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0 pointsNifty39293y ago0 comments

Don't forget that things are the way they are for good reasons, or at least historically good reasons. At least with next-quarter-itis you're holding execs accountable for delivering _something_ relatively soon. It's an imperfect check-and-balance.

Are you excited by the fact that Mark Z doesn't suffer from this disease with Meta and is spending $25B/yr on a virtual reality platform that won't provide returns for many years, if at all?

Quarterly reporting (and the inevitable over-weighting of it) is there to PROTECT small-time investors.

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hakfoo3y ago

As you said, the relationship between shareholders and the C-suite is a check-and-balance.

Meta's structure basically makes Zuckerberg unoustable. He can continue to toss money into the ether chasing a particularly bad idea.

Conversely, it's possible to have voting power so diluted that nobody who has a long-term vision has any way to promote it.

Broad ownership allows people to call bullshit, but maybe something like a capital-gains surtax on shares held less than 5 years would make it too expensive to dive-bomb into a company just long enough to sabotage its long-term future.

Nifty3929OP3y ago

"capital-gains surtax"

In the United States we have "long-term gains" which are taxed preferentially at much lower rates. How about we just stop doing that.

Also for carried interest.

Also also the "never mind about those taxes at all" stepped-up basis for your heirs when you die.

All of these things simply distort the overall market as people modify their plans to account for these tax breaks.

If you don't like to see higher taxes, then replace these distorting, selective tax-breaks with lower overall rates to make up the difference. Or if you like higher taxes then don't do that.

But for gosh sakes can't we please get rid of these behavior-distorting tax laws?

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