AT&T-Time Warner Merger

[space otter]

 

remember the line from Demolition Man...about winning the franchise wars?
that's what this makes me think of

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/att-time-warner-merger-jecision_us_5b04490ee4b003dc7e46f0b6

06/12/2018 04:47 pm ET Updated 1 hour ago

AT&T-Time Warner Merger Gets The Green Light From Federal Court
The landmark antitrust decision is expected to shake up the media and telecommunications world.

By Lydia O'Connor

>  Telecom giant AT&T will be allowed to move forward with the merger it negotiated with Time Warner, a federal judge ruled Tuesday in a long-awaited decision expected to have major implications for future mergers and how consumers navigate the media landscape.

>  Analysts say the judge's go-ahead will likely rewrite the rules on how courts apply antitrust laws, paving the way for a number of other potential sales involving names like Comcast, Disney, 21st Century Fox and several other content creation and distribution companies.

[petrus4]

Let them do it.  Warner is already leaking money like a sieve on its' ridiculous "DC cinematic universe," which is consistently attrocious.  AT&T has also consistently been one of the most blatantly immoral corporations in existence for its' entire history.

Warner are being boycotted at the box office.  Cable TV and the copper system are becoming increasingly worthless, in AT&T's case.  The problem is not the existence of corporations in and of itself, but the fact that they insist on engaging in business practices which are malevolent and universally detrimental, and view themselves as being smart for doing so.

The public are starting to catch on, as well.  Search YouTube for videos about the recent Star Wars boycott, due to Disney having now released four Star Wars films which were precisely as soulless and creatively devoid as I expected, on hearing news of the Lucasfilm acquisition.

I am not really worried about the suits any more.  They will either learn that psychopathy is not intelligent, or Nature will inevitably take its' course.  As bad as Gordon Gekko's speech in Wall Street about greed was, most people only listen to his initial catchphrase.  If you listen to the first half of said speech, however, he is actually critical of corrupt executives, and warns them that if they do not modify their behaviour, market forces will destroy their corporation.



Well, ladies and gentlemen, we're not here to indulge in fantasy, but in political and economic reality. America, America has become a second-rate power. Its trade deficit and its fiscal deficit are at nightmare proportions. Now, in the days of the free market, when our country was a top industrial power, there was accountability to the stockholder. The Carnegies, the Mellons, the men that built this great industrial empire, made sure of it because it was their money at stake. Today, management has no stake in the company!

All together, these men sitting up here [Teldar management] own less than 3 percent of the company. And where does Mr. Cromwell put his million-dollar salary? Not in Teldar stock; he owns less than 1 percent.
   
You own the company. That's right -- you, the stockholder.  And you are all being royally screwed over by these, these bureaucrats, with their steak lunches, their hunting and fishing trips, their corporate jets and golden parachutes.

Teldar Paper, Mr. Cromwell, Teldar Paper has 33 different vice presidents, each earning over 200 thousand dollars a year. Now, I have spent the last two months analyzing what all these guys do, and I still can't figure it out. One thing I do know is that our paper company lost 110 million dollars last year, and I'll bet that half of that was spent in all the paperwork going back and forth between all these vice presidents.

The new law of evolution in corporate America seems to be survival of the unfittest. Well, in my book you either do it right or you get eliminated.

(Emphasis mine)

As the above might demonstrate, many Capitalists talk about fundamentally the same problems as those on the Left do.  They use different terminology to be sure, and exist in a different context, but you'd be surprised how many of the same issues are on their minds.

The real point which Gekko was making above, (and which has been overlooked in favour of the inflammatory "Greed is Good" tagline, which ironically goes against the rest of his argument) is that the initial premise of corporate Capitalism was the provision of real value by corporations, to those existing outside them.  To take this back to the current topic, Warner and Disney have not recently been providing said real value, and as a result they are experiencing a backlash from consumers.  There is talk that Kathleen Kennedy, the executive responsible for the four underperforming Star Wars films, has had to answer some extremely awkward questions from Disney's board of directors; and that is exactly as it should be.

Capitalists want to be free of governmental regulation and oversight; but the problem is that if the government does not provide said oversight, and corporate management does not provide it either, then corporations are free to behave in exceptionally destructive ways, which they very often have.

The question is not whether the likes of Disney and Warner will eventually destroy themselves.  Universal law, or the Tao itself, will see to that.  The question is how much damage they are likely to cause in the process, either before said destruction finally comes, or again, they recognise that continuing to adopt maladaptive strategy is not in their own best interests.

Consumers want Hollywood to return to its' original purpose; which was the creation of truly enjoyable and substantive art, which elevates the spirit and in general makes life more worth living.  They do not want a scenario where a small group of greedy parasites want to produce soulless films on an assembly line, simply so that said parasites can be assured of a continual passive income.

Corporations have not yet figured out the second half of the puzzle.  They will often recite the mantra to themselves that they are in the business of making money, but they have not realised that making money only comes from providing something that provides genuine value and wellbeing to those who offer their money in exchange.

I do not applaud greed, and I find it strange that Gekko did at the end of that speech, because it was really the greed of those executives which he had only just finished complaining about.  Still, his point stands, and has again, sadly been lost because the closing words of said speech were inconsistent with its' beginning.