Anon is still butthurt about Saturn/Holden/Pontiac
Posted by systemmm34@reddit | greentext | View on Reddit | 46 comments

Posted by systemmm34@reddit | greentext | View on Reddit | 46 comments
UsErNaMeS_aR_DuMb@reddit
The Modern Corporate Merger
Reading_username@reddit
The MBA Special™
n_lens@reddit
The I in MBA stands for Intelligence!
blippie@reddit
If in this instance Intelligence mean idiocy, then yes we are in agreeance .
Trancetastic16@reddit
The intentional end goal of late-stage Capitalism, as part of increasing value for shareholders for the next quarter and then the executives collect bonuses, leave before the company crashes and fail upwards into a higher position at the next company and repeat the process.
Building a sustainable business that provides a quality product for its customers was never the end goal of capitalism, only a means to an end for CEOs to collect bonuses and then fire the workers no matter how many businesses, livelihoods, and national economies are destroyed in the process.
Stargost_@reddit
Buying off the competition.
thatweirdguyted@reddit
It's the end stage of imperialist economics. There's a whole science to it.
Essentially it begins with a niche company gaining popularity by making a quality product or having good customer service, or cheaper prices, etc. They gain ground against the existing status quo market dominators because those companies are using their strength to control the consumer and push high prices, poor service, shady business practices etc. So eventually the little guy grows big enough to compete against the big players, and supersedes them. Look at Kmart vs Walmart as a textbook example.
The problem is that the business model is based on endless growth. They franchise and expand until the market is saturated and there's nowhere left to build a new store. Even then, the shareholders are still expecting this insane growth rate, and demand that it continue. So how can you make more revenue when there's nowhere left to grow? They start trimming fat from the model, eliminating small things, reducing staff, introducing hostile negotiations with their suppliers and vendors, until they have become the big bad guy they were fighting against at the beginning. And slowly they cannibalize their own infrastructure until the whole thing falls apart. It's the fate of every Empire, and every corporation that strives for endless growth.
BobDylansBasterdSon@reddit
It shouldn't hurt customers when big companies fail. Companies failing is what makes capitalism work.
MongolianGypsy@reddit
Problem is that shareholders can profit short term from a company failing even if in the long run it's bad for the company and industry as a whole, and the company fails not because their products/service are inferior but because those who own it don't necessarily care as long as it makes money short term, and in that regard it can definitely hurt customers depending on the product/service if there is no alternative.
NsaLeader@reddit
That would be ideal if the government didn't bail them out each time.
Fastpas123@reddit
you put it better than i have, and i'm an economics student. well put! thats why in my own startup instead of aiming for an end goal of total domination of a market, i just want my company to reach a sustainable place where it can produce quality products and sell them for a reasonable margin. im not interested in endless growth. problem is finding investors with that shared vision, its next to impossible.
thatweirdguyted@reddit
I am a history enthusiast, and the rise and fall of the Roman Empire is essentially a blueprint on every imperialist system that has followed since, including the modern system of economic expansion. There's a strong overlap in the Venn diagram there. So much so that it's a valuable predictor of where a lot of this is going. If you're interested, I'd highly recommend reading up on it.
Fastpas123@reddit
Please point me in the direction of relevant sources, I'd love to read up on it, that sounds fascinating. It's unfortunate, noone in politics or buisness seems interested in the unsustainable Nature of our lives here. Things need to change.
TimeGlitches@reddit
Elimination of competition via acquisition and dismantlement instead of making better products.
MindGoblin@reddit
I'm honestly starting to feel like companies shouldn't be legally allowed to buy/merge with other companies anymore. Look at tech start-ups. The whole point of them is to literally just get noticed and bought by one of the big fish and cash out and the automobile industry is getting fucking ridiculous with behemoth companies like VW among others gobbling up the whole fucking industry.
honzanan@reddit
Its just a logical consequence of capitalism
Atitkos@reddit
Capitalism sucks in it's current form. Either government needs to regulate it more, or we need an outright new type of economy.
FloZone@reddit
Though at some point it infringes your ability to sell your property. The problem lies deeper in the property structure itself snd the undemocratic way corporations are run.
Spiritual_Bus1125@reddit
Nah, it's the debt economy.
FloZone@reddit
Money is debt.
Spiritual_Bus1125@reddit
No, the problem is the fact that the global economy is based on the principle that you should buy as much money as you can and get as much profit as you can as long as you beat the % of the lender.
It's good on small scale, I mean if I wanted to start a small business or a big business that would be fine and well but in a global scale this is DANGEROUS
FloZone@reddit
In the entire chain of profit, you reach a point where you cannot generate profit anymore by "optimising" your product or its production or anything. If companies hit that point they usually start to lay off people, crunch fewer employees, wages stagnate, substitute parts of the product with ever so slightly inferior parts and so on.
It is also a point where capitalism and competition do not breed innovation anymore. Usually competition is good for innovation, but in a field, where the optimum has basically been reached and profit is mandatory, you prioritise short term profits over long term developments.
If a concept isn't proven to work immediately, it is not worth pursuing it at all. Thus experiments are almost out of the windows.
The next being, if someone actually comes up with an innovation, but starts small, a disruption of the market could be harmful to said profits as well, so you shut it down, even if it would be a good longterm investment.
Not really, because the debt economy runs deep and is old and parts of these debts are not expected to be paid off, but to generate inflation and inflation is seen as natural progression within the capitalist system that increases growth. The problem is that at some point you simply generate "value" out of nothing. Same with speculation on the value of companies and stocks. I find the numbers for the networth of people like Musk extremely weird. They literally don't exist. In the case of firms like Microsoft, they are backed by product sales in some way, but this kind of new "floating capital" is purely based on information and speculation on value. A lot of value nowadays is generated purely through cloud capital and basically rent for using platforms. Which is another form of "wealth" backed by literally nothing.
Walter_Padick@reddit
BS, profit can continue. More profit than last quarter/yr is what you mean
MysticalMike2@reddit
It basically generates the starting point of a whole mindset towards short-term strategies for big payoff, risky business basically.
magicarnival@reddit
They're called anti-trust laws, but it only works if you enforce it and generally they don't care enough to stop a big company from buying little startups.
BobDylansBasterdSon@reddit
The people that are supposed to enforce anti-trust laws are major shareholders in big companies.
Ponce421@reddit
Yeah but why would you need to eliminate the competition if you own the competition?
Maar7en@reddit
Step 1: buy smaller competitor brand
Step 2: sell off all their assets to recuperate a lot of that cost immediately
Step 3: sell your existing products rebranded to keep it going for a while and make some more money at a pretty low cost
Step 4: all value extracted and brand loyalty destroyed
Step 5: offload brand(little more than a name now) to some nostalgic schmuck
Owning the competition isn't as profitable as the above. Especially not short term and short term is all that matters to the people making choices.
TimeGlitches@reddit
"We're buying new businesses and growing our market share while cutting costs! Look at us wall street look how valuable we are!"
Iron-Fist@reddit
TBF a country, even a big one like the US, can only support a handful of car manufacturers. It's too capital intensive, too risky, too internationally competitive. Places like Korea and Japan only have the small handful they do because of massive subsidy and industrial policy making them effectively state owned enterprises.
Key_Dish_good@reddit
Microsoft. Been doing it since forever.
SacredIconSuite2@reddit
tinydeepvalue@reddit
The boston consultant group special.
Actually its not special, everything finance bros touches goes to shit.
Groundbreaking_Bag8@reddit
Anon's posting from four months into the future.
SnooChipmunks8748@reddit
Microsoft special
thatbrazilianguy@reddit
Providing short-term profits for shareholders.
Cactus-Pete-@reddit
It's a short term loss for long term profits by dissolving the competition. It's simply buying them out of business.
CompactAvocado@reddit
number must go infinitely up in a finite system
nothing possibly braindead about that at all
JCampenish@reddit
Yeah bro, it's called "general" motors, not "special and unique" motors
FMC_Speed@reddit
American corporatism
scrembot9000@reddit
Sounds like Jaguar and their recent car idea. And im not even talking about whatever that strange advert was all about.
make_reddit_great@reddit
Bring back the Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser!
Micki-LandLakes@reddit
Saab 😥
OnwardSoldierx@reddit
Badge engineering
NuclearWinter_101@reddit
Chrysler is going down the same road. They only make 1 car now (used to be 2 but I think they’ve stopped making the sedan) now they only make that’s big mini vans
Curly_Fried_Mushroom@reddit
we love our private equity firms don't we folks?