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Another article that describes capitalism doing what capitalism does without calling it capitalism because capitalism is awesome always.

by jtode 4y ago

NLPaep 4y ago
Now the capitalists who didn’t think so short term are the ones who will survive
- kerkeslager 4y ago
  The capitalists who did think short term will survive, too. The people who made these short-term decisions over and over again; the C-suite executives; they've already banked millions of dollars. If they even lose their jobs, they'll just move on to another company or retire. Whoever replaces them will have to fix some of the problems for optics reasons, but ultimately will be operating under the same short-term thinking, because that's what capitalism incentivizes: grow no matter what, even if it's not sustainable, because while it grows you make money, and when it falls apart it becomes the next guy's problem. The people who will pay the consequences for this are the airline workers who will likely suffer layoffs even though they had nothing to do with the problem.
angry_octet 4y ago
The funny thing is it isn't efficient capitalism -- the shareholders are losing value. These are dumb shareholders who reward short termism. SWA will lose value as passengers opt for other carriers, buoying their share price over SWA. The interesting effect is the lag -- the share market should have devalued SWA a decade ago, or certainly when the market lost stability due to COVID.
- kerkeslager 4y ago
  Shareholders don't have visibility into the internal workings of SWA that would have been necessary to predict this. Sure, there's a lot of information you have the right to, but if you're investing in a diversified portfolio, you eventually are limited simply by time: you can (and should!) do some research on a company before you invest, but ultimately if you're investing in, say, 100 companies, you only have time to dig so deep into each one. And this is efficient capitalism for the people who have the visibility and decision-making power. C-level execs are measured by their ability to produce growth, so they do that, even if it's not sustainable, because while they're producing growth they're receiving massive amounts of income. When it all falls apart, the income they've received over years of short-term decisions is safe and they can, at worst, retire.

Another article that describes capitalism doing what capitalism does without calling it capitalism because capitalism is awesome always.

by jtode 4y ago

Another article that describes capitalism doing what capitalism does without calling it capitalism because capitalism is awesome always.

NLPaep 4y ago

Now the capitalists who didn’t think so short term are the ones who will survive

kerkeslager 4y ago
The capitalists who did think short term will survive, too. The people who made these short-term decisions over and over again; the C-suite executives; they've already banked millions of dollars. If they even lose their jobs, they'll just move on to another company or retire. Whoever replaces them will have to fix some of the problems for optics reasons, but ultimately will be operating under the same short-term thinking, because that's what capitalism incentivizes: grow no matter what, even if it's not sustainable, because while it grows you make money, and when it falls apart it becomes the next guy's problem. The people who will pay the consequences for this are the airline workers who will likely suffer layoffs even though they had nothing to do with the problem.

angry_octet 4y ago

The funny thing is it isn't efficient capitalism -- the shareholders are losing value. These are dumb shareholders who reward short termism. SWA will lose value as passengers opt for other carriers, buoying their share price over SWA. The interesting effect is the lag -- the share market should have devalued SWA a decade ago, or certainly when the market lost stability due to COVID.

kerkeslager 4y ago
Shareholders don't have visibility into the internal workings of SWA that would have been necessary to predict this. Sure, there's a lot of information you have the right to, but if you're investing in a diversified portfolio, you eventually are limited simply by time: you can (and should!) do some research on a company before you invest, but ultimately if you're investing in, say, 100 companies, you only have time to dig so deep into each one. And this is efficient capitalism for the people who have the visibility and decision-making power. C-level execs are measured by their ability to produce growth, so they do that, even if it's not sustainable, because while they're producing growth they're receiving massive amounts of income. When it all falls apart, the income they've received over years of short-term decisions is safe and they can, at worst, retire.