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I read "stock buybacks in 1982" as shorthand for "financialization and short-term thinking at the expense of long-term gains", which certainly happened across c
by intalentive 1y ago
I read "stock buybacks in 1982" as shorthand for "financialization and short-term thinking at the expense of long-term gains", which certainly happened across corporate America and Britain starting with Reagan and Thatcher.
- terminalshort 1y agoYou state that as if it is a fact, but from what I see the tech industry has engaged in the longest term corporate strategies I have ever seen. Amazon took losses for the better part of two decades before it showed a profit, and public markets would never even fund a venture like SpaceX.
- _DeadFred_ 1y agoAmazon is a dystopian nightmare of a company. Amazon took losses in order to decimate their competition. Their business model you hype is evil af. They have to have people planning for when they run out of local workers their warehouses are so bad. They allow in fake fuses and tons of other fake products because they are cool with the risk to peoples lives. Instead of giving you decent search results they sell ad spots. So yes, Amazon represents 'good management thinking' post 2010. But not corporate thinking pre 1980s that, you know, build the US/UK to the positions they were able to cost on up until now.
- Yoric 1y agoGood point. And both Google and Apple used to reinvest all benefits in R&D. My impression is that as they calcify into money-printing machines, this stopped. An example being Google's famed 20% that are apparently a long dead memory.
- TheOtherHobbes 1y agoIn tech it was the switch from creative corporatism, which is focused on opportunities, invention, and infrastructure, to extractive corporatism and oligarchy, which are focused on scams, exploitation, and the creation of rigid hierarchies of privilege. We're now in the end stage of the latter in the US. The US still plays at invention - or rather a few of its oligarchs do - but it's far, far behind what's happening in other countries.
- terminalshort 1y agoHonestly this sounds like a narrative in your head a lot more than something that is happening in actual reality.
- astrange 1y agoThe US doesn't have oligarchs except maybe Alex Karp. Oligarch is a specific thing with a specific meaning.
- NickC25 1y agoBezos, Ellison, and Zuck combined have over $1 trillion in net worth. That alone places a combined 3 people with more money than the GDP of all but 20 countries.
- astrange 1y agoAnd they are not oligarchs because that's not what that word means. Also, "net worth" is not "money". Shares of a company aren't money.
- NickC25 1y agoShares of a company are indeed money - or can be used as money in a roundabout way. They can be placed as collateral in exchange for a loan or other similar ways to access capital immediately. If Zuck walks into a bank and asks for a million dollars cash on the spot and is willing to place a few thousand shares up as collateral, he gets that done in minutes.
- astrange 1y agoHe can get millions, but he can't get his entire net worth. His net worth is quoted as if the marginal price of one Meta share is the price you'd get for selling every Meta share at once. Which of course doesn't make sense.