Re: But wait, there's more
 

They're not trying to hobble PE, I don't think, nor should they. Fundamentally, aren't they worried that large enterprises will be better capitalized and better able to borrow and so will endure this recession better than small businesses will. That doesn't seem wrong, as a description of what's likely to happen. But blocking acquisitions above a certain size just makes things worse for the struggling targets -- it doesn't give them better access to capital. If you want to solve that problem, the government needs to think much bigger about how to give smaller businesses capital.

Re: But wait, there's more
 

I think they should hobble PE and large businesses from rolling up smaller ones that are only weak as a result of the crisis.

PE has acquired crazy amounts of capital as a result of bad policy decisions following 2008. We flooded the economy with excess liquidity under the ruse that it would trickle down to individuals. Now, we're propping up many large businesses by buying their debt. This gives large businesses and PE an unearned cash pile to use to eat the smaller competition.

I'm all for starting a national bad bank to reorg loans of small to mid sized businesses and to lend into small to mid-sized businesses to help them pay fixed costs until the crisis abates.

But we know that's never going to happen, and we know why: Big business and PE view this is an opportunity to buy everything - to eliminate competition. And they have all the lobbying power. To save small to mid sized business, which by extension saves the essential economic and social character of the country, requires that PE and large business be fought on every available front.

If you kneecap PE and big business with tax policies that make acquisitions difficult, banks will be forced to workout loans with small to mid-sized businesses. Landlords will be forced to workout leases, etc.

Conversely, if you allow PE and big business to gobble up all small and mid sized concerns, banks have no incentive to workout anything. They get 100 cents on the dollar in the purchase. Owners and labor get fucked. Labor gets fucked the most.

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

Aside from describing Hong Kong as a island, this, from Vox, is a good explanation of what we've done and why and what we should be doing: https://www.vox.com/2020/5/6/2124105...FWyLM9xS62cJ8U

Re: But wait, there's more
 

If the acquisitions are actually going to substantially reduce competition, we already have measures in place to deal with them.

Any new rules must be about something else. In Warren and AOC's case, it is a belief that we haven't been enforcing the existing rules. What's your issue?

Re: But wait, there's more
 

The bold part would be interesting if true.

1. Collect underpants
2. ?
3. Banks will be forced to workout loans with small to mid-sized businesses.

Banks have been less and less interested in serving smaller customers for years.

Don't worry everyone! Makan Delrahim is protecting competition!
 

Ha! Now *that's* funny.

Re: Don't worry everyone! Makan Delrahim is protecting competition!
 

Your former colleagues have had some seriously high profile misses in terms of anticipating online competition, but are actually pretty good at things like local retail, where barriers to entry are really low.

But yeah, the PE and other roll ups that are coming likely really raise antitrust concerns because, for example, four firms controlling 80% of pork processing doesn’t sound like an antitrust problem even though its increasingly a political problem.

Meanwhile, what do you tell a processor coop that is being asked to help euthanize hogs there’s no demand for? (Which turns out to be a harder question than “can we show the result we’re pretty sure they were looking for?”) Seems like people just trying to survive are soon going to be vilified.

Re: But wait, there's more
 

You don't know much about workouts.

Banks hate taking assets. If there is no buyer for real estate or equipment against which the bank is collateralized (and indeed PE would be one of the sole sources of capital able to do so) the bank has two choices:

1. Auction collateral at huge loss; or,
2. Workout the loan

You're correct that BofA or WF aren't initially going to workout much for smaller businesses. But regionals and community banks will do so. And over time, as huge # of businesses become distressed, big banks will do so as well. Having a loan in workout on the books is preferable to realizing loss (particularly where bank would be realizing huge # of losses at once).

Lies and more lies
 

I highly recommend the recent John Oliver episode (I think it is two episodes ago) about the spread of misinformation relating to the pandemic. The actual title of the episode is “Everything Sebastian has written about the pandemic is a lie.” I used to think the accusations that Sebastian was simply parroting Fox News talking points was a little unfair, but I now know better. In fact, Sebastian is so completely fucking on brand in this regard, I now have come to realize that he is most likely a bot established collaboratively by the Hannity and Limbaugh camps to act as a cyber version of the sphincter of a man with dysentery, continually spraying their infected fecal stew of lies and disinformation across the web site in real time. All of Sebastian’s greatest hits are covered in the episode (from “we will see a few thousand deaths maximum” to “except for the elderly, this will be like a mild flu” to the whole “anecdotal data regarding Hydroxychloroquine” bullshit). It all originated in the Fox News/Rush Limbaugh black hole of truth, and Sebastian almost never wavered from the script. As an additional bonus, there is an oddly compelling segment about the Wendy Williams pandemic version of her show called “Wendy William At Home” that I can not do justice to in words.

Re: Lies and more lies
 

I never thought it would come to this. You are taking the word of some foreigner over our very own sebby?

Re: Lies and more lies
 

That's so cute. You think John Oliver is clever.

The Flower got dumber as he went,
His mind was addled, in fact spent,
He thought, as always, as told,
Mostly tribe-think, "mental mold,"
He cited the banal as wit,
The most boring of boring preachy shit

He was always a frivolous fop,
But to witness him turn to such slop?
The earnest still have a position!
Men on a self-righteous mission!
So they're dim, predicted like rain,
So their taste is gone down the drain,
So their views are those of a child,
They're ultimately dull and mild

Would you rather spar with the smart?
Or one you can wave off like a fart?

So just smile at the weed and have pity,
To lose wit is a fate quite shitty,
Snicker as he cites some tripe,
That's always been his stripe,
He never had much to offer,
Indeed, his was a limited coffer

Oliver fits his tastes well,
He surely thinks the Brit quite swell,
Assumes him clever and insightful,
To his middle mind, downright delightful!

And while I fear he might this consider this mean, perhaps in fact spiteful,
I fear more the decay of his mind - for if anything, that is quite frightful.

Re: Lies and more lies
 

Let me pour some salt in this wound:

“Authorities” by their nature are untrustworthy. Sometimes they have an interest in denying truths, and sometimes they actually try to define truth as being whatever they say it is. “Elevating authoritative content” over independent or less well-known sources is an algorithmic take on the journalistic obsession with credentialing that has been slowly destroying our business for decades.

The WMD fiasco happened because journalists listened to people with military ranks and titles instead of demanding evidence and listening to their own instincts. The same thing happened with Russiagate, a story fueled by intelligence “experts” with grand titles who are now proven to have been wrong to a spectacular degree, if not actually criminally liable in pushing a fraud.

We’ve become incapable of talking calmly about possible solutions because we’ve lost the ability to decouple scientific or policy discussions, or simple issues of fact, from a political argument. Reporting on the Covid-19 crisis has become the latest in a line of moral manias with Donald Trump in the middle.

Instead of asking calmly if hydroxychloroquine works, or if the less restrictive Swedish crisis response has merit, or questioning why certain statistical assumptions about the seriousness of the crisis might have been off, we’re denouncing the questions themselves as infamous. Or we’re politicizing the framing of stories in a way that signals to readers what their take should be before they even digest the material. “Conservative Americans see coronavirus hope in Progressive Sweden,” reads a Politico headline, as if only conservatives should feel optimism in the possibility that a non-lockdown approach might have merit! Are we rooting for such an approach to not work?

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/tempor...rus-censorship

I used to love Oliver. He had great timing. Then he became a preachy, self-important imp. Jon Stewart could pull off political bits because he was smart. Maher can pull it off because he is smart. Letterman could do it well. Kimmel succeeds at it. Oliver has become a dimwit who services an audience of middle minds. He and Seth Meyers are cruising on political points and tribal "atta boys" from people like Flower in place of actually funny bits. Unlettered views for unsophisticated thinkers.

It sucks, because I used to really enjoy Oliver. He went from biting and astute to earnest and irritating overnight.

But I guess that's how it works. One must "pick a side."

Re: Lies and more lies
 

It’s out of Sean’s ass, then it’s onto my fingers
I drank up the Lysol, the odor still lingers
But spreading the Good Word of Fox is my calling
I’ll parrot their lies, my integrity’s falling
They told me “It’s just like the flu, don’t you fret”
I swallowed this whole, doubled down on the bet
But I have no time for your rhymes or your jokes
Cuz Limbaugh just told me that COVID’s a hoax!

Re: Lies and more lies
 

The numbers aren't so high,
Nevermind! The end is nigh!
I must pick a side in this fight,
I must appear earnest and right,
I shall not give reason a breath,
I'll focus on death, death, death!
No middle solution, none indeed!
It's life and compassion versus greed!

Though in fact it kills mostly the old,
It kills a few young I'm told,
So I'll demand that we burn down the house,
To smoke out that dastardly mouse!
I'll spout my virtue everywhere
Because I haven't a single care
"I'm smart and empathetic!" I shall shout,
With no grasp of what I'm talking about

Re: Lies and more lies
 

The max that we’ll see is a few thousand dead!
(We get that each day, but who cares what I said)
Instead I’ll attack all these men made of straw
To distract from my bullshit, the truth is too raw
I get oh so mad when I’m caught in a lie
So I write awful poems at home when I’m high