Free spirits

Funny how plants refuse to do what you want them to do. This rose bush was supposed to enliven a dull patch in the garden fence, but instead has decided to reach for the sky.

Quote of the Day

“Empire will leave behind only two monuments: the game of Association Football, and the expression ‘Fuck off’ ”

• Richard Turnbull, (Governor of Tanganyika 1958-1961)

Musical alternative to the morning’s radio news

Chris Rea | Stainsby Girls

Link

Long Read of the Day

Leveraged buyouts are not like mortgages

If, like me, you think that so called ‘private equity’ operators are the hyenas of capitalism, then you’ll enjoy this blast by Cory Doctorow. I’ve known Cory for years, and admired him for even longer. He pulls no punches and takes no prisoners.

Exhibit A:

Here’s an open secret: the confusing jargon of finance is not the product of some inherent complexity that requires a whole new vocabulary. Rather, finance-talk is all obfuscation, because if we called finance tactics by their plain-language names, it would be obvious that the sector exists to defraud the public and loot the real economy.

Take “leveraged buyout,” a polite name for stealing a whole goddamned company:

I. Identify a company that owns valuable assets that are required for its continued operation, such as the real-estate occupied by its outlets, or even its lines of credit with suppliers;

II. Approach lenders (usually banks) and ask for money to buy the company, offering the company itself (which you don’t own!) as collateral on the loan;

III. Offer some of those loaned funds to shareholders of the company and convince a key block of those shareholders (for example, executives with large stock grants, or speculators who’ve acquired large positions in the company, or people who’ve inherited shares from early investors but are disengaged from the operation of the firm) to demand that the company be sold to the looters;

IV. Call a vote on selling the company at the promised price, counting on the fact that many investors will not participate in that vote (for example, the big index funds like Vanguard almost never vote on motions like this), which means that a minority of shareholders can force the sale;

V. Once you own the company, start to strip-mine its assets: sell its real-estate, start stiffing suppliers, fire masses of workers, all in the name of “repaying the debts” that you took on to buy the company…

Do read on. What’s striking about this racket is the way it has been used to destroy a number of venerable UK companies. It should be outlawed — just as permitting companies to buy their own shares should be banned. But because democracies have spent over half a century devising legal regimes that prioritise the interests of corporations and private capital these abuses continue.

You can see why Cory is not exactly popular in some quarters. He’s always welcome here, though.

Books, etc.

Sometimes, serendipity works. This is one of my favourite books. It uses the arguments about the real source of true knowledge between Thomas Hobbes (hence the Leviathan of the title) and the scientist Robert Boyle (of Boyle’s Law and other things) to make us ponder how we came to regard experimental science as the preferred way of producing knowledge.

During the pandemic I lent my copy to a bright graduate student after she and I had had a discussion about Hobbes, but then (of course) forgot to whom I had given the volume. (I keep meaning to keep a list of borrowers, but…) And then, the other day, it turned up in my pigeon-hole in College: she’s leaving to take up a Fellowship in a place hear Swindon-which-shall-not-be-named and was clearing out her apartment before departing.

It’s so nice to have it back.

Linkblog

Something I noticed, while drinking from the Internet firehose.

• From The Register: WordStar 7, the last ever DOS version, is re-released for free.  The preferred writing tool of Arthur C Clarke and William Buckley Jr. And, for a time, of this blogger.

•  How the KKK Scammed Its Members for Cash. Gripping article by Rosie Cima. Turns out that the Klan was basically a pyramid scheme “fueled by an army of highly-incentivized sales agents selling hatred, religious intolerance, and fraternity in a time and place where there was tremendous demand”. And the two things that brought it down were: the conviction in 1925 of its ‘Grand Wizard’ for rape and murder; and being sued by the federal government in 1944 for $685,000 in back taxes!

Errata

Max Whitby writes:

Congratulations on your bees taking up residence. Judging by their front doors, these are Leaf-cutters (Genus: Megachile) rather than Masons (Genus: Osmia). There are seven species in the UK… including Willughby’s Leaf-Cutter Bee (Megachile willughbiella) named after Francis Willughby (1635-1672) of Trinity College Cambridge.

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