly negotiating to acquire MGM for about $9B

#231

Post by kingsuper20 »

charwalker wrote: post #209
kingsuper20 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Vertical mergers can frequently be welfare-improving to consumers. As can be horizontal mergers given economies of scale and/or network effects. It's an interesting area of the law (anti-trust) as it strikes me as one of the few really excellent uses for the heavy hand of the government. Lots of cooks in the kitchen of legislation. It does grate my ears to hear the word 'consumer' rather than 'citizen' but I suppose…

> given economies of scale and/or network effects. Other than competition, easily bought out when you're working with a $600 billion valuation of Amazon, or loss of consumer interest, what incentive does a for profit company have to shift any gains from economies of scale/etc to consumers? Why not make your product for 10% less, charge the same, and pass on the difference to shareholders? Apple is a great example. If…

>what incentive does a for profit company have to shift any gains from economies of scale/etc to consumers?

You'd have to have listen in to a Walmart upper management meeting to see why, but my guess is that all commerce is somewhat fungible. There's always a bit more growth to be eked by lowering prices or increasing value of products.

I'm not saying that this always happens, or that it isn't shared with increasing profits. Gigantism in box stores could be used in areas for monopoly pricing where they have wiped out smaller competitors (who themselves wiped out smaller competitors) but there are numerous cases where it hasn't happened. I'd say that fear of anti-trust action is only part of the reason.

Re: Amazon is reportedly negotiating to acquire MGM for about $9B

#232

Post by stagger87 »

subsaharancoder wrote: post #229
stagger87 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd start with something livable.

> I'd start with something livable Define "livable" in the context of wages

This term is already defined.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_wage

https://livingwage.mit.edu/

Re: Amazon is reportedly negotiating to acquire MGM for about $9B

#233

Post by TheCoelacanth »

xwdv wrote: post #103
snarf21 wrote: post #6

Is the SEC and FTC ever going to do their job? They have failed us in the 21st century. Shareholder value over everything else. It would be nice for some regulation to attack all this rent seeking.

What is wrong with shareholder value over everything else? What is the else ? Shareholders sink a ton of capital into companies and take on significant risk of loss, why can't they be compensated for it?

How about the people of the country that those agencies are supposed to be serving?

Re: Amazon is reportedly negotiating to acquire MGM for about $9B

#234

Post by kodah »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #186
tablespoon wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's not even a lot! Apple, Google & FB have $200bn, $140bn & $65bn respectively. Dividends don't seem to be a thing, and it's basically impossible to invest this much cash internally. These companies don't have factories to build, or any kind of hard capital investments to make. Apple arguably does have factories to build, given how utterly dependent on China it is.

This. Apple should be looking into buying a semiconductor company and building more fabs. Preferably US based. Maybe Micron or TI. Micron's market cap is ~90B. TI's is about ~170B, so probably Micron.

I really would hate to see Texas Instruments bought and buried by a coastal company. The Midwest really needs some of its own tech giants to drive their economies. I suspect TI would be absent from North Texas if Apple bought them or they'd participate in the typical nastiness of moving all engineering to the coast and leaving sales and marketing in it's wake.

Re: Amazon is reportedly negotiating to acquire MGM for about $9B

#235

Post by duped »

kodah wrote: post #234
UncleOxidant wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Apple should be looking into buying a semiconductor company and building more fabs. Preferably US based. Maybe Micron or TI. Micron's market cap is ~90B. TI's is about ~170B, so probably Micron.

I really would hate to see Texas Instruments bought and buried by a coastal company. The Midwest really needs some of its own tech giants to drive their economies. I suspect TI would be absent from North Texas if Apple bought them or they'd participate in the typical nastiness of moving all engineering to the coast and leaving sales and marketing in it's wake.

Major nitpick but Texas is most certainly not part of the midwest. And acquisition is the wrong thing to fear, backwards economic policies and divestment from urban centers and education while labor protections even for high skilled employees continue to be eroded are system problems outside of the coastal hubs. Texans and midwesterners should be afraid of how their governments are dropping the ball, not of coastal companies buying out the locals.

But the bigger scare of TI being acquired is that they are a major manufacturer of commodity components and Apple is a vertically integrated consumer electronics business. It would be devastating to American semiconductor marketplace if their portfolio was no longer available.

Re: Amazon is reportedly negotiating to acquire MGM for about $9B

#236

Post by kodah »

duped wrote: post #235
kodah wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really would hate to see Texas Instruments bought and buried by a coastal company. The Midwest really needs some of its own tech giants to drive their economies. I suspect TI would be absent from North Texas if Apple bought them or they'd participate in the typical nastiness of moving all engineering to the coast and leaving sales and marketing in it's wake.

Major nitpick but Texas is most certainly not part of the midwest. And acquisition is the wrong thing to fear, backwards economic policies and divestment from urban centers and education while labor protections even for high skilled employees continue to be eroded are system problems outside of the coastal hubs. Texans and midwesterners should be afraid of how their governments are dropping the ball, not of coastal c…

Sure, whatever region you want to call Texas feel free to call it that. It's largely arbitrary.

The problem is that Dallas (and other areas) have been sucked dry of talent by tech companies for a while - even before the conservative economic policies you're handwaving about came into effect. Some of that is on the state for not being competitive enough, other parts of that have been on predatory practices by businesses that fuel things like state to state income inequality.

Second, I don't need to be told what to be afraid of, so your condescending tone can take a listening stance. A software engineer in Dallas Texas doesn't make near the cost of living difference between a San Francisco job while doing the same thing and that is a problem. Full stop.

That problem can be remedied by bringing more tech businesses to Texas and gating them out of the traditional coastal areas like New York, SF, Seattle, and Portland. There are other ways of remedying the problem and I'd love to hear them, but finger pointing at the Texas government without pointing at companies and other states sounds pretty fruitless.

Re: Amazon is reportedly negotiating to acquire MGM for about $9B

#237

Post by treis »

dageshi wrote: post #86
treis wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but we are solidly in the consolidate and undercut competition phase. The issues arise in the use monopoly power to extract large profit phase.

How? So long as there are multiple competitors after the same customers I don't really see how this happens. Hell, we only really have 3 major cloud computing platforms (along with some minor ones), but consistently the prices of everything they offer goes down.

Because Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video et Al don't make money. At some point they're going to have to and that's when we see if you're right or not.

Re: Amazon is reportedly negotiating to acquire MGM for about $9B

#238

Post by conro1108 »

kodah wrote: post #236
duped wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Major nitpick but Texas is most certainly not part of the midwest. And acquisition is the wrong thing to fear, backwards economic policies and divestment from urban centers and education while labor protections even for high skilled employees continue to be eroded are system problems outside of the coastal hubs. Texans and midwesterners should be afraid of how their governments are dropping the ball, not of coastal c…

Sure, whatever region you want to call Texas feel free to call it that. It's largely arbitrary. The problem is that Dallas (and other areas) have been sucked dry of talent by tech companies for a while - even before the conservative economic policies you're handwaving about came into effect. Some of that is on the state for not being competitive enough, other parts of that have been on predatory practices by business…

> A software engineer in Dallas Texas doesn't make near the cost of living difference between a San Francisco job while doing the same thing and that is a problem. Full stop.

Why is that a problem? Do you feel that the same gap needs to be closed globally, or just within the US?

> finger pointing at the Texas government without pointing at companies and other states

I don't think anyone is finger pointing at the Texas government while ignoring companies and other states. GP is saying that Texas is doing thing X, coastal states are doing thing Y, leading to companies (and engineers) choosing the coastal states because they prefer Y.

Re: Amazon is reportedly negotiating to acquire MGM for about $9B

#239

Post by selimthegrim »

kodah wrote: post #236
duped wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Major nitpick but Texas is most certainly not part of the midwest. And acquisition is the wrong thing to fear, backwards economic policies and divestment from urban centers and education while labor protections even for high skilled employees continue to be eroded are system problems outside of the coastal hubs. Texans and midwesterners should be afraid of how their governments are dropping the ball, not of coastal c…

Sure, whatever region you want to call Texas feel free to call it that. It's largely arbitrary. The problem is that Dallas (and other areas) have been sucked dry of talent by tech companies for a while - even before the conservative economic policies you're handwaving about came into effect. Some of that is on the state for not being competitive enough, other parts of that have been on predatory practices by business…

I used to work for a TI software subcontractor in Portland. After getting strung along by a trainee manager from HQ the whole project was offshored. I can only imagine how the employees in TX are treated.

Re: Amazon is reportedly negotiating to acquire MGM for about $9B

#240

Post by kodah »

conro1108 wrote: post #238
kodah wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, whatever region you want to call Texas feel free to call it that. It's largely arbitrary. The problem is that Dallas (and other areas) have been sucked dry of talent by tech companies for a while - even before the conservative economic policies you're handwaving about came into effect. Some of that is on the state for not being competitive enough, other parts of that have been on predatory practices by business…

> A software engineer in Dallas Texas doesn't make near the cost of living difference between a San Francisco job while doing the same thing and that is a problem. Full stop. Why is that a problem? Do you feel that the same gap needs to be closed globally, or just within the US? > finger pointing at the Texas government without pointing at companies and other states I don't think anyone is finger pointing at the Texa…

> Why is that a problem? Do you feel that the same gap needs to be closed globally, or just within the US?

I'm sure you'd find it problematic if you're forced from an area just because of geo-pay. I can't build that kind of empathy for you though, you'll need to go find it.

Nice whatabboutism on the second part. Yes, I think it needs to be closed on both. These companies produce digital products, not geographically sold ones. The contribution of an engineer in one place is the same as another, as long as the impact is the same.

> GP is saying that Texas is doing thing X, coastal states are doing thing Y, leading to companies (and engineers) choosing the coastal states because they prefer Y.

That's pretty much longer form of what I just said. The state can do things differently, but the state isn't even all or most of the answer. A lot of it has to do with wage suppression, which I covered above.

Edit: I realize I come off a bit salty about this. I am. I am not conservative and this problem has personally impacted me. It's annoying to hear people speak about this with such utter lack of empathy, or rather that their political ideology comes shining through, but I get to most people it's probably just Tuesday.

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