New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff • Hacker News Board

Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff

#11

Post by kirse » Sun, Feb 01, 2009, 6:45 AM UTC

quoderat wrote: post #8

manny wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are people still seriously thinking that this economic crises was because of greedy CEOs and capitalism? Jesus Christ. :|

I personally don't think it was caused by those things, though I am sure that there are those who do. I think the five major factors that contributed to it, in rough order of importance: 1) Too much leverage, without understanding the risks. 2) Trade imbalances causing capital flow imbalances. 3) Complete lack of regulation and lack of enforcement of existing regulation. 4) A culture of "gotta have it now." 5) Produc…

I would agree with most of your reasons, but for each of them you need to ask "why" until you get to the real source of the problem.

For the most part, the greediness of people is why we had such ridiculously leveraged financial securities and special-purpose vehicles etc. designed to stuff as many fistfuls of cash as possible into the pockets of those who could game the system the best.

Greed was the cause, and insane levels of leverage were the flimsy supports for this recent collapse of the financial house of cards.

Of course, that's not to say leverage is inherently bad, but in excess it clearly points the way to financial ruin.

Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff

#12

Post by quoderat » Sun, Feb 01, 2009, 6:48 AM UTC

kirse wrote: post #11

quoderat wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally don't think it was caused by those things, though I am sure that there are those who do. I think the five major factors that contributed to it, in rough order of importance: 1) Too much leverage, without understanding the risks. 2) Trade imbalances causing capital flow imbalances. 3) Complete lack of regulation and lack of enforcement of existing regulation. 4) A culture of "gotta have it now." 5) Produc…

I would agree with most of your reasons, but for each of them you need to ask "why" until you get to the real source of the problem. For the most part, the greediness of people is why we had such ridiculously leveraged financial securities and special-purpose vehicles etc. designed to stuff as many fistfuls of cash as possible into the pockets of those who could game the system the best. Greed was the cause, and insa…

I agree with you. Well-stated.

And that's why I feel that even if regulation isn't perfect, and even if it sometimes is counterproductive (which it is!), it can often help to stave off such things as this.

Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff

#13

Post by eds » Sun, Feb 01, 2009, 6:50 AM UTC

quoderat wrote: post #6

unalone wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Eric Bauman makes a site that profits from stealing other people's content. A song is written insulting him. An entire website blames their mayhem on him in revenge. He is caught altering watermarks and removing citations. He gets enough money to buy an apartment building and sponsor a boxer. His father writes insulting emails. Then suddenly another shady company buys him out and ruins his company, and it's proof…

"This is excellent evidence that the system regulates itself." As it regulated itself with the current financial and economic crisis? Like AIG regulated itself? Like Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, et al.?

He didn't say each player would regulate itself, but that the system as a whole would regulate itself. The system did regulate the companies you mentioned--they went out of business. Unfortunately, the federal government threw the taxpayers under the bus in order to keep the system from working like it's supposed to.

Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff

#14

Post by quoderat » Sun, Feb 01, 2009, 6:57 AM UTC

eds wrote: post #13

quoderat wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This is excellent evidence that the system regulates itself." As it regulated itself with the current financial and economic crisis? Like AIG regulated itself? Like Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, et al.?

He didn't say each player would regulate itself, but that the system as a whole would regulate itself. The system did regulate the companies you mentioned--they went out of business. Unfortunately, the federal government threw the taxpayers under the bus in order to keep the system from working like it's supposed to.

Working like it was supposed to during, say, the Great Depression?

That was a likely outcome if we'd followed the prescriptions you seem to advocate above.

Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff

#15

Post by quoderat » Sun, Feb 01, 2009, 6:58 AM UTC

Dobbs wrote: post #9

quoderat wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This is excellent evidence that the system regulates itself." As it regulated itself with the current financial and economic crisis? Like AIG regulated itself? Like Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, et al.?

The system was trying to regulate itself. Thats why the economic crisis is happening. The companies that are in trouble are ones that can not be maintained that either need to restructure them selves or die. In the infinite wisdom of our leaders they decided to stray from the theory of capitalism and interfere. Everyone likes to think that capitalism means that everything is happy daisy, but its not. If things go wro…

And meanwhile, what happens to the people who are bankrupted, ruined, cannot eat or get health care, while the system self-corrects?

Reasonably happy, non-malnourished people make better employees, you'll have to admit.

Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff

#16

Post by dantheman » Sun, Feb 01, 2009, 7:01 AM UTC

quoderat wrote: post #8

manny wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are people still seriously thinking that this economic crises was because of greedy CEOs and capitalism? Jesus Christ. :|

I personally don't think it was caused by those things, though I am sure that there are those who do. I think the five major factors that contributed to it, in rough order of importance: 1) Too much leverage, without understanding the risks. 2) Trade imbalances causing capital flow imbalances. 3) Complete lack of regulation and lack of enforcement of existing regulation. 4) A culture of "gotta have it now." 5) Produc…

I think you are missing the systemic causes -- the low cost of money and its devaluation through inflation cause makes taking risks more economical (safe investments lose money). The markets are more regulated now than they've ever been.

The cause of this crises has been building for a long time, and goes back to the 70s when the united states went off the gold standard.

Additionally, there were things that happened that never happened before. For instance selling stock in financial institutions, which incentivises risk taking. This of course led to a mistake on the public's part of not realizing what they were investing in was riskier than they thought.

A culture of "gotta have it now." doesn't mean anything except that those participating in it will be poorer than those who don't, and lending to the first group is riskier than lending to the second so their interest rates should vary.

Productivity is constantly increasing, and will be increasing at faster rates. As for CEOs if they were acting wrongly then their board, or shareholders should revolt. If it's a private company then the owner, if the CEO is the owner then it's his to do what he wants with it.

Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff

#17

Post by astrodust » Sun, Feb 01, 2009, 7:32 AM UTC

TooMuchNick wrote: post #5

unalone wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Eric Bauman makes a site that profits from stealing other people's content. A song is written insulting him. An entire website blames their mayhem on him in revenge. He is caught altering watermarks and removing citations. He gets enough money to buy an apartment building and sponsor a boxer. His father writes insulting emails. Then suddenly another shady company buys him out and ruins his company, and it's proof…

Except, I'd think, for the bit where Eric Bauman makes even more money in the sale and faces no charges for a decade of illegal business that funneled capital away from the creators who deserved it. Dear lord, I think I just gave myself enough cognitive dissonance to stop using Bittorrent for hours. But my point is that Bauman hasn't really repaid his debt to society. He's been shamed, and a lot of us are glad for th…

With Bittorrent and the like, your usual garden variety piracy, you at least know who you're stealing from and you know that everyone involved is simply supplying bandwidth, information alone, and that no money is changing hands. If at any point in time you prefer to purchase a legitimate copy of what you have obtained, you are free to do so, and many people often do.

What Ebaum did was claim the content as their own and act as a gateway to it, in effect making a buck off of the piracy of others. Since the original creator is no longer known, there's no way to provide compensation even if you want to.

Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff

#18

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Feb 01, 2009, 7:33 AM UTC

TooMuchNick wrote: post #5

unalone wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Eric Bauman makes a site that profits from stealing other people's content. A song is written insulting him. An entire website blames their mayhem on him in revenge. He is caught altering watermarks and removing citations. He gets enough money to buy an apartment building and sponsor a boxer. His father writes insulting emails. Then suddenly another shady company buys him out and ruins his company, and it's proof…

Except, I'd think, for the bit where Eric Bauman makes even more money in the sale and faces no charges for a decade of illegal business that funneled capital away from the creators who deserved it. Dear lord, I think I just gave myself enough cognitive dissonance to stop using Bittorrent for hours. But my point is that Bauman hasn't really repaid his debt to society. He's been shamed, and a lot of us are glad for th…

[deleted]

Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff

#19

Post by jhickner » Sun, Feb 01, 2009, 7:40 AM UTC

quoderat wrote: post #6

unalone wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Eric Bauman makes a site that profits from stealing other people's content. A song is written insulting him. An entire website blames their mayhem on him in revenge. He is caught altering watermarks and removing citations. He gets enough money to buy an apartment building and sponsor a boxer. His father writes insulting emails. Then suddenly another shady company buys him out and ruins his company, and it's proof…

"This is excellent evidence that the system regulates itself." As it regulated itself with the current financial and economic crisis? Like AIG regulated itself? Like Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, et al.?

Hybrid free/regulated systems like ours have all of the downsides of both approaches but none of the benefits. I do believe that the free market regulates itself, but we don't have a free market.

In a free market, there would be no bailouts. In our system, on the other hand, wall street counts on bailouts. You don't leverage your company 40 to 1 unless you believe there's a safety net. It's in vogue to believe that everyone in finance is an idiot, but they're not. They do exactly what makes business sense within the rules of the market. And our rules say: leverage yourself as much as you can. The fed will be there to bail you out if you fail.

Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff

#20

Post by chris11 » Sun, Feb 01, 2009, 7:41 AM UTC

evdawg wrote: post #3

eBaum has a reputation for plagiarism and copyright infringement-- what goes around comes around I guess.

Yeah, I would have more sympathy if it was someone else. It sounds like they were just tossed out on the street. I do find it somewhat ironic that Eric accused the new C.E.O. of basically stealing some of his personal computer files when he took all the company's computers without letting staff remove files. Link to description of eviction:http://blog.ebaum.tv/2009/01/so-this-is-how-it-all-went-down...