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Well, this was a one in a million thing. Nobody could have predicted the world to just shut down for six months, and it's not productive to plan for it. It's f

Well, this was a one in a million thing. Nobody could have predicted the world to just shut down for six months, and it's not productive to plan for it. It's far more reasonable to do business as usual and then take loans if things go south. As Matt Levine put it: the dividends they gave since the GFC come to $15 billion, and their equity comes to $12 billion. So it's not even given it would have been the appropriate thing. > How about all the employees who just had all the blood sucked out of their job security and future livelihood? Right. It's like banks. How do we handle it? Insurance: if you want to be a FDIC-insured bank, you must pay the FDIC insurance, and in return they will backstop your creditors up to a certain limit if they go bankrupt. Why couldn't we do the same for employees? If you're an employer of systemic importance, you must have employee bankruptcy insurance: if you go tits-up, your employees get their salary paid up to a maximum limit of $X/yr until they find a new job. The insurance premiums are set by the free market, purely capitalist.

aalleavitch 7y ago
> Well, this was a one in a million thing. Nobody could have predicted the world to just shut down for six months, and it's not productive to plan for it. This is the most shocking hubris I've witnessed in a long time.
- heartbeats 7y ago
  If you're going to plan for all of the one-in-a-million events, you're not going to be able to get anything done. It's more reasonable to round small probabilities to zero and deal with them on an ad-hoc basis.
  - aalleavitch 7y ago
    This is not a one-in-a-million event, this is not something that no one could've predicted, many people predicted it and we blithely ignored them. This is the direct consequence of our consistent policies and behavior. This is like standing 99 feet from a cliff and saying "well the next 100 feet in front of me is 99% solid ground and 1% air, sounds safe to me!" and then walking right off of the cliff.
lumost 7y ago
> It's far more reasonable to do business as usual and then take loans if things go south. How can a business take out loans when things go south if it already leveraged itself in good times? Why would new investors buy into a company saddled with debt used to pay the old investors?

aalleavitch 7y ago

> Well, this was a one in a million thing. Nobody could have predicted the world to just shut down for six months, and it's not productive to plan for it. This is the most shocking hubris I've witnessed in a long time.

heartbeats 7y ago
If you're going to plan for all of the one-in-a-million events, you're not going to be able to get anything done. It's more reasonable to round small probabilities to zero and deal with them on an ad-hoc basis.
- aalleavitch 7y ago
  This is not a one-in-a-million event, this is not something that no one could've predicted, many people predicted it and we blithely ignored them. This is the direct consequence of our consistent policies and behavior. This is like standing 99 feet from a cliff and saying "well the next 100 feet in front of me is 99% solid ground and 1% air, sounds safe to me!" and then walking right off of the cliff.

lumost 7y ago

> It's far more reasonable to do business as usual and then take loans if things go south. How can a business take out loans when things go south if it already leveraged itself in good times? Why would new investors buy into a company saddled with debt used to pay the old investors?