batmenace

Profitability and the value of the equity aren't necessarily related, though. Amazon was unprofitable for many years, but its stock still increased in value.

AtR is a really good podcast, I agree. Lewis is great at writing/ presenting in an engaging manner. Listening to the podcasts felt to me like listening to short audio books of his. Who knows if moderation in the way he analyses it will rebound again in the future, one can only hope...

They said the reason Airbus was not invited for the offer was because they are always months late with their delivery

I might well be biased since I do work in an investment bank that caters mainly to private equity clients, and having spent a decent amount working in a PE fund, but this article also conveniently focuses solely on the bad part of the industry. Of course, not all PE is perfect, and not all are the same. There are high leverage funds, debt funds, distressed investment funds, large cap funds investing billions of dollars, small cap funds financing companies worth just about 10m. The fund I worked for, for example, focused on buying only a few companies (3-4 portfolio businesses) and then building these up over 5-10 years to become market leaders, by investing in the companies capabilities both through add-on acquisitions and R&D spending. Of course, PE can also mean that in order to improve the company, some parts of it have to be restructured or shut down, but the blame for that cannot go only to the fund, but also to the management of that company letting divisions become lethargic. Not all PE is the same - some funds are bad, focusing on just stripping as much money out of a business as possible and then getting rid of whatever is left. But generally, PE's make most money with businesses that grow beyond their original scale, and innovate more than their rivals. Also, thanks to the investment time frame and relative freedom that investors give the funds, a lot of good can be done with capital, such as investments in emerging economies and local champions.

The point is, the PE landscape is infinitely more complicated than just saying it is good or bad.

Im guessing since the art would be on the company's balance sheet as an asset, a sale of the company would include the sale/ transfer if its assets, thus breaching the law saying the birds cannot be sold.

surely it depends on how you offset your CO2, no? Makes a difference if its through using planting trees etc.

Well at least on the consumer side, my perception has always been that their brand revolves around solidly built products that last long. We have a bunch of power tools that must be like 20 years old and still work like new.

how is it the purpose of youtube to encourage or allow illegal action

I thiink the idea behind this post was more to avoid this kind of thing from happening https://xkcd.com/1319/

I like the idea, but why would I use this instead of Mendeley or EndNote, for example? Especially since Mendeley is free, and has a word plugin for writing and referencing.

It's not the same, but even if you are not a billionaire, there comes a point where giving relatively more of your added income serves a greater good (i.e. funding for gov't) than the money just being in your bank account. Once you make more than you need to keep up your lifestyle (at whatever level that may be) the suggestion to give back more is not unjustified.

It's not like you just send the government more money if you feel like they should tax more... People like Buffet and Gates donate so much in part because they believe that wealth should be redistributed better than the government currently does

I mean... The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. If Bill Gates gives away 49% of the money his investments make a year (hypothetically), he makes money, and he gives money away. If he funds the Series A of a biotech company to help it continue its research and the company then gains value, it's not just investing, it's also philanthropy.

I agree that there is definitely a lot in terms of abuse when it comes to philanthropy and, more specifically, thr foundations that are set up. As always, those people who want to will find a way to cheat the system for their advantage.

That being said, I don't think that it is really fair to extend this to philanthropy as a whole. A good idea isn't bad simply because some people abuse it. It just means that the rules need to be defined more clearly.

Tax deductions make sense to an extent as they encourage donation to charities, and the principle does work. Not perfectly, but to an extent.

While there are obvious cases of charities being used to avoid taxes and the like, there are also other examples. The Biill and Melinda Gates foundation is one of the largest funding bodies of scientific reserach globally. Bloomberg's 1.8 billion dollar donation to John's Hopkins helps accessibilit for lower income students.

Of course, philanthropies come with challenges. There's always opportunity cost, there are always other areas of funding that could use the money. There will always be people who diisagree with the use of the money.

Of course, there can be a motivation behind some funding. Bloomberg gave to Hopkins because it's his alma mater. Is that completely fair? No. But let's not pretend that the government in the US is completely unbiased with grant allocation and funding...

Philanthropy should never be the only way money is given to worthwhile causes, and not all causes that are funded will be seen as equally important as others. That does not make it bad, though. Private donations should fill a role that the covernment cannot, in that moment, fill. Perhaps that is funding for smaller, experimental projects that have a higher risk of failing. Perhaps it's projects that are beneficial for one state, but not another. Or projects that do not align with the current goals of the administration (e.g. climate change).

Rich people should not be allowed to use charities as a way to avoid taxes. But not every rich person is evil. Some donations may genuinely be given simply to help causes. Even if it's the soup kitchen. The rules imposed on how these bodies are set up should be stricter, yes. But I think that foundations can provide a good balance in funding allocation to the government.

For some reason, reading this I had to think of the old movie "Brewster's Millions", as if this guy, too, had to get rid of all the money.

Theres another case, though. Some people have no choice but to be "difficult". Consider, for example, a lawyer from an international firm travelling with company devices, which have on them privileged information that can under no circumstances be disclosed. These kinds of people have no choice but to be "difficult".

Well I wouldn't be thrilled on losing my life-savings, no matter what age.

Most of the institutional 'slow money' like endowments and pension funds will never touch cryptocurrencies, no matter how they are structured. They can't even take positions on FIAT currencies, or even bonds below AA rating. No way are they ever touching cryptos.

In this case, though, they will be acting only as market makers, i.e. just brokering sales and purchases, not actually taking positions themselves (for the most part), meaning that whether they believe in it or not only matters in their analyst recommendations, which are completely separate from the trading desk anyway.