5 ms·

You don't know the backstory, which is that Toys R Us is a bust-out private equity ploy, where KKR acquired them and larded them with debt, which pushed them in

You don't know the backstory, which is that Toys R Us is a bust-out private equity ploy, where KKR acquired them and larded them with debt, which pushed them into bankruptcy when they would have very likely been solvent otherwise. Toys R Us Downfall Due to Debt, Not Competition http://fortune.com/2017/09/20/toys-r-us-bankruptc-debt-leverage/ http://fortune.com/2017/09/20/toys-r-us-bankruptc-debt-lever...

charlesdm 9y ago
Perhaps it was the only way the company was able to get sold? If anything, blame the old shareholders for selling to an LBO player.
- WorldMaker 9y ago
  Why did the company need to be sold at all? Why is a steady state of respectable profits/meeting consumer needs seen as "losing" in "modern" capitalism simply because it isn't exciting drama to shareholders?
  - charlesdm 9y ago
    Maybe because the current owners were done with it, and were no longer interested in running it -- thus wanting to sell? Companies are owned by people, you know? They might not want to pass down (large) companies for 10+ generations, due to different interests and passions.
    - WorldMaker 9y ago
      Large companies are owned by people in the same way that representative democracies are (indirectly) owned by people. You can count the number of large US companies that have passed down any generations (much less 10+) on maybe two hands. We have an economic reality where most major shareholders like to vote themselves short-term bread and circuses every quarter, and there is very little incentive to consider any sort of long term horizon beyond at most a fiscal year. Furthermore, most major shareholders in any large corporation aren't people. They are companies themselves. At best they are sometimes hedge funds aggregating the interests of lots of little people, like representatives in a democracy. But there are also plenty of remoras and piranhas and worse, too.
  - jweihwiehrwo 9y ago
    Because "growth" is now looking into our belly button and picking around for a little bit of fuzz we haven't seen before. Economics isn't about enabling the creation of new ideas. It's about controlling the movement of capital for the benefit of capitalists. All the inputs lead to the financial system. All the outputs lead to their account numbers. Fortunately for them, the rubes are convinced that is how things get made. Not, you know, with their own two hands and minds, as is the reality. But I'm curious why we need to prop up such things forever anyway. Corporations used to have an expiration date. Term limits for private power. Do we need factories churning out plastic crap for decades, to make kids giggle, only for us to tell them "Grow up and get a job?" The epitome of disposable nonsense. Humanity must record and elate itself at each and every one of its own farts for the rest of time.

charlesdm 9y ago

Perhaps it was the only way the company was able to get sold? If anything, blame the old shareholders for selling to an LBO player.

WorldMaker 9y ago
Why did the company need to be sold at all? Why is a steady state of respectable profits/meeting consumer needs seen as "losing" in "modern" capitalism simply because it isn't exciting drama to shareholders?
- charlesdm 9y ago
  Maybe because the current owners were done with it, and were no longer interested in running it -- thus wanting to sell? Companies are owned by people, you know? They might not want to pass down (large) companies for 10+ generations, due to different interests and passions.
  - WorldMaker 9y ago
    Large companies are owned by people in the same way that representative democracies are (indirectly) owned by people. You can count the number of large US companies that have passed down any generations (much less 10+) on maybe two hands. We have an economic reality where most major shareholders like to vote themselves short-term bread and circuses every quarter, and there is very little incentive to consider any sort of long term horizon beyond at most a fiscal year. Furthermore, most major shareholders in any large corporation aren't people. They are companies themselves. At best they are sometimes hedge funds aggregating the interests of lots of little people, like representatives in a democracy. But there are also plenty of remoras and piranhas and worse, too.
- jweihwiehrwo 9y ago
  Because "growth" is now looking into our belly button and picking around for a little bit of fuzz we haven't seen before. Economics isn't about enabling the creation of new ideas. It's about controlling the movement of capital for the benefit of capitalists. All the inputs lead to the financial system. All the outputs lead to their account numbers. Fortunately for them, the rubes are convinced that is how things get made. Not, you know, with their own two hands and minds, as is the reality. But I'm curious why we need to prop up such things forever anyway. Corporations used to have an expiration date. Term limits for private power. Do we need factories churning out plastic crap for decades, to make kids giggle, only for us to tell them "Grow up and get a job?" The epitome of disposable nonsense. Humanity must record and elate itself at each and every one of its own farts for the rest of time.