Ban All Big Mergers. Period
theatlantic.com
Ban All Big Mergers. Period
1–10 of 25 posts
Re: Ban All Big Mergers. Period
#2Block megacorps from acquisitions of smaller companies as well.
When a corporation is large enough to wield significant political influence, allowing them to buy up and coming disruptors makes it even easier for them to, as the article writes, make a mockery of democratic norms. And thus, by the same token argument, the acquisition of smaller entities should similarly be blocked.
Re: Ban All Big Mergers. Period
#3Block megacorps from acquisitions of smaller companies as well. When a corporation is large enough to wield significant political influence, allowing them to buy up and coming disruptors makes it even easier for them to, as the article writes, make a mockery of democratic norms. And thus, by the same token argument, the acquisition of smaller entities should similarly be blocked.
This would have a lot of unintended consequences.
Re: Ban All Big Mergers. Period
#4Block megacorps from acquisitions of smaller companies as well. When a corporation is large enough to wield significant political influence, allowing them to buy up and coming disruptors makes it even easier for them to, as the article writes, make a mockery of democratic norms. And thus, by the same token argument, the acquisition of smaller entities should similarly be blocked.
This would have a lot of unintended consequences.
Everything has unintended consequences. That shouldn't stop change. Especially considering that the current situation is flawed and already has many unintended consequences.
Re: Ban All Big Mergers. Period
#5And short selling.
Plus, companies should pay taxes fair and square.
Re: Ban All Big Mergers. Period
#6Block megacorps from acquisitions of smaller companies as well. When a corporation is large enough to wield significant political influence, allowing them to buy up and coming disruptors makes it even easier for them to, as the article writes, make a mockery of democratic norms. And thus, by the same token argument, the acquisition of smaller entities should similarly be blocked.
This is a very controversial opinion in a startup forum :)
But that aside, how would you handle public trading companies, where you can simply buy an influential part of a company?
It is not the same as owning or merging but having board influence can also be detrimental.
Re: Ban All Big Mergers. Period
#7Block megacorps from acquisitions of smaller companies as well. When a corporation is large enough to wield significant political influence, allowing them to buy up and coming disruptors makes it even easier for them to, as the article writes, make a mockery of democratic norms. And thus, by the same token argument, the acquisition of smaller entities should similarly be blocked.
This is a very controversial opinion in a startup forum :) But that aside, how would you handle public trading companies, where you can simply buy an influential part of a company? It is not the same as owning or merging but having board influence can also be detrimental.
Controversial, sure, however I presume it is controversial because it has become a common trajectory to launch with an intent to eventually be acquired by a bigger player. Has this always been a common intent of new businesses?
Depends. What are the arguments for a company holding shares in another?
If the purpose a company X has shares in Y and Z to diversify their income stream then perhaps non-voting stocks would be suitable.
If a company holds shares in another company because they are somewhat dependent on it being run and facilitated in a certain way, it makes sense that they'd want to have an influential share but if they are rich enough to acquire such a stake then they are probably a valuable enough customer that the company they depend on won't do much that upends the entire business relationship. Or is that naive of me?
If all big mergers are banned and if all megacorps are banned from acquisitions, then maybe also ban the idea that companies should have voting rights in other companies? Now, a wealthy enough CEO might sidestep that as a non-corporate entity, and may do so by some degrees of separation if they themselves are judicially blocked from such holdings so I don't have a ready-made fix for that.
Re: Ban All Big Mergers. Period
#8A simpler solution is to implement progressive taxes to counteract the natural Pareto distribution of wealth accumulation.
Society should come to some consensus on an ‘I win at life in this society’ amount of income, after which it should just level off like a ceiling function in a feedback loop.
Re: Ban All Big Mergers. Period
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a very controversial opinion in a startup forum :) But that aside, how would you handle public trading companies, where you can simply buy an influential part of a company? It is not the same as owning or merging but having board influence can also be detrimental.
Controversial, sure, however I presume it is controversial because it has become a common trajectory to launch with an intent to eventually be acquired by a bigger player. Has this always been a common intent of new businesses? Depends. What are the arguments for a company holding shares in another? If the purpose a company X has shares in Y and Z to diversify their income stream then perhaps non-voting stocks would…
Yeah, my first thought reading the article was “this will encourage big places to buy small places even more quickly so nobody else can get above the $10B line.” So some other rules would have to be set on smaller acquisitions.
Re: Ban All Big Mergers. Period
#10And short selling. Plus, companies should pay taxes fair and square.
Short selling is necessary to counteract hype. Only naked short selling is a problem.