Comment by swatcoder

Comment by swatcoder a day ago

9 replies

Can you give an example of how the most eligible buyers might collude in a way that benefits them all equally, so that this would happen?

For me, it's very hard to conceive of any concrete way that would work. It's a brand, some partnerships, and a network of users that would all go to whatever buyer, and would give that buyer a huge benefit over their existing domestic competitors. So under what circumstances would those domestic competitors allow that instead of aggresively trying to secure it for themselves?

I'm open to believing you, I just don't see what you have in mind.

Larrikin a day ago

Why do they need to benefit all equally?

Campaign with the president, offer large amounts of money to the presidents campaign, donate huge sums to a small inauguration party, and then just be picked to get it at a deep discount. The entire point of bribes is that corruption let's you get away with things at a lesser cost. You just screw over everyone else except for the bribe receiver.

slt2021 a day ago

only very few rich people can mobilize financial and political capital to pull off tiktok purchase.

Larry Ellison (since he is CIA/MIC friendly and tiktok is already running on Oracle cloud)

Zuck has too much conflict to acquire tiktok, but other oligarchs like Musk/bezos/gates can pull it off, given their recent meetings with Trump

  • JumpCrisscross a day ago

    > only very few rich people can mobilize financial and political capital to pull off tiktok purchase

    Why do you assume only a natural person can buy TikTok? Why do you assume you need political capital?

    The law doesn’t provide that much executive deference in enforcement.

    • slt2021 a day ago

      Elon musk is an example of acquisition of global social network. Political capital is needed because the tiktok question is politicized heavily (national security as a reason).

      Plus FTC will review the acquisition process as well.

      Do you have a counter example?

      • JumpCrisscross a day ago

        > FTC will review the acquisition process as well

        Why?

        > Political capital is needed because the tiktok question is politicized heavily (national security as a reason)

        This is entirely meaningless. You don’t need political capital to maintain the status quo.

        > Do you have a counter example?

        To your hypothetical? My example is the law. FACA is tightly defined. Bytedance needs to divest to a non-FAC to return to the status quo. Trump could do something else to fuck with them. But that’s true of anyone anywhere.