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The death of Sidney, Nebraska: How a hedge fund destroyed 'a good American town'

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December 05, 2019, 08:23 PM
marksman41
The death of Sidney, Nebraska: How a hedge fund destroyed 'a good American town'
quote:
Originally posted by jhe888:
quote:
Originally posted by marksman41:
quote:
Originally posted by jhe888:
Even assuming it was a pump and dump, so? It is was his decision to make. His only job is to make money, and use his judgment about the best way to do that.


You and I obviously disagree about this aspect of capitalism. My thinking is that it's better for the economy as a whole if a company can profitably remain in business, as Cabela's was before Singer took over. Maximizing profit for a few hundred or a few thousand shareholders by destroying a profitable company is short-term thinking for a few at the expense of long-term value for many.


That is capitalism. Anything else isn't. With few exceptions, this results in the biggest economic good. Invisible hand, Pareto efficiency, and all that.

Don't want to get bought? Don't go public to cash in on that equity.


No, there is such a thing as ethics. Singer's form of capitalism isn't ethical and does not contribute to the greater good. Your version of unrestrained, unethical capitalism is why the government stepped in to break up monopolies.




December 05, 2019, 08:36 PM
parabellum
quote:
Originally posted by jhe888:
Don't want to get bought? Don't go public to cash in on that equity.
Yeah, the working man in that town, trying to feed his family, has so much control over this, doesn't he? All this stuff you're talking about- it's meaningless to the working man. Did they not cover that when they were cramming all those lofty ideas into your skull in law school? This one business was the town's major employer. Are you incapable of understanding what this crafty move by this one asshole did to all those familes? Is this lost on you? Wait- don't answer that. Don't answer it, because as sure as I'm sitting here, you're going to come back with some clinical, heartless, point-missing response and it's going to piss me off very badly.
See, this is the thing I don't get about some people with lots of education- that they're uttery clueless in certain ways. Some things shouldn't need to be taught. Some things can't be taught. Some people with multiple degrees are as dumb as a bag of hammers.

I'd like for you to sit in a room with those people and their families, look them in the eye, and you can tell them about how this is nothing more than capitalism.

If life were a Frank Capra film, people with your attitude would be the villains.


____________________________________________________

"I am your retribution." - Donald Trump, speech at CPAC, March 4, 2023
December 05, 2019, 08:45 PM
recoatlift
I use to travel to Sidney as a rep for NAPA, breaks my heart reading of this. CABELAS was everything to everyone. An entire town wiped out.
December 05, 2019, 08:54 PM
parabellum
Oh, hey, it's just capitalism yadda yadda yadda. No biggie. Reducing the "surplus population" and all that.

The middle class! BAH! HUMBUG!!

Meanwhile, Shitstain McMoneyGrubber buys a new yacht. Everyone needs a second spare yacht, don't you think?
December 05, 2019, 09:00 PM
2012BOSS302
This guys an asshole and is no better than someone like George Soros. He rigged it, gamed the system and fucked a lot of people, unnecessarily. It's vultures like this that get people to want the government to step in, which only makes it worse.




Donald Trump is not a politician, he is a leader, politicians are a dime a dozen, leaders are priceless.
December 05, 2019, 09:09 PM
PowerSurge
quote:
Originally posted by 2012BOSS302:
This guys an asshole and is no better than someone like George Soros. He rigged it, gamed the system and fucked a lot of people, unnecessarily. It's vultures like this that get people to want the government to step in, which only makes it worse.


Yep. This is just more ammunition for people that support socialism and government planning.


———————————————
The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Psalm 14:1
December 05, 2019, 09:17 PM
parabellum
Nah, the motherfuckr is in the clear because the law is on his side. Meanwhile, his house servants are tossing stacks of hundred dollar bills into the boiler to heat his three indoor swimming pools.

But hey, not to worry. He's gonna send sixteen lawyers over to your house to show you all the paperwork proving that it was perfectly legal for him to fuck the working man in the ass. So what if families are uprooted and have to leave a place they've lived their entire lives, so they can find work? Shitstain did nothing wrong. It's just capitalism, y'see.

Say, let's pour some caviar down the garbage disposal, just for the fuck of it. Or, I should say, have the kitchen staff do it and they can report back to us. Have them put the video up in media room number 6 on the third florr of my mansion, and I'll have my valet crry me in there to watch it, right after I ruin a few more lives. Mad

Tar and Goddamned feathers, man. I'm telling you- if I had the chance. Tar and feathers. For starters. Mad


____________________________________________________

"I am your retribution." - Donald Trump, speech at CPAC, March 4, 2023
December 06, 2019, 07:24 AM
Lt CHEG
quote:
Originally posted by parabellum:
Nah, the motherfuckr is in the clear because the law is on his side. Meanwhile, his house servants are tossing stacks of hundred dollar bills into the boiler to heat his three indoor swimming pools.

But hey, not to worry. He's gonna send sixteen lawyers over to your house to show you all the paperwork proving that it was perfectly legal for him to fuck the working man in the ass. So what if families are uprooted and have to leave a place they've lived their entire lives, so they can find work? Shitstain did nothing wrong. It's just capitalism, y'see.

Say, let's pour some caviar down the garbage disposal, just for the fuck of it. Or, I should say, have the kitchen staff do it and they can report back to us. Have them put the video up in media room number 6 on the third florr of my mansion, and I'll have my valet crry me in there to watch it, right after I ruin a few more lives. Mad

Tar and Goddamned feathers, man. I'm telling you- if I had the chance. Tar and feathers. For starters. Mad


There’s a reason why it’s supposed to be called “moral capitalism.” You are spot on Para, and the behavior of these vultures is a symptom of our society’s ills as a whole. There is also a lot of truth in the saying that pigs get fed and hogs get slaughtered. Eventually the immoral behavior of vultures like this will catch up with them.




“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
December 06, 2019, 07:38 AM
Patriot
Most forms of government fail when you lose sight of your fellow man.

Actually, everything in life fails when you lose sight of your fellow man...when morals erode and your "sense or right" becomes perverted.


_____________________________
Pledge allegiance or pack your bag!
The problem with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
Spread my work ethic, not my wealth
December 06, 2019, 07:39 AM
Sig209
quote:
Originally posted by a1abdj:
quote:
Money that does go back to the community is in the form of employee salaries and most 'Mom & Pop' stores only have a handful of employees while the big box stores have dozens.


Employees, and all the associated taxes.
Real estate, and all the associated taxes.
Sales tax.
Utilities.
Insurance.
Money spent with other local businesses (plumbers, window washers, advertising, etc).

And all of that money, paid to other locals, is spent by those locals in the same fashion. Your dollar spent in your community runs laps around the community. Your dollar spent with Amazon is gone forever.

I make a dollar. I spend that dollar at the local hardware store. The hardware store uses that dollar to pay his employee. That employee spends that dollar going out to lunch. The waitress that serves him gets that dollar and uses it to put gas in her car. The gas station owner uses that dollar to pay the guy who plows snow off the lot. The guy who plows the snow uses it to buy tires for his truck. The tire shop owner uses it run an ad in the local high school football program. And on, and on, and on.

But once that dollar is spent outside the community. POOF! Gone.

This story is an extreme example, but proof of everything I just said. When local business is gone, so is the money. When the money is gone, so is everything else.


yeah but I think his point is your 'Mom and Pop' store employs 5 people. The Lowes employs 75 people.

plus they pay a lot also - local taxes etc.

agree with the comment about localities DIVERSIFYING their economy. way too many 'one trick pony' towns that dry up when the mill, plant, prison, factory, university, small military base or whatever goes down the drain. seen it MANY times over the years.

---------------------------------------------


Proverbs 27:17 - As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
December 06, 2019, 07:52 AM
TigerDore
quote:
Originally posted by jhe888:
This report is "fake news" in some ways. The investment fund did not destroy Sidney. The investment fund ...

Well said,jhe888.



.
December 06, 2019, 09:29 AM
jhe888
quote:
Originally posted by parabellum:
quote:
Originally posted by jhe888:
Don't want to get bought? Don't go public to cash in on that equity.
Yeah, the working man in that town, trying to feed his family, has so much control over this, doesn't he? All this stuff you're talking about- it's meaningless to the working man. Did they not cover that when they were cramming all those lofty ideas into your skull in law school? This one business was the town's major employer. Are you incapable of understanding what this crafty move by this one asshole did to all those familes? Is this lost on you? Wait- don't answer that. Don't answer it, because as sure as I'm sitting here, you're going to come back with some clinical, heartless, point-missing response and it's going to piss me off very badly.
See, this is the thing I don't get about some people with lots of education- that they're uttery clueless in certain ways. Some things shouldn't need to be taught. Some things can't be taught. Some people with multiple degrees are as dumb as a bag of hammers.

I'd like for you to sit in a room with those people and their families, look them in the eye, and you can tell them about how this is nothing more than capitalism.

If life were a Frank Capra film, people with your attitude would be the villains.


Just to be clear, I can't respond because it will piss you off very badly?




The fish is mute, expressionless. The fish doesn't think because the fish knows everything.
December 06, 2019, 10:15 AM
TMats
quote:
Just to be clear, I can't respond because it will piss you off very badly?

You could respond to the question I put to you while you’re waiting


_______________________________________________________
despite them
December 06, 2019, 10:25 AM
parabellum
quote:
Originally posted by jhe888:
Just to be clear, I can't respond because it will piss you off very badly?
Don't play games with me. You're not as clever as you think.

Keep dickin' around and get this thread locked.
quote:
Originally posted by TMats:
You could respond to the question I put to you while you’re waiting
He's not going to do that. His position s clear. It's perfectly fine to destroy an American town and to uproot families, as long as it's legal. Moralty doesn't even enter into the picture, and I'm not going to listen to someone rationalizing that disgusting horseshit.


____________________________________________________

"I am your retribution." - Donald Trump, speech at CPAC, March 4, 2023
December 06, 2019, 10:25 AM
jhe888
quote:
Originally posted by TMats:
quote:
Just to be clear, I can't respond because it will piss you off very badly?

You could respond to the question I put to you while you’re waiting


I am not a corporate governance expert, but his 11% might have given him a large enough stake to exercise functional control by controlling some board seats, or the ability to convince enough shareholders and board members to do what he wanted. Perhaps it wasn't hard to convince them - maybe this was the obvious money-making play for shareholders, and lots were happy to go along. They own their shares to make money, after all.

In some public companies, 11% would be the largest single block of votes, but I do not know if this is true in this case. You can be sure that if he didn't have to power to do this within the corporation's rules, that other stakeholders who opposed the move would have been able to block him in the boardroom, or even the courts, if necessary.




The fish is mute, expressionless. The fish doesn't think because the fish knows everything.
December 06, 2019, 10:29 AM
parabellum
Brother, you're thick. How did you manage to get through law school and pass the Bar, being that dense?

Locked