Car

Glorious 160x150 resolution

RIP in pepperonis OP

I’ve been taught “treat, never, keep, keep” as the four rules. How do yours go?

“Well grandma was a little racist at times”

I honestly don’t know if this would be like letting toddlers run a daycare or if it would be paradise.

This shit can destroy companies and tank its value

Leaving hundreds of contacts in limbo with no resolution has the potential to cost more than $17 million in legal fees and termination clauses.

Where the fuck is the board of directors and why are none of the shareholders revolting?

We have plenty of things to be old grumpy grouches about.

“Those banks ruined the American dream and we bailed them out!”

“Fossil fuel companies successfully lobbied the government to allow them to poison our planet in the name of profit!”

“Those Disney crooks consolidated all media and destroyed independent creative ventures!”

“Back in my day we could afford a house if we saved 10 years of earnings for a down payment and then took out a loan eventually totaling twice the value of the purchase price. You kids have it easy with your rental sleeping pods and low-monthly rate outdoors park subscriptions. You don’t even contribute to furniture or clothing industries because you don’t own a place to put any!”

I've lived in both. The average people don't seem to care.

Older Texans might namedrop California at times when they're airing political grievances, but older people everywhere seem to have some casual "product of the times" prejudices against something.

I’m not an economist but that makes sense to me.

What about a modified scenario:

A small island has three cupcake makers operating out of their homes: Meta, Alphabet, and Bytedance. Each has captured a section of the island’s market with cupcakes and at this point, there’s no real opportunity for growth. Meta can’t convince Bytedance’s customers to switch because they prefer other flavors. Meta would need to purchase one of the other cupcake companies in order to expand.

None of the cupcake makers are interested in selling their companies. They consider themselves elite and their successes feed into the CEO and shareholder perceptions of value and success.

Now, we consider that one of the cupcake companies is funded by a rich uncle from a different country. The island’s elders decide that the uncle’s influence is too great and orders Bytedance to sell its cupcake company or leave the island.

We’ve established earlier that people who like Bytedance cupcakes don’t necessarily want to eat Meta or Alphabet cupcakes, so if they leave the market, those customers may be gone for good. They may have a change of heart and decide that cupcakes of any flavor are fine, but they may also be angry that the government forced their favorite place out of business. In any case, Meta and Alphabet cannot rely capturing this segment of the market to grow.

Faced with the dilemma of possibly gaining customers organically or definitely gaining customers by purchasing their preferred product brand, I’d argue that the remaining companies may jump on the opportunity to purchase Bytedance before they are forced out. None of the cupcake companies were up for sale in a traditional sense before, so this was never a realistic path to achieve growth.

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