Curt Doolittle

Theme: Reform

  • Notes on Corp Ownership Reform

    Jan 1, 2020, 8:47 PM Legal PerspectiveTrue: “The purpose of the corporation is to do anything lawful.” And “Corporations are real, shareholders are a fiction.” In other words, shareholders are not owners. Companies do not work to maximize shareholder value. That is a fiction to sell investors. A management team balances brand awareness, market share, customers, employees, bankers, investors, and vendors, each of which is competing to maximize their take of the profits if their are any. Thoughts:

    (a) Owners ‘invest’ to obtain income and appreciation but lack liquidity.

    (b) Shareholders function as lenders who purchase liquidity and opportunity for dividends and appreciation – they are not owners, that is the myth.

    (c) From the company’s perspective, dividends and appreciation are the cost of maintaining borrowing capacity in capital markets so that opportunities can be seized by rapid appeal to capital markets.

    (d) Boards of other than owners are a wast of time money and energy – a kabuki theater – and instead, companies should be, and are, insured to act in the interest of their contract with the shareholders. The very best you can say about boards is (i) you can pay people for relationships, assistance, and information. (ii) when you are unsure and want to bounce ideas off peers rather than employees but be sure it won’t leak, they’re useful. (iii) preparing for board meetings makes sure that you and your team are on the same page and understand your own business. (iv) I use my boards exclusively to test my ideas and rarely do anything if I can’t convince them unanimously. This tempers my too-high risk tolerance. It gives me political cover with the staff and others if I make a mistake.

    (e) It’s not even clear that financial reports other than to auditors and insurers are of any value other than in selling to lenders (shareholders). Randomly select financial reports from your favorite companies. You will learn far more from analyst calls.

    (f) Trying to maintain or improve shareholder value, is a terrible practice because investment cycles (capital requirements necessary for returns) have been increasing, and the division of production distribution and trade fragmenting, but lifespan of companies are decreasing – for this very reason. Innovators dilemmas everywhere. No one tries to maximize shareholder value. That’s nonsense. You try to preserve it. the objective of nearly every business is to preserve it’s existence as a going concern for all those involved: customers, employees, owners, vendors, investors. It is very hard to build a business that produces a durable income stream because the customer vendor employee network is the most difficult organization to produce.

    (g) There is no reason whatsoever that companies should direct resources to ‘charities’ or ‘movements’, instead of requiring such donations come from individuals. Social responsibly is a code word for rent-seeking because the government is incapable of providing results. The current condition is that companies are frequently blackmailed if they don’t contribute to certain causes. That’s an injustice. That one shall do no harm is the best an organization can do and is the best therefore we can ask them to do. Lastly unless you’ve run a company of at least say, 50M, and preferably over 100M you have no idea just how difficult it is to produce a profit. (i) My primary complaint is that companies do not themselves maintain accounting for operations (cash: profit and loss from operations), management (ops plus overhead), owners (ops, overhead, assets, and yes, market share ), lenders (EBITDA), and the state (taxes, amortization, and depreciation). Most executives I’ve consulted, companies I’ve acquired, or accounting departments I’ve fought with, have too poor a grasp of operations and obscure it by conflating accounting data so to obscure normal volatility and variation in risk from investors and lenders, and to minimize taxes. Drive employee quality, operations, marketshare, and leave everything else to finance and accounting. Money is just another resource provided by vendors.

  • Notes on Corp Ownership Reform

    Jan 1, 2020, 8:47 PM Legal PerspectiveTrue: “The purpose of the corporation is to do anything lawful.” And “Corporations are real, shareholders are a fiction.” In other words, shareholders are not owners. Companies do not work to maximize shareholder value. That is a fiction to sell investors. A management team balances brand awareness, market share, customers, employees, bankers, investors, and vendors, each of which is competing to maximize their take of the profits if their are any. Thoughts:

    (a) Owners ‘invest’ to obtain income and appreciation but lack liquidity.

    (b) Shareholders function as lenders who purchase liquidity and opportunity for dividends and appreciation – they are not owners, that is the myth.

    (c) From the company’s perspective, dividends and appreciation are the cost of maintaining borrowing capacity in capital markets so that opportunities can be seized by rapid appeal to capital markets.

    (d) Boards of other than owners are a wast of time money and energy – a kabuki theater – and instead, companies should be, and are, insured to act in the interest of their contract with the shareholders. The very best you can say about boards is (i) you can pay people for relationships, assistance, and information. (ii) when you are unsure and want to bounce ideas off peers rather than employees but be sure it won’t leak, they’re useful. (iii) preparing for board meetings makes sure that you and your team are on the same page and understand your own business. (iv) I use my boards exclusively to test my ideas and rarely do anything if I can’t convince them unanimously. This tempers my too-high risk tolerance. It gives me political cover with the staff and others if I make a mistake.

    (e) It’s not even clear that financial reports other than to auditors and insurers are of any value other than in selling to lenders (shareholders). Randomly select financial reports from your favorite companies. You will learn far more from analyst calls.

    (f) Trying to maintain or improve shareholder value, is a terrible practice because investment cycles (capital requirements necessary for returns) have been increasing, and the division of production distribution and trade fragmenting, but lifespan of companies are decreasing – for this very reason. Innovators dilemmas everywhere. No one tries to maximize shareholder value. That’s nonsense. You try to preserve it. the objective of nearly every business is to preserve it’s existence as a going concern for all those involved: customers, employees, owners, vendors, investors. It is very hard to build a business that produces a durable income stream because the customer vendor employee network is the most difficult organization to produce.

    (g) There is no reason whatsoever that companies should direct resources to ‘charities’ or ‘movements’, instead of requiring such donations come from individuals. Social responsibly is a code word for rent-seeking because the government is incapable of providing results. The current condition is that companies are frequently blackmailed if they don’t contribute to certain causes. That’s an injustice. That one shall do no harm is the best an organization can do and is the best therefore we can ask them to do. Lastly unless you’ve run a company of at least say, 50M, and preferably over 100M you have no idea just how difficult it is to produce a profit. (i) My primary complaint is that companies do not themselves maintain accounting for operations (cash: profit and loss from operations), management (ops plus overhead), owners (ops, overhead, assets, and yes, market share ), lenders (EBITDA), and the state (taxes, amortization, and depreciation). Most executives I’ve consulted, companies I’ve acquired, or accounting departments I’ve fought with, have too poor a grasp of operations and obscure it by conflating accounting data so to obscure normal volatility and variation in risk from investors and lenders, and to minimize taxes. Drive employee quality, operations, marketshare, and leave everything else to finance and accounting. Money is just another resource provided by vendors.

  • Markets Not Majoritarianism

    Jan 4, 2020, 12:07 PM by Martin Štěpán

    Why do people keep assuming we only want to make slight changes to universal suffrage? The optimum outcome is scraping the whole thing and putting in several houses for classes with different interests that have to negotiate.

    They have been indoctrinated into the fallacy of the good of democracy’s majoritarian tyranny, and made ignorant of the market as a means of calculating optimums despite differences.

  • Markets Not Majoritarianism

    Jan 4, 2020, 12:07 PM by Martin Štěpán

    Why do people keep assuming we only want to make slight changes to universal suffrage? The optimum outcome is scraping the whole thing and putting in several houses for classes with different interests that have to negotiate.

    They have been indoctrinated into the fallacy of the good of democracy’s majoritarian tyranny, and made ignorant of the market as a means of calculating optimums despite differences.

  • The Work Is Done for You; Just Plug and Play

    Jan 10, 2020, 12:57 PM by Brandon Hayes Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth; it’s 2020. Take a good look at it. Look at it again. If you don’t like it, there’s a single way to change it; accept it and modify it along the lines of natural law; reciprocity; and make something of it for yourself. You’re brilliant and technologically advanced; only your addictions and lies stand in your way. Accepting reality isn’t a burden; that’s always been a lie. A lie to keep you from seeing the simple truth. Life is simple and beautifully so. You want Eden; this is the closest you get with resorting to fantasy. No lies; just calculation for cooperation. Worried about restitution, P’s got it in spades. Let those most fit to bear the burdens of the world bear them as they ought; know it’s your duty to do your damnedest not to add to this burden; the attempts to fit round pegs into square holes and similar unfruitful endeavors ought cease. We have acted in a counter-productive fashion long enough. P does parsimony so you can do action. I’m not interested in your abstract expressions nor your virtue signals… can you be the change you scream about needing so badly? Cause now’s your chance.

  • The Work Is Done for You; Just Plug and Play

    Jan 10, 2020, 12:57 PM by Brandon Hayes Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth; it’s 2020. Take a good look at it. Look at it again. If you don’t like it, there’s a single way to change it; accept it and modify it along the lines of natural law; reciprocity; and make something of it for yourself. You’re brilliant and technologically advanced; only your addictions and lies stand in your way. Accepting reality isn’t a burden; that’s always been a lie. A lie to keep you from seeing the simple truth. Life is simple and beautifully so. You want Eden; this is the closest you get with resorting to fantasy. No lies; just calculation for cooperation. Worried about restitution, P’s got it in spades. Let those most fit to bear the burdens of the world bear them as they ought; know it’s your duty to do your damnedest not to add to this burden; the attempts to fit round pegs into square holes and similar unfruitful endeavors ought cease. We have acted in a counter-productive fashion long enough. P does parsimony so you can do action. I’m not interested in your abstract expressions nor your virtue signals… can you be the change you scream about needing so badly? Cause now’s your chance.

  • Why Economists Fail to Propose Successful Solutions

    Jan 15, 2020, 3:23 PM Most economists propose nonsense solutions that mean more taxes without changing the structure of the economy. My proposition is pretty simple and has profound consequences. Stop all lying, baiting into hazard, free riding and parasitism upon the people, and capture those proceeds in the production of PHYSICAL commons. THAT IS HOW WE FIX EQUALITY. I’m not in favor of equality. Im’ in favor of suppressing parasitism upon the people so that people aren’t rewarded for parasitism and predation and conquest. The result is MORE equality for the middle class at the cost of the parasitic media, academy, state, financial and probably marketing and advertising sectors. That’s how you fix it. What will happen? I think sh-t through. What will happen is increasing demands for investments that aren’t parasitic, and that leaves accumulating rather than spending down capital. Economists work by income statements. Citizenry works by balance sheets.

  • Why Economists Fail to Propose Successful Solutions

    Jan 15, 2020, 3:23 PM Most economists propose nonsense solutions that mean more taxes without changing the structure of the economy. My proposition is pretty simple and has profound consequences. Stop all lying, baiting into hazard, free riding and parasitism upon the people, and capture those proceeds in the production of PHYSICAL commons. THAT IS HOW WE FIX EQUALITY. I’m not in favor of equality. Im’ in favor of suppressing parasitism upon the people so that people aren’t rewarded for parasitism and predation and conquest. The result is MORE equality for the middle class at the cost of the parasitic media, academy, state, financial and probably marketing and advertising sectors. That’s how you fix it. What will happen? I think sh-t through. What will happen is increasing demands for investments that aren’t parasitic, and that leaves accumulating rather than spending down capital. Economists work by income statements. Citizenry works by balance sheets.

  • The 20 Th Century Economies in Context – and How to Fix Them with Propertarianism

    Jan 15, 2020, 3:42 PM You know, they called what we do today “Jewish economics” in the pre-war period because it favored investors at the expense of the middle classes (which in those days just meant ‘families’). Keynes was reading MARX, and just removed all references from his book (the general theory) before publishing. Keynes used mathematics (he was first and foremost a mathematician specializing in probability) to give us his elegant simplification of the economy, but he put no measures in place to control it’s abuse – and of course, and Hayek didn’t refute him, and no one produced a limit, so the government just took ‘presumption of growth from presumption of consumption’ as license to convert Keynes’ explanation of how to get out of postwar crisis with how to maximize spending by pushing risk downstream and consuming all institutional, behavioral, normative, physical, and human capital. That limit was a balance sheet, and full accounting of investments and returns. In other words, to maintain the MEASUREMENT that both the GOLD STANDARD and RULE OF LAW had made possible at the cost of inability to react to shocks. This isn’t to dismiss his aggregate theory which is, like all economics, hydraulic. And it isn’t to defend the classical theory, which presumes rational actors, rather than bounded rationality within the limits of our frustration budgets. (We used commercial consumption to sedate ourselves during what has been a long period of social disintegration all of which decrease mindfulness and increase stress, create dysfunctional infantilized ‘woke’ children, reduce our commons into barbarism, loneliness and horrors in old age.) We spent thousands of years incrementally building rule of law leaving only a markets, and in a century we have destroyed rule of law, markets, and our social, institutional, and worst of all, genetic capital. You can’t imagine how much advertising and that evil box in your living room has contributed to destruction of our civilization. But THOUSANDS of thinkers predicted it. The British were right with their BBC – which horrifies the libertarian remnant in me.. But it’s because the left (cognitively female) always and everywhere seeks to create consensus to undermine because it cannot produce and innovate itself. As such the parasite pursues ‘the pulpit’ from whence it conducts it’s false promise, baiting into hazard, as a means of undermining the order and the capital structure of the people who DO produce. Now, I have no problem with censorship in the Russian and Chinese and Turkish models, if it’s censorship of GSRRM, baiting into hazard, and advocacy of capital consumption or underclass reproduction or limiting upper class reproduction – all things that affect the balance sheet (capital). But the court must be there to defend the truth, and the law has to tolerate truth regardless of cost. In other words, it has to be ILLEGAL to suppress truthful statements if it’s Illegal to undermine. This kind of test wasn’t possible until Propertarianism. But it’s possible now. And you can’t imagine (I can and it overwhelms me) how different a world would be if we ended all the f—king lying – including the lying of false promise baiting into hazard, and advocacy of consuming capital.

  • The 20 Th Century Economies in Context – and How to Fix Them with Propertarianism

    Jan 15, 2020, 3:42 PM You know, they called what we do today “Jewish economics” in the pre-war period because it favored investors at the expense of the middle classes (which in those days just meant ‘families’). Keynes was reading MARX, and just removed all references from his book (the general theory) before publishing. Keynes used mathematics (he was first and foremost a mathematician specializing in probability) to give us his elegant simplification of the economy, but he put no measures in place to control it’s abuse – and of course, and Hayek didn’t refute him, and no one produced a limit, so the government just took ‘presumption of growth from presumption of consumption’ as license to convert Keynes’ explanation of how to get out of postwar crisis with how to maximize spending by pushing risk downstream and consuming all institutional, behavioral, normative, physical, and human capital. That limit was a balance sheet, and full accounting of investments and returns. In other words, to maintain the MEASUREMENT that both the GOLD STANDARD and RULE OF LAW had made possible at the cost of inability to react to shocks. This isn’t to dismiss his aggregate theory which is, like all economics, hydraulic. And it isn’t to defend the classical theory, which presumes rational actors, rather than bounded rationality within the limits of our frustration budgets. (We used commercial consumption to sedate ourselves during what has been a long period of social disintegration all of which decrease mindfulness and increase stress, create dysfunctional infantilized ‘woke’ children, reduce our commons into barbarism, loneliness and horrors in old age.) We spent thousands of years incrementally building rule of law leaving only a markets, and in a century we have destroyed rule of law, markets, and our social, institutional, and worst of all, genetic capital. You can’t imagine how much advertising and that evil box in your living room has contributed to destruction of our civilization. But THOUSANDS of thinkers predicted it. The British were right with their BBC – which horrifies the libertarian remnant in me.. But it’s because the left (cognitively female) always and everywhere seeks to create consensus to undermine because it cannot produce and innovate itself. As such the parasite pursues ‘the pulpit’ from whence it conducts it’s false promise, baiting into hazard, as a means of undermining the order and the capital structure of the people who DO produce. Now, I have no problem with censorship in the Russian and Chinese and Turkish models, if it’s censorship of GSRRM, baiting into hazard, and advocacy of capital consumption or underclass reproduction or limiting upper class reproduction – all things that affect the balance sheet (capital). But the court must be there to defend the truth, and the law has to tolerate truth regardless of cost. In other words, it has to be ILLEGAL to suppress truthful statements if it’s Illegal to undermine. This kind of test wasn’t possible until Propertarianism. But it’s possible now. And you can’t imagine (I can and it overwhelms me) how different a world would be if we ended all the f—king lying – including the lying of false promise baiting into hazard, and advocacy of consuming capital.