Thursday 9 February 2017

sheep’s clothing

I suppose I never fully worked out what the meaning behind “corporate raider” entailed until listening to this interview regarding the degeneration of an American factory town whose story runs counter to the conventional narratives and incriminations. Like the bankrupt casinos that line the shores of New Jersey, ghost malls and abandoned resorts that sprout up like mushroom but yield diminishing returns until their profitability has waned too far, a corporate raider would swoop in to extort a windfall for himself or on behalf of others that was unsustainable for the target business and/or the surrounding community.
In this case, much like the Vikings with their Danegeld (read ransom), an individual bought up a controlling share of the manufacturing operation that was an anchor for the town and made himself a nuisance to corporate governance. After undermining the company’s executive functions and being generally disruptive to business for a sufficient amount of time to cow the board of directors, the corporate raider graciously offered to be bought out—at a profit to himself that meant the company had to sell off some assets to be able to afford to end this coercion. All tragic downfalls are a collusion of several vectors and no two scenarios are alike, but once the company betrayed weakness in being willing to negotiate with an extortionist, others instantly perked up at the signal and homed in on a new victim. What do you think? This sort of capitalism is very different from the notion that greatness was somehow stolen from America by the Chinese rather than by our own rapine.