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Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

nytimes.com

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Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#971

Post by wakawaka28 »

freejazz wrote: post #931
wakawaka28 wrote: post #899

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're talking to me or reading my comment then you should care what I mean. Otherwise you're wasting your time. Obviously "loosely speaking" is not a legal term but I'm sure there is one that means the same. I mean you need real money to buy things, not bad paper. Bankruptcy does not exist to deliver good feels to people, it exists to settle financial matters as objectively as possible.

Right. The debt owed to the creditors...

One reason to have an actual auction is because the liquidation might more than cover the debt and leave the bankrupt person with excess cash. But that only happens if real cash is generated in a competitive liquidation process. The reasons why this backroom dealing stinks are plentiful...

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#972

Post by wakawaka28 »

avianlyric wrote: post #129
wakawaka28 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not arguing against bankruptcy. I'm saying that bankruptcy is a structured process that is supposed to generate monetary outcomes for everyone. Selling off assets in a non-competitive process is basically a criminal move, especially if you collude with one of the bidders who is also a creditor. Bankruptcy itself aside, the judgement against Alex Jones here is huge. I haven't looked it up but I'm sure it broke rec…

> Selling off assets in a non-competitive process is basically a criminal move, especially if you collude with one of the bidders who is also a creditor. Not sure why the bankruptcy trustee working with the companies largest creditors, so large, that a simple proportionate would result in them claiming pretty much the entire possible payout, can be considered collusion. The only people who can possibly be harmed are…

>Not sure why the bankruptcy trustee working with the companies largest creditors, so large, that a simple proportionate would result in them claiming pretty much the entire possible payout, can be considered collusion.

Because there is no actual money, there must be consensus among creditors, and the assets in question might more than pay the debt (in general). I believe there are also tax implications to writing off debt in some cases, as well as tax implications associated with the actual sale of property. So no, you can't just go rogue and take possession of someone's property for any price you like without even having the cash, just because they haven't paid their debts or they are an unlikeable person.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#973

Post by wakawaka28 »

mindslight wrote: post #639
jasonjayr wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with you. As much as I'd personally enjoy never hearing from or about him again, I agree that 1A is an extremely important right that should be defended, even if you hate what the person is saying. But free speech does NOT mean freedom from consequences. Taking away infowars does not stop him from continuing to speak his nonsense.

(nb this is not a defense of Alex Jones or the events of the article, please read my whole comment to understand my point) > But free speech does NOT mean freedom from consequences Freedom of speech most certainly means freedom from coercive consequences. Or do you think the first amendment merely prevents the government from engaging in physical prior restraint such as putting duct tape over your mouth, and post fac…

You are 100℅ right but on here this kind of insightful comment is usually downvoted. I should have way higher karma but I have a bad habit of pointing out things that should be obvious to at least the Americans here. Keep up the effort!

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#974

Post by ternnoburn »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #901
Muromec wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking away some amount of wages is very much a thing, as everyone who ever divorced can tell you. You better not ask how math works there, because it’s not fun .

As I said to someone else, taking some feasible payment from income is different from rendering someone unemployed. If you took a construction worker's tools, a taxi drivers car, or anything like that, then you put them out of business and render them incapable of paying. As far as divorce or child support, the same principle applies (or ought to). If the worker cannot sustain himself and his necessary expenses, he w…

This happens all the time. It's super super common, not even accounting for pre trial detention leading to job loss for innocent people.

We should fix that system, but like, why is Alex Jones the one to get hung up on?

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#975

Post by cthalupa »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #970
cthalupa wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sealed auctions are a competitive manner and the sandy hook families are in all practical reality the only creditors of note. Their damages absolutely dwarf his other creditors to the point where they were already in line to effectively receive nothing. Going against the will of the families is absurd to begin with. > But clearly restitution is not the objective. Sure. And damages can be punitive in nature.

>Sealed auctions are a competitive manner [sic] No they are not. Technically nobody knows what someone might be willing to pay. That is why public auctions are the default. The only reason an auction should be private is to protect the identity or interests of the bidders. Taking one round of bids from private parties is not an auction.

> No they are not.

Yes they are. They encourage people to make the best bid they reasonably can based on their desire to ensure the purchase goes through. There's a reason they are the de facto standard for bidding on government contracts.

> Technically nobody knows what someone might be willing to pay.

This is correct. But what you don't seem to understand is that this also causes people to overbid. This is the reason why the vickrey method was created - to ensure that the highest bidder does not massively overpay against the second.

> That is why public auctions are the default.

Public auctions are the default for... what? Bankruptcy? In the US, yes. In Canada and other parts of the world, no. And default does not mean only option or best option.

> The only reason an auction should be private is to protect the identity or interests of the bidders.

They are frequently used explicitly because they often get the person selling the best offer. If the people bidding in auction have asymmetric purchasing power, in an open auction, the winning bid will be slightly over the purchasing power of the weaker party. In a sealed bid auction, the winning party will frequently have a bid with a larger delta than they would have in an open auction.

> Taking one round of bids from private parties is not an auction.

Nothing about the word 'auction' precludes a single round of bidding, sealed or otherwise.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#976

Post by ChrisRR »

StefanBatory wrote: post #401
fennecfoxy wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah it's just typical rich people getting away with everything stuff & we'll continue to let it happen because we are hapless.

It does really appear that America's getting her own, homegrown oligarchs.

America has had oligarchs for a very long time. The government is very much in the pocket of big businesses

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#977

Post by Retric »

hellojesus wrote: post #967
Retric wrote: post #963

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way is that different from any other larger bid? The math is identical to them borrowing ~5 million and then getting it back immediately afterwards. In both cases the other creditors end up with more money and Alex Jones ends up with less dept. It feels unfair because you’re judging the debt as uncollectible, but they would be receiving more cash from other winners so they aren’t just sacrificing hypothetical…

It is both unfair to Alex Jones and any third party bidding on the asset. If some entity was willing to pay more for InfoWars than the debt AJ owes his creditors, he would be able to keep the extra. If A owes B and C money and has to sell some asset to satisify the claim, the only fair way to value the asset is to sell it in the open market, an auction. If D will pay $5 for it and E will pay $500 for it, it would be…

It’s normal for entities owed money to be able to use that debt in these kinds of auctions. They still need to cover whatever fraction of debt is owed to 3rd parties with actual cash. This is a backstop as auctions often result in far lower values for assets than a longer sales process can provide.

It also results in debtors getting out of more debt.

> I understand that InfoWars is likely being sold at auction because no buyer was willing to purchase it for a price that would satisify the debt before bankruptcy, but there is a nomzero chance that some buyer shows up and is willing to pay more for it than someone else specifically to keep it out of that particular buyers hands. Strange. Farfetched. Buy possible. And it wouldn't be fair to allow preference by those owed the debt as it defeats the fair market price process.

A blind auction happened and if someone had offered even 1% of Alex Jones debt for info wars they would have won. The specific deal setup by the Onion provided 1.7 million dollars to satisfy other creditors, but the Texas families are owed 49 million. So even if the Connecticut families agreed to accept nothing any deal handing more than 1.7 million to the Texas families would have won.

Further, while it seems impossible for Alex Jones to ever get out of this debt, the Onion deal got him closest to that possibility.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#978

Post by palmfacehn »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #31

Wait, so you can be fined 1.5 Billion for reporting on a conspiracy theory? BTW, this is a lot more than pharmaceutical companies pay out for actually killing people. I remember watching the trial and it was the most ridiculous thing every. The defendant (Alex) wasn't allowed to say he's innocent because the judge defaulted him. Yet the prosecution was allowed to bring in all kinds of evidence of his guilt (other tha…

I haven't invested time watching all of the trials or following this as closely as some. It is strange that for all of the demonization of AJ, there aren't any compelling clips of him inciting his viewers or specifically mentioning the names of the family members.

Given how aggressive the partisan media is, you'd think they would have an established set of incriminating soundbites. When I did look into it deeper, I found that the case was decided by a default decision. Maybe there are reasons for these legal technicalities. I can appreciate that.

If the standard for the discussion is, "AJ was found guilty in court", then we should be clear that this doesn't mean he was found guilty in the substance of the case. Posters here should consider that before going off the deep end in demonizing AJ. HN is a site where discussions routinely involve citing sources. Yet, this part is assumed.

An unprecedented 1.5B in judgement, some of which goes to an FBI agent who worked on the case? Specifically on that point, there are compelling reasons why libel laws apply differently or not at all to government officials. Mainly this revolves around the threat of censoring regime critics. See also: lese-majesty.

Then we find that the plaintiffs' lawyers are explicitly a political group, "The Everytown Group For Gun Control", funded by Michael Bloomberg. Lawyers have claimed that they don't actually want to collect the damages for their client, rather that they have an ulterior motive in shutting down InfoWars. It isn't unreasonable to view this as a war of political factions.

The drama is on-going, but now it is viewed within the context of partisan lawfare against a former and now elected president.

None of these observations are inexplicable, but taken all-together, they fail the smell test for this poster.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#979

Post by rob_c »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #748
rob_c wrote: post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go bank to pseudo security. This is the letter of an argument again ingnoring the spirit of the judgment/law/...

The spirit is that a person owes families he defamed billions of dollars and that person doesn't like who they need to sell their assets to to make that money. I don't even know how and why the details of how this money is recouped is important. If I go bankrupt and need to sell my house, I sure can't stop it from being sold to Hitler or something absurd like that.

I'm not talking about that I'm talking about the technicalities of the ruling. Go away

Its a classic maximisation problem something the overblown ai skating community should understand nothing to do with feelings or secret agreements because of that. Should be allowed to buy back goes own stuff minus debt no, but go fix the system if you don't like that...

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#980

Post by avianlyric »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #972
avianlyric wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Selling off assets in a non-competitive process is basically a criminal move, especially if you collude with one of the bidders who is also a creditor. Not sure why the bankruptcy trustee working with the companies largest creditors, so large, that a simple proportionate would result in them claiming pretty much the entire possible payout, can be considered collusion. The only people who can possibly be harmed are…

>Not sure why the bankruptcy trustee working with the companies largest creditors, so large, that a simple proportionate would result in them claiming pretty much the entire possible payout, can be considered collusion. Because there is no actual money, there must be consensus among creditors, and the assets in question might more than pay the debt (in general). I believe there are also tax implications to writing of…

> Because there is no actual money, there must be consensus among creditors, and the assets in question might more than pay the debt (in general).

What makes you think there wasn’t agreement from all the creditors? There is zero chance the assets can cover the debt (which is close to a billion dollars). The whole point of the deal was that the primary creditor was giving up part of their claim to allow the other creditors to actually see a real payout. There was real cash on the table, and under the rejected deal, every creditor, except the biggest, would see more actual cash in their pocket.

All of this was only possible because the largest creditors worked with the trustee to create a better deal for everyone involved. The fact it also allowed the largest creditors to stick it Alex Jones was icing on top.

> So no, you can't just go rogue and take possession of someone's property for any price you like without even having the cash, just because they haven't paid their debts or they are an unlikeable person.

If you’re the one that owns their debts, then yes you absolutely can. The current owner has already forfeited their claim to the property when they defaulted on the debt and started bankruptcy proceedings. Why the hell would the owner of the debt be required to have the needed cash on hand to repay themselves, that’s ridiculous.

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