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Union Pacific to buy Norfolk in $85B mega U.S. railroad deal

cnbc.com

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Re: Union Pacific to buy Norfolk in $85B mega U.S. railroad deal

#81

Post by bix6 »

lesuorac wrote: post #73
SilverElfin wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s very hard for companies to go public these days. There isn’t a willingness for institutions or people to invest in companies that haven’t made it yet. Think about how small companies like Microsoft or Google or Amazon were when they went public. Then think about giant private companies like Stripe or Figma. Now you have to be much larger and more mature, which takes a long time. For employees it means waiting 15…

> Then think about giant private companies like Stripe or Figma. Now you have to be much larger and more mature, which takes a long time. I don't think this is accurate. People are chomping at the bit to invest into private companies through Tokens on Robinhood. Private companies do not want to deal with accountability so they remain private. > I guess I view it as chicken and egg. If the huge mega corp companies wer…

Only the top 30 companies have secondary interest. Everyone else is illiquid or takes a steep discount. It’s not healthy for the early stage ecosystem which relies on capital recycling to fund the next generation of managers and founders.

Re: Union Pacific to buy Norfolk in $85B mega U.S. railroad deal

#82

Post by AnimalMuppet »

dowager_dan99 wrote: post #24
bix6 wrote: post #2

What happened to antitrust? We were making great progress and then a few months ago this admin totally flipped?

My money says this will get regulatory approval to compete with the CPKC which goes both east-west and north-south from Canada to Mexico. In this climate a rail network from coast to coast entirely in the continental US is probably viewed as "national security".

I don't see CPKC as a reason for approving this. It won't compete with them in Canada or Mexico at all (since neither UP nor NS go there). And it won't compete much with them in the US, since CPKC pretty much just does north-south in the middle of the country.

I mean CPKC might be the excuse, but that's not the same thing...

Re: Union Pacific to buy Norfolk in $85B mega U.S. railroad deal

#83

Post by bix6 »

skybrian wrote: post #74
SilverElfin wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s very hard for companies to go public these days. There isn’t a willingness for institutions or people to invest in companies that haven’t made it yet. Think about how small companies like Microsoft or Google or Amazon were when they went public. Then think about giant private companies like Stripe or Figma. Now you have to be much larger and more mature, which takes a long time. For employees it means waiting 15…

Is it because going public is harder (probably true) or because nowadays, hot companies can more easily raise money without going public? It seems like companies that are getting similar levels of hype to what Netscape and Google did could go public, but don’t want to, or not yet, anyway. I find it hard to believe that Anthropic or Stripe wouldn’t have successful IPO’s.

Both. It’s more expensive to go public and the market (institutions) is only interested in mega deals because they have so much capital to put to work. Large funds can give a company 100s of millions which enables them to stay private longer and not deal with public disclosures etc.

Re: Union Pacific to buy Norfolk in $85B mega U.S. railroad deal

#84

Post by gruez »

bigbadfeline wrote: post #78
pc86 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disputed does not mean disproven. There are reasonable people who think this merge would be good, and reasonable people who think it would be bad, and perhaps we can discuss pros and cons without acting like asses?

> There are reasonable people who think this merge would be good No there aren't, unless you interpret "good" as "good for extracting monopoly prices from the people". The US economy is overly monopolized as it is even without this buyout. More importantly, no reasonable person would skip the $85 Billion (with B) price tag which is a definite proof of my words above.

>More importantly, no reasonable person would skip the $85 Billion (with B) price tag which is a definite proof of my words above.

Why is $85B automatically bad? Is it just because it's a large sum of money?

Re: Union Pacific to buy Norfolk in $85B mega U.S. railroad deal

#85

Post by bix6 »

delfinom wrote: post #72
SilverElfin wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s very hard for companies to go public these days. There isn’t a willingness for institutions or people to invest in companies that haven’t made it yet. Think about how small companies like Microsoft or Google or Amazon were when they went public. Then think about giant private companies like Stripe or Figma. Now you have to be much larger and more mature, which takes a long time. For employees it means waiting 15…

>For employees it means waiting 15-20 years for a payday. But why do they deserve a payday? If the public markets aren't willing to buy in to IPOs at the given IPO sale price, then perhaps the company isn't valued at the funding rounds valuations that only come from a small handful of investors?

Exit time has doubled in VC. It is a major problem. Hundreds or thousands of people at a single company might be taking lower salaries in exchange for equity that is unsellable until it goes public (or steeply discounted). Yes sometimes valuations are way too high in private markets but an IPO enables a reset and liquidity.

Saying people don’t deserve an exit is saying startups shouldn’t even exist? At some point every company provides liquidity whether it’s stock sales, dividends, merger, etc.

Re: Union Pacific to buy Norfolk in $85B mega U.S. railroad deal

#86

Post by bigbadfeline »

pc86 wrote: post #79
bigbadfeline wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are reasonable people who think this merge would be good No there aren't, unless you interpret "good" as "good for extracting monopoly prices from the people". The US economy is overly monopolized as it is even without this buyout. More importantly, no reasonable person would skip the $85 Billion (with B) price tag which is a definite proof of my words above.

"People who disagree with me about a railway company merger cannot possibly be reasonable, and instead must be mustache-twirling villains" is certainly an interesting take. Good luck with that.

> "People who disagree with me about a railway company merger cannot possibly be reasonable,

So according to you, I somehow stated that disagreement with me makes somebody unreasonable, and in support of that you provided... a fictional quote. Your strawman isn't simply unreasonable, it's aggressively dishonest.

> "and instead must be mustache-twirling villains" is certainly an interesting take.

Now you offer hallucinations about "mustache-twirling villains"... Do you have something, anything, reasonable to say? Like address the topic? $85 Billion with a B? Did you forget about it?

Peaceful disagreement DOES NOT make an argument reasonable. Are you going to argue about that too?

Re: Union Pacific to buy Norfolk in $85B mega U.S. railroad deal

#87

Post by bigbadfeline »

gruez wrote: post #84
bigbadfeline wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are reasonable people who think this merge would be good No there aren't, unless you interpret "good" as "good for extracting monopoly prices from the people". The US economy is overly monopolized as it is even without this buyout. More importantly, no reasonable person would skip the $85 Billion (with B) price tag which is a definite proof of my words above.

>More importantly, no reasonable person would skip the $85 Billion (with B) price tag which is a definite proof of my words above. Why is $85B automatically bad? Is it just because it's a large sum of money?

> Why is $85B automatically bad?

I didn't say automatically, I referred to "my words above" - that kind of money, and the profits on top of it, can only come from monopoly pricing and it's a strong sign that the business in question is operating in near monopoly conditions.

In most of the world, railroads (and other roads) are government owned because it's hard to make that kind of business competitive plus there are natsec issues to address. The privatization trend is recent.

Re: Union Pacific to buy Norfolk in $85B mega U.S. railroad deal

#88

Post by pc86 »

bigbadfeline wrote: post #86
pc86 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People who disagree with me about a railway company merger cannot possibly be reasonable, and instead must be mustache-twirling villains" is certainly an interesting take. Good luck with that.

> "People who disagree with me about a railway company merger cannot possibly be reasonable, So according to you, I somehow stated that disagreement with me makes somebody unreasonable, and in support of that you provided... a fictional quote. Your strawman isn't simply unreasonable, it's aggressively dishonest. > "and instead must be mustache-twirling villains" is certainly an interesting take. Now you offer halluci…

> > There are reasonable people who think this merge would be good

> No there aren't

You did state that disagreement makes you unreasonable.

Re: Union Pacific to buy Norfolk in $85B mega U.S. railroad deal

#90

Post by Simulacra »

snapplebobapple wrote: post #36
bix6 wrote: post #2

What happened to antitrust? We were making great progress and then a few months ago this admin totally flipped?

What happened to antitrust is you guys had an antitrust system that was going way too far (think breaking up regional gas stations too far) and then nixon appointed Rehnquist to the supreme court in 1972, then Reagan appointed him chief justice in 1986. Rehnquist made decent arguments for reforming that that were then taken too far over his tenure (and continuing to this day) and now we have multinational oligopolies…

Money. Too big to fail; too big to resist.
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