Why they'll put graffiti in places that are (a) difficult to reach and more importantly (b) where almost no one will see it. Art, political statement, or just vandalism -- why do it where it's so seldom viewed?
Unless you own a significant percentage of that stock, then I bet your voice is heard a bit more loudly.
Or special classes of stock, with many votes per share. That practice used to be rampant in the cable TV industry, where a small number of closely held shares had >50% of the votes. And yes, it's legal. Caveat emptor: the existence of those privileged shares is public knowledge, so you knew what you were getting when you bought your ordinary (powerless) shares.
The cable industry was also full of examples of another share-voting scam. There were large numbers of cross-ownership deals between the cable companies and the content companies. Traced back far enough, there were cases where a majority of the voting shares in large publicly-traded companies were controlled by a handful of people, or even a single individual.
Working in the cable industry made me rather cynical about corporate control.
"Maximize shareholder value" is a pretty tricky phrase. Which shares, the special ones that hold 51% of the votes or the ordinary ones that represent 98% of the capital? Over what time frame? In what form (eg, share price increase versus a steady stream of dividends)? Does that goal justify going farther into the gray areas on accounting? How should other risks be treated?
I seem to recall reading that the concept of "only the shareholders matter" became a thing in the 1960s, starting with Milton Friedman and the rest of the U of C economists. OTOH, since that period also coincides with the beginning of the decline of dividends (which were just as good for the shareholders as a share price increase) and the rise of stock options as compensation (for which dividends are worthless, only the share price matters), it seems to me that in practice the shareholder thing could have been just a ruse the CxOs used so they could loot the company.
As an economist friend says, "If the CEO's compensation plan is an annual salary of a million dollars, an annual bonus of a million stock options that vest over a short period, and a twenty million dollar retirement package if the company is sold, no one should be surprised if the CEO's efforts turn out to look like putting lipstick on the pig for a few years and then selling it." I might add that said CEO is likely to privately root for the Fed to blow asset bubbles, since a 25% increase in the share price due just to the bubble makes the options valuable.
Based on my experience over the years, I feel safe in making the prediction that the year after I die, the whole set of tax-deferred savings vehicles -- 401ks, traditional IRAs, etc -- will be made tax-free. All major shifts in US tax policy are scheduled to take effect the year after they would have benefited Michael Cain. I suspect the Cigarette-Smoking Man is behind it:
When I was ~17 in Nebraska, I was approaching a group of 10-12 bison on foot across open short-grass prairie from downwind. About the time that I got close enough for the bull to start paying attention, it finally got through to even my male teen-aged brain that this was not a smart thing to do.
Since then I've been a big fan of really long lenses for nature pictures.
I won't argue the plus-or-minuses of low rates for very long-term capital gains. I will argue that shorter-term gains should simply be lumped in with "labor" income, much the way that gambling profits are. For the most part that's what trading, and particularly short-term trading, in stocks that pay no or negligible dividends is.
Which is why decisions about culling the animal population should be left to the professionals.
I'm almost unequivocally on the side of the bears here. Also on the side of the rattlesnakes, bull moose and elk, bison, etc. And lightning, which is more likely to kill you in a national park than any of the animals. Not to mention freedom to drive to the parks, which is far more likely to kill you than animals and lightning combined. Most people visiting a national park or national wilderness area won't encounter bears (and most likely will encounter mooching black bears*). Most bear encounters are not fatal. We can afford to have some spaces left where the rules are stacked in favor of the wildlife.
* Often taught bad habits by people feeding them. My own opinion is that anyone caught feeding the animals in a national park should have their visitation privileges removed, immediately and permanently.
@aarondavid
Ah, very different needs then. I go the used book route mostly for odd academic works that I've decided I need on my shelf, usually after reading a copy borrowed through my local library network. So I don't care about most of the things that a dealer or collector would, mostly just intact and clean pages. These days, a PDF version would probably be better for my uses -- searchable, doesn't take up the volume, and overlays allow for copious note jotting.
So can a set of bells laced in your boots, making a reasonable amount of noise as you walk along, and knowing how to behave if you do encounter a bear. Statistically, you're in more danger from lightning in the western national parks than you are from bears. To be honest, I'd worry a lot more about a national park full of people carrying a loaded "big ass caliber gun" than I would about grizzlies. Guns get dropped; people fall; sh*t happens.
In the grizzly piece, I have to wonder who wrote the Park Service's line "It's a national park, not a wildlife preserve." Yellowstone is significantly bigger than the state of Delaware; there are multiple interacting ecosystems; it's one of the sites where we chose to re-introduce northern gray wolves; it's a national park, but it's also a stupendous wildlife preserve once you get away from the roads and day hikers).
When I lived on the East Coast, I discovered that there was a language gap between me and the majority of the people living there: when they said "national park" they had a vision of a something well kept, of modest size, and safe. They had trouble with the idea that even in the maintained portions along the roads in Yellowstone, there were things that could kill you. Even more so with the concept that (a) you could hike for two or three days away from the roads and still be in Yellowstone and (b) once you were away from the roads, there were even more things that could kill you (eg, hypothermia two days away from care is not to be taken lightly).
I've started using thriftbooks and have been quite pleased so far. Prices are good. Their standards on quality ratings seem to be higher than mine -- one of the last ones I got was rated "good", but I think it's somewhere between excellent and barely-touched. Free shipping for orders over $10.
Yes, and as the American public realizes that the quite expensive two-theater forward presences are largely wasted effort, they will be dismantled.
If I were a national leader in Japan, somewhere in the government I would have a group of people looking secretly and in detail at the Israeli option. Japan could put together a nuclear deterrent in a year or less -- they have tons of plutonium stockpiled and rockets suitable for delivery. The rest is straightforward engineering. China would make loud noises, but so long as Japan stayed well clear of the South China Sea, it would just be noise.
I don't disagree with that. But I assert that along several axes -- energy, economy, politics, personnel, weapons systems, allies -- the costs of maintaining effective global reach will be relatively too expensive. How many places are there in the world today where the US almost certainly wouldn't be able to pull off an invasion and occupation? How many more/less do you think there will be in 25 years?
I look at what is going on in Europe (and Asia) and I find myself suspicious that the Big Breakup will be kicked down the road a ways by the violence that is going to erupt out there.
I have a bet with Kolohe, dated 5/30/2014, that 25 years from that point the US will no longer be a global conventional superpower.
It’s unlikely a sufficient number will support doing away with Birthright Citizenship to amend the Constitution.
I believe that there will be no further Amendments to the Constitution in my lifetime. Well, an outside chance if the Big Breakup happens sooner (or I live longer) than I think. And even then, that the various parts agree to do things "legally" rather than just establishing the new parts by other undisputed agreements. Anyway, tinkering around the edges is done; there will be at least 13 states opposed to any small changes. From here on out, sufficient majorities at the national level will simply reinterpret the words that are already there.
I've read pieces that assert that some business people in the northern tier of Mexican states are quietly discussing secession from Mexico City, followed by an immediate request for some sort of linkage to the US (territory, protectorate, something). The arguments advanced are that those states are significantly richer than the rest of the country and trust an occupying US military to push the worst of the drug cartel violence south into the next tier of states.
What still pisses me off is that electronic or otherwise, getting copies of my medical records is like pulling teeth. Last time changes in insurance required me to change practices, the new docs got a copy of the old records for free, based on "professional courtesy". For me, it was on the order of two bucks per page for paper copies. There's no one more concerned with having a complete set of my medical records than me, but everyone goes out of their way to make it difficult for me to assemble one.
As I recall, it doesn't make a lot of difference numerically if kids are allowed to stay if someone here legally signs on as their guardian.
The whole "anchor baby" argument is based on the belief that one kid's citizenship can be parlayed quickly into legal status (at least permanent residency and green cards, if not citizenship) for an entire extended family. I thought much of that had been done away with already, or at least the numbers limited.
You have boys, do you not? I can almost guarantee that a some time down the road several years, Will is going to be quite concerned about how much and which skin the clothes worn by girls of a certain age reveal.
@zic
We were "outsiders" so to speak, there because of my dad's job, no real relatives in the area. My Iowa ancestry was from down by the Missouri border, almost straight UK by heritage (I vaguely recall conversations with my Great Aunt Martha, from Liverpool; no one told me that I shouldn't be able to handle Liverpudlian, so we got along fine). NW Iowa's population at the time -- late 1950s, 1960s -- was still largely derived from the northern route transcontinental railroad recruiting Scandinavians. Iowa was settled from SE to NW over a surprisingly long period of time. In school, I was the short dark kid with the funny name -- the blond viking girls were all bigger than me. God help you if you mixed up the Petersens and Petersons. Seven different kinds of Lutheran church.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Weekday Morning Cult Service”
Why they'll put graffiti in places that are (a) difficult to reach and more importantly (b) where almost no one will see it. Art, political statement, or just vandalism -- why do it where it's so seldom viewed?
On “Tod’s Life Lessons For You to Hate On #3: Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner”
Unless you own a significant percentage of that stock, then I bet your voice is heard a bit more loudly.
Or special classes of stock, with many votes per share. That practice used to be rampant in the cable TV industry, where a small number of closely held shares had >50% of the votes. And yes, it's legal. Caveat emptor: the existence of those privileged shares is public knowledge, so you knew what you were getting when you bought your ordinary (powerless) shares.
The cable industry was also full of examples of another share-voting scam. There were large numbers of cross-ownership deals between the cable companies and the content companies. Traced back far enough, there were cases where a majority of the voting shares in large publicly-traded companies were controlled by a handful of people, or even a single individual.
Working in the cable industry made me rather cynical about corporate control.
"
"Maximize shareholder value" is a pretty tricky phrase. Which shares, the special ones that hold 51% of the votes or the ordinary ones that represent 98% of the capital? Over what time frame? In what form (eg, share price increase versus a steady stream of dividends)? Does that goal justify going farther into the gray areas on accounting? How should other risks be treated?
"
I seem to recall reading that the concept of "only the shareholders matter" became a thing in the 1960s, starting with Milton Friedman and the rest of the U of C economists. OTOH, since that period also coincides with the beginning of the decline of dividends (which were just as good for the shareholders as a share price increase) and the rise of stock options as compensation (for which dividends are worthless, only the share price matters), it seems to me that in practice the shareholder thing could have been just a ruse the CxOs used so they could loot the company.
As an economist friend says, "If the CEO's compensation plan is an annual salary of a million dollars, an annual bonus of a million stock options that vest over a short period, and a twenty million dollar retirement package if the company is sold, no one should be surprised if the CEO's efforts turn out to look like putting lipstick on the pig for a few years and then selling it." I might add that said CEO is likely to privately root for the Fed to blow asset bubbles, since a 25% increase in the share price due just to the bubble makes the options valuable.
On “My morning read; global economics, leadership, and sex”
Based on my experience over the years, I feel safe in making the prediction that the year after I die, the whole set of tax-deferred savings vehicles -- 401ks, traditional IRAs, etc -- will be made tax-free. All major shifts in US tax policy are scheduled to take effect the year after they would have benefited Michael Cain. I suspect the Cigarette-Smoking Man is behind it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Dh2lkzkPnY
On “Questions From the Headlines”
When I was ~17 in Nebraska, I was approaching a group of 10-12 bison on foot across open short-grass prairie from downwind. About the time that I got close enough for the bull to start paying attention, it finally got through to even my male teen-aged brain that this was not a smart thing to do.
Since then I've been a big fan of really long lenses for nature pictures.
On “My morning read; global economics, leadership, and sex”
I won't argue the plus-or-minuses of low rates for very long-term capital gains. I will argue that shorter-term gains should simply be lumped in with "labor" income, much the way that gambling profits are. For the most part that's what trading, and particularly short-term trading, in stocks that pay no or negligible dividends is.
On “Questions From the Headlines”
This divide seems grey to me.
Which is why decisions about culling the animal population should be left to the professionals.
I'm almost unequivocally on the side of the bears here. Also on the side of the rattlesnakes, bull moose and elk, bison, etc. And lightning, which is more likely to kill you in a national park than any of the animals. Not to mention freedom to drive to the parks, which is far more likely to kill you than animals and lightning combined. Most people visiting a national park or national wilderness area won't encounter bears (and most likely will encounter mooching black bears*). Most bear encounters are not fatal. We can afford to have some spaces left where the rules are stacked in favor of the wildlife.
* Often taught bad habits by people feeding them. My own opinion is that anyone caught feeding the animals in a national park should have their visitation privileges removed, immediately and permanently.
On “Sunday!”
@aarondavid
Ah, very different needs then. I go the used book route mostly for odd academic works that I've decided I need on my shelf, usually after reading a copy borrowed through my local library network. So I don't care about most of the things that a dealer or collector would, mostly just intact and clean pages. These days, a PDF version would probably be better for my uses -- searchable, doesn't take up the volume, and overlays allow for copious note jotting.
On “Questions From the Headlines”
So can a set of bells laced in your boots, making a reasonable amount of noise as you walk along, and knowing how to behave if you do encounter a bear. Statistically, you're in more danger from lightning in the western national parks than you are from bears. To be honest, I'd worry a lot more about a national park full of people carrying a loaded "big ass caliber gun" than I would about grizzlies. Guns get dropped; people fall; sh*t happens.
"
In the grizzly piece, I have to wonder who wrote the Park Service's line "It's a national park, not a wildlife preserve." Yellowstone is significantly bigger than the state of Delaware; there are multiple interacting ecosystems; it's one of the sites where we chose to re-introduce northern gray wolves; it's a national park, but it's also a stupendous wildlife preserve once you get away from the roads and day hikers).
When I lived on the East Coast, I discovered that there was a language gap between me and the majority of the people living there: when they said "national park" they had a vision of a something well kept, of modest size, and safe. They had trouble with the idea that even in the maintained portions along the roads in Yellowstone, there were things that could kill you. Even more so with the concept that (a) you could hike for two or three days away from the roads and still be in Yellowstone and (b) once you were away from the roads, there were even more things that could kill you (eg, hypothermia two days away from care is not to be taken lightly).
On “Sunday!”
Also, used books.
I've started using thriftbooks and have been quite pleased so far. Prices are good. Their standards on quality ratings seem to be higher than mine -- one of the last ones I got was rated "good", but I think it's somewhere between excellent and barely-touched. Free shipping for orders over $10.
"
Caligula, without the explicit sex?
On “Without a Country”
Yes, and as the American public realizes that the quite expensive two-theater forward presences are largely wasted effort, they will be dismantled.
If I were a national leader in Japan, somewhere in the government I would have a group of people looking secretly and in detail at the Israeli option. Japan could put together a nuclear deterrent in a year or less -- they have tons of plutonium stockpiled and rockets suitable for delivery. The rest is straightforward engineering. China would make loud noises, but so long as Japan stayed well clear of the South China Sea, it would just be noise.
"
I don't disagree with that. But I assert that along several axes -- energy, economy, politics, personnel, weapons systems, allies -- the costs of maintaining effective global reach will be relatively too expensive. How many places are there in the world today where the US almost certainly wouldn't be able to pull off an invasion and occupation? How many more/less do you think there will be in 25 years?
"
I look at what is going on in Europe (and Asia) and I find myself suspicious that the Big Breakup will be kicked down the road a ways by the violence that is going to erupt out there.
I have a bet with Kolohe, dated 5/30/2014, that 25 years from that point the US will no longer be a global conventional superpower.
"
It’s unlikely a sufficient number will support doing away with Birthright Citizenship to amend the Constitution.
I believe that there will be no further Amendments to the Constitution in my lifetime. Well, an outside chance if the Big Breakup happens sooner (or I live longer) than I think. And even then, that the various parts agree to do things "legally" rather than just establishing the new parts by other undisputed agreements. Anyway, tinkering around the edges is done; there will be at least 13 states opposed to any small changes. From here on out, sufficient majorities at the national level will simply reinterpret the words that are already there.
"
My first guess is lower taxes for the elites, and the non-elites lose single-payer health insurance.
"
I've read pieces that assert that some business people in the northern tier of Mexican states are quietly discussing secession from Mexico City, followed by an immediate request for some sort of linkage to the US (territory, protectorate, something). The arguments advanced are that those states are significantly richer than the rest of the country and trust an occupying US military to push the worst of the drug cartel violence south into the next tier of states.
On “Linky Friday #128: Ubersafe”
What still pisses me off is that electronic or otherwise, getting copies of my medical records is like pulling teeth. Last time changes in insurance required me to change practices, the new docs got a copy of the old records for free, based on "professional courtesy". For me, it was on the order of two bucks per page for paper copies. There's no one more concerned with having a complete set of my medical records than me, but everyone goes out of their way to make it difficult for me to assemble one.
On “Without a Country”
As I recall, it doesn't make a lot of difference numerically if kids are allowed to stay if someone here legally signs on as their guardian.
The whole "anchor baby" argument is based on the belief that one kid's citizenship can be parlayed quickly into legal status (at least permanent residency and green cards, if not citizenship) for an entire extended family. I thought much of that had been done away with already, or at least the numbers limited.
On “Linky Friday #128: Ubersafe”
You have boys, do you not? I can almost guarantee that a some time down the road several years, Will is going to be quite concerned about how much and which skin the clothes worn by girls of a certain age reveal.
"
S7: Well done, sir!
On “Rethinking White Identity”
Oops.
"
@zic
We were "outsiders" so to speak, there because of my dad's job, no real relatives in the area. My Iowa ancestry was from down by the Missouri border, almost straight UK by heritage (I vaguely recall conversations with my Great Aunt Martha, from Liverpool; no one told me that I shouldn't be able to handle Liverpudlian, so we got along fine). NW Iowa's population at the time -- late 1950s, 1960s -- was still largely derived from the northern route transcontinental railroad recruiting Scandinavians. Iowa was settled from SE to NW over a surprisingly long period of time. In school, I was the short dark kid with the funny name -- the blond viking girls were all bigger than me. God help you if you mixed up the Petersens and Petersons. Seven different kinds of Lutheran church.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.