What is a tender offer and why you should decline Paramount’s offer

December 22, 2025 — nicoleandmaggie

I got a weird email from E*Trade with the subject header:  WARNER BROS. DISCOVERY, INC. Corporate Action Notice.

In the email it started:  “We are writing to notify you that there is A TENDER OFFER for WARNER BROS. DISCOVERY, INC..”

There were things to click but they weren’t very informative, and I have no idea what I should be entering in the boxes if I did want to sell, which after some internet reading, I decided I did not want to do.

So basically we’re currently in a world where there is no anti-trust.  Lina Kahn was doing a great job under Biden getting us back to a semblance of normality and that is now completely gone, replaced by corruption.  Markets, particularly entertainment and media markets, are rushing to consolidate power, both of the monopoly kind and the political kind.  Everyone wants the same kind of ability to affect politics that Fox News has.

Netflix wants to buy WB and WB wants to be bought by Netflix and they’re waiting for approval from the government.  This isn’t great for the consumer, but it isn’t as bad as what’s going on here.

Paramount (along with foreign interests and maybe Trump’s son-in-law) ALSO wants to buy WB.  But WB doesn’t want to be bought by them.  So they’re trying to do a hostile takeover.

The hostile takeover involves buying as many shares as they can, including from regular investors like me.

Recall that Paramount cancelled Colbert’s late show, presumably because Trump asked them to.  (Though unlike the case with Jimmy Kimmel, they claimed it was cost-related.  The timing is weird though.)  Paramount, as Colbert noted, has also done some shady bribing of Trump instead of fighting Trump presumably because they want the corrupt administration to rule in their favor.  This is not ok.  And Bari Weiss, who is evil, has taken over CBS (one of the subsidiaries) and is trying to turn it into another Trump mouthpiece.  (Fortunately ratings are dropping because turns out Fox News viewers are still watching Fox News, not CBS, and nobody else wants to watch Bari Weiss or Erika Kirk.)  So, to sum:  Pro-Trump forces in Paramount want Warner Brothers for monopoly and propaganda purposes.

Netflix is the lesser of two evils here.  But in an ideal world neither of these mergers would be allowed.

I should note that because I used to own AOL stock back in the day, I have exactly one share of Warner Brothers.  My decision not to sell isn’t going to affect anything.  It’s currently worth $28 (twenty eight dollars) and unraveling its tax bill would cost way more than whatever WB could pay above cost.

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: , , , . 5 Comments »

Ask the grumpies: How can publicly traded companies legally become less evil?

July 4, 2025 — nicoleandmaggie

FGA asks:

What are things publicly traded companies can do to be less evil that won’t simultaneously tank their stock price?

Disclaimer:  I am not even a novice in this area, much less an expert.

Well, you asked this before the whole Costco/Target thing, but that’s kind of a clear example that a publicly traded company needs to know their user base before deciding to do evil.  (For those not paying attention, Costco said nope, we’re keeping our DEI stuff while Target said, we will remove it for you Mr. Trump.  Costco has gained tons of customers and is doing well. Target is tanking and lots of people are boycotting, including me!  Because if Target isn’t going to be better than Walmart, well Walmart has lower prices and more stuff, so might as well shop there.  It’s kind of a metaphor for the democratic party, I guess.  If you try to do discount hate you’re going to lose your base and not pick up anybody from the party of haters.)  If you can make the case that doing good makes you more popular with customers, then there you go.

In general, they need business cases for doing good.  Diversity improves productivity.  Evil is bad publicity.  Environmental changes that are costly up-front may be lower cost in the long run etc.

I honestly don’t like the rule that publicly traded companies have to maximize profits.  I’m not even sure that’s the actual rule so much as they have to do what the shareholders want, and shareholders usually want profits.  I don’t know enough about this.  But it’s possible that a publicly traded company could have 51% of its shareholders wanting them to do good at the expense of profits and that might be legal.  If that is true, then getting better people owning the stock and on the boards could allow them to do good.  I don’t know though.

I’m not crazy about the current focus on the short-term and incentives to gamble, and there are things the government can do to change those incentives and that focus.  But possibly that’s not where the government’s attention should be right now given everything else going on.

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: , , , . 2 Comments »

Ask the grumpies: FL fascism in higher ed

October 7, 2022 — nicoleandmaggie

Rose asks:

Anyone wanting to comment on FL and declaring political affiliations of professors/teachers and students? Any one believe there will be no retaliation? Will proof be required? How can proof be given if a private ballot is involved? How does tenure get impacted?

Apparently this was an urban legend started by a Salon headline.  University of Florida professors/teachers are not required to declare their political affiliations.

However,

Florida House Bill 233 requires an assessment of the “intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity” at state colleges and universities.

So professors were asked about their political affiliation in an anonymous survey.  This will no doubt be used for evil political purposes to cut funding to universities and to keep students from going to college (“too liberal”) and maybe to funnel public money into evil private institutions like Liberty University.  Who knows.

So… it’s bad.  But also it’s not attaching a person’s political affiliation to their name anywhere.  Other, than, you know, where it’s already attached if you vote in primaries or donate to political candidates.

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: , , , . 3 Comments »

Ask the grumpies: Alternatives to Amazon

June 18, 2021 — nicoleandmaggie

Heavyhands asks:

Thank you for answering my ballpoint pen question last year!  In case you were wondering, I decided on the Dr. Grip and it has been working out really well for me.  Thank you, Grumpy Nation!

My question this time is about alternatives to Amazon.  I know Amazon is a terrible company with monopoly power that treats its workers terribly, and I know I should use them less.  But I had a hard time doing that until recently when all of a sudden I was paying for Prime shipping and not *getting* Prime shipping.  At first I thought it was a mistake (this just happened starting in June 2021, so not a covid thing, but maybe a not wanting to pay workers thing), but after being on the phone with several customer service people and getting a really irritating letter from them saying that Prime shipping has NEVER been getting something in 2 days, it’s always been 2 day shipping after the item is sent (not true!) … it’s now less convenient for me to use them and this might be the push I need to cancel Prime and start supporting other businesses. . . within reason.  I’m not rich and I can’t always afford to pay shipping and handling that costs the same amount as the item does.

So, it’s been hard to figure out alternatives.  Most recently I’ve been trying to find a new Bloom Daily planner and birdseed (since my local grocery store no longer carries birdseed).  I’m out of the habit of knowing where to shop if it’s not Amazon.  What are some alternatives?

Does Chewy.com carry birdseed?  That’s where we’ve been getting our cat supplies if the grocery store doesn’t carry them.  If you buy enough stuff in one order, s/h is free.

Walmart.com is also an evil company, but it does carry Bloom Daily planners.  I feel like it’s not quite as evil as Amazon (but maybe I’m wrong?)  Like, it’s evil, but a lot of the damage was done decades ago when it killed local businesses and now it has to compete with online shopping?  They’re still bad.

I do a lot of shopping at Target and Home Depot.  Also big companies, but I can either get stuff delivered directly to me or to the store.

Etsy sometimes has off-the-wall things that I wouldn’t be able to get anywhere other than Amazon.

Those are big companies.  You can also go the exact opposite direction:  Do you have a Buy Nothing group?  Freecycle?  Craigslist?  Nextdoor?  These won’t help for planners or birdseed, but maybe for things you don’t mind getting used.  For us, these worked well when we’ve lived in cities, but not so well where we live now.

Similarly you can buy directly from the company you’re trying to get the item from.  Though I’m also having the same problem with planners… I’m having a hard time paying $10-$15 in shipping (it varies by the day) to buy a Passion Planner from their website.  If they were in stock on Amazon, you bet I’d be buying from there to save on shipping.  I will eventually buy one sometime in July (they have an August start), but I suspect Amazon will have them in stock by then.  I may buy from the company anyway once DH starts getting paychecks and reimbursements.  (Though yes, we can afford $45 for the planner + shipping even before he gets paid.)

Grumpy Nation:  What are your Amazon alternatives?  Also, have you been having problems with their shipping suddenly being slow?

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: , , , . 22 Comments »

Selling My Soul for Online “Education” and Phat Cash

June 12, 2011 — nicoleandmaggie

How do I write this post without outing myself?  If you guess who we are, just pretend we’re Batman and don’t tell anyone.  If you’re my boss, #2 wrote this.  I couldn’t stop her.

#2 says:  You won’t out yourself–schools all over the country (including mine!) are embracing online education as a money maker when education funds are being cut.  We already have a number of graduate courses online, just not ones I teach.

My department wants to start an online master’s degree program that will be self-support (i.e., for profit).  We have a small enough faculty that it’s hard-to-impossible to hide in the woodwork, so I’ll have to have something to say about this.  Personally, I’m against the idea.  I don’t think that for our field an online degree is worth anything, and I didn’t go to grad school so I could be in a for-profit industry.  (Having worked there briefly once, I hated it.)

HOWEVER, embracing evil is the only way to get a COLA increase around here, so I agreed to develop and teach an online course.  Not just any online course.  An online graduate course.  They’re giving me cash moneys to do it:  the carrot.

With the carrot is its accompanying stick. If I refuse to teach in the program, what then? Do I get no COLA when everyone else gets one? The department says it won’t be mandatory to participate, but I anticipate much social pressure.

There is no way to get my dept out of doing this. We had interminable meetings. Those against the idea (a few junior people who relatively recently graduated from excellent PhD programs) were steamrolled by the majority in favor, which is how the process is supposed to work anyway, so oh well for me.  The chair is for it.  I didn’t fight at the first signs of this happening because I’m an untenured cog and because I thought I wouldn’t stick around long enough for this plan to come to fruition, but I’ve gotten settled here.  Oops.  If only the job market wasn’t so bad.  If this gets implemented, it may be close to a deal-breaker for me.

I want money.  Especially since there is no travel budget and I’m trying for tenure.  But graduate education does not belong online in most fields (this point is NOT open for discussion right here right now; maybe in another post), and trust me when I say that it does not belong online for the class I’ve been assigned, even if you could make an argument for the core (which in my field, you really can’t).

It’s possible that the whole thing will die because nobody wants to be in charge of it– there is no prospect of release time or extra cash for the person in charge of training and supervising the proposed legion of online adjuncts and the organization of the whole program, at least not in the first year or two.  Eventually supposedly the profit will pay for this person.  The senior people have refused and the junior people would have to be idiots to do it.

It would be one thing if I’d chosen to work at a for-profit like University of Phoenix: I’d know what I was getting into and so would the students and their employers, but I work at a public school.  I didn’t sign up for this.  When I interviewed, I expressed enthusiasm at the thought of starting a(nother) graduate program, but at the time they weren’t thinking it would be for-profit.

Will my professional reputation suffer?  If I’m ashamed to tell my graduate adviser about this, what does that say?

FML!

Does your school have online graduate education?  Would you sell your “last tiny shreds of self-respect” for money?

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , . 20 Comments »
Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started