WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

[c1ue]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...d_story_4.html

The Washington Post Co. has agreed to sell its flagship newspaper to Amazon.com founder and chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos, ending the Graham family’s stewardship of one of America’s leading news organizations after four generations.

Bezos, whose entrepreneurship has made him one of the world’s richest men, will pay $250 million in cash for The Post and affiliated publications to the Washington Post Co., which owns the newspaper and other businesses.

Seattle-based Amazon will have no role in the purchase; Bezos himself will buy the news organization and become its sole owner when the sale is completed, probably within 60 days. The Post Co. will change to a new, still-undecided name and continue as a publicly traded company without The Post thereafter.

Warren Buffet stepped down from the board for the Washington Post in late 2011.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

Very interesting.

I know Amazon has been dipping it's toe into content creation....which I assume would be experimentation with new ways to market/advertise products it sells through in content product placement or integration with accessory devices...like TV content R&D.

This private purchase of print news media is interesting.

I would be guessing that Jeff has a plan to try and reinvent print media.....but the name change leaves me scratching my head.

Having worked for Jeff back in the very early days of Amazon I've always thought he was one of the good guys.

But things like patent sharking and the position reversal to strong support for internet sales tax collection leaves me wondering if he may be a likable JP Morgan.

[dcarrigg]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

Very interesting.

I know Amazon has been dipping it's toe into content creation....which I assume would be experimentation with new ways to market/advertise products it sells through in content product placement or integration with accessory devices...like TV content R&D.

This private purchase of print news media is interesting.

I would be guessing that Jeff has a plan to try and reinvent print media.....but the name change leaves me scratching my head.

Having worked for Jeff back in the very early days of Amazon I've always thought he was one of the good guys.

But things like patent sharking and the position reversal to strong support for internet sales tax collection leaves me wondering if he may be a likable JP Morgan.

I am less optimistic. Between the Kochs going after the Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, LA Times, Orlando Sentinel, Hartford Courant, etc. etc. and Bezos getting the Wash Post, I suppose I should be thanking my lucky stars John Henry bought the Boston Globe.

Because the rest of the country's urban papers are about to read like propaganda from Reason and Cato, as senseless as the editorial pages of the Journal post-Murdoch, and with just as sharp of an ideological bent (not that Friedman at the NYT isn't vapid and senseless, he is, just that the WSJ is extra in-your-face about it).

Hold on to your hats, boys and girls. The Reason Foundation now has a legitimate blowhorn with national reach. My guess is that this is a power play. The libertarians are going to try to take out the neocons and what's left of old-conservatism. I fear that they may look cute and cuddly next to Rumsfeld and Cheney in a few years. What will we do when we wake up in 2030 and realize this time the Mises men are done imposing their vision of ultra-orthodox, atheistic, social darwinism?

I fear that the extreme fringes of the libertarian movement are picking up steam. And the extreme fringes want to do away with democracy and the republic entirely. They do not care for federalism or the constitution. They want to privatize the air and sunshine and the sea along with town hall, the statehouse, and the whitehouse. They are extreme as Lenin. It's one thing to listen to them and hear a different viewpoint. It's another to watch them make systematic power-plays for the throne.

This isn't to say that all, or even most, libertarians are this far out there. But an increasing number of dogmatic believers are. And they seem to be gaining strength, if not in numbers, then in funding and organization. And I'll give you three guesses where that money's coming from...

They have taken out the statehouses at Kansas and Arkansas in this last election - beat all the Republicans in primaries and imposed their own will. And when even their own baby Cato that they founded started thinking independently, they strangled out the dissent.

And things get murky when you realize that this is one crew. Dick Scaife owning the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Jeff Bezos owning the Washington Post, and it looks like Chuck Koch owning the Chicago Tribune et. all. The three biggest donors to Reason (Richard through his late wife's foundation). All three become newspaper kingpins by 2013.

My guess is that a cable network is the next step by 2015. I'm just curious to see if they'll have any more success preaching praxeological voodoo on TV than Al Gore did with his ill-fated cable experiment. But I'm pretty sure I'll get to see an answer to that question soon enough.

[DSpencer]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

I am less optimistic. Between the Kochs going after the Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, LA Times, Orlando Sentinel, Hartford Courant, etc. etc. and Bezos getting the Wash Post, I suppose I should be thanking my lucky stars John Henry bought the Boston Globe.

Because the rest of the country's urban papers are about to read like propaganda from Reason and Cato, as senseless as the editorial pages of the Journal post-Murdoch, and with just as sharp of an ideological bent (not that Friedman at the NYT isn't vapid and senseless, he is, just that the WSJ is extra in-your-face about it).

Hold on to your hats, boys and girls. The Reason Foundation now has a legitimate blowhorn with national reach. My guess is that this is a power play. The libertarians are going to try to take out the neocons and what's left of old-conservatism. I fear that they may look cute and cuddly next to Rumsfeld and Cheney in a few years. What will we do when we wake up in 2030 and realize this time the Mises men are done imposing their vision of ultra-orthodox, atheistic, social darwinism?

I fear that the extreme fringes of the libertarian movement are picking up steam. And the extreme fringes want to do away with democracy and the republic entirely. They do not care for federalism or the constitution. They want to privatize the air and sunshine and the sea along with town hall, the statehouse, and the whitehouse. They are extreme as Lenin. It's one thing to listen to them and hear a different viewpoint. It's another to watch them make systematic power-plays for the throne.

This isn't to say that all, or even most, libertarians are this far out there. But an increasing number of dogmatic believers are. And they seem to be gaining strength, if not in numbers, then in funding and organization. And I'll give you three guesses where that money's coming from...

They have taken out the statehouses at Kansas and Arkansas in this last election - beat all the Republicans in primaries and imposed their own will. And when even their own baby Cato that they founded started thinking independently, they strangled out the dissent.

And things get murky when you realize that this is one crew. Dick Scaife owning the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Jeff Bezos owning the Washington Post, and it looks like Chuck Koch owning the Chicago Tribune et. all. The three biggest donors to Reason (Richard through his late wife's foundation). All three become newspaper kingpins by 2013.

My guess is that a cable network is the next step by 2015. I'm just curious to see if they'll have any more success preaching praxeological voodoo on TV than Al Gore did with his ill-fated cable experiment. But I'm pretty sure I'll get to see an answer to that question soon enough.

I'm always shocked that you seem genuinely concerned with some type of libertarian takeover. I am constantly dismayed at the never ending war, insane regulation, increasing invasion of personal privacy and excessive taxation to pay for nonsense programs and I feel it's getting worse all the time, largely because of the two party stranglehold on American politics. And yet at the same time you seem to sincerely fear that we are on the brink of a radical third party taking over, repealing every law on the books and living in anarchy. I just can't understand how we could possibly see things so differently.

[Chomsky]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

I'm always shocked that you seem genuinely concerned with some type of libertarian takeover. I am constantly dismayed at the never ending war, insane regulation, increasing invasion of personal privacy and excessive taxation to pay for nonsense programs and I feel it's getting worse all the time, largely because of the two party stranglehold on American politics. And yet at the same time you seem to sincerely fear that we are on the brink of a radical third party taking over, repealing every law on the books and living in anarchy. I just can't understand how we could possibly see things so differently.

Because unchecked capitalism and a dismantling of the social safety net is worse than the two-party stalemate.

[c1ue]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

I am less optimistic. Between the Kochs going after the Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, LA Times, Orlando Sentinel, Hartford Courant, etc. etc. and Bezos getting the Wash Post, I suppose I should be thanking my lucky stars John Henry bought the Boston Globe.

Because the rest of the country's urban papers are about to read like propaganda from Reason and Cato, as senseless as the editorial pages of the Journal post-Murdoch, and with just as sharp of an ideological bent (not that Friedman at the NYT isn't vapid and senseless, he is, just that the WSJ is extra in-your-face about it).

I can't speak to Chicago, Baltimore, and Orlando, but the WaPo for me has generally always been a predictable US government tool. Its recent actions regarding Snowden were only the latest in a series of moves which left me with no respect for that institution whatsoever.

Thus any change to supposed libertarian views will only mean a switch from one bullhorn sound to another.

The LA Times, however, has had a number of pretty decent reporting pieces. It was historically a tool of the Chandlers, but I have to say I've seen worse.

I'm always shocked that you seem genuinely concerned with some type of libertarian takeover. I am constantly dismayed at the never ending war, insane regulation, increasing invasion of personal privacy and excessive taxation to pay for nonsense programs and I feel it's getting worse all the time, largely because of the two party stranglehold on American politics. And yet at the same time you seem to sincerely fear that we are on the brink of a radical third party taking over, repealing every law on the books and living in anarchy. I just can't understand how we could possibly see things so differently.

To be fair, just because we go deeper into laissez faire doesn't mean either that things get better or that the 2 party system will change. The Republican party either morphing or being replaced isn't much different than the Whig/Democrat-Republican switchover to the elephant and donkey.

For me, the devolution of MSM into being an ever more naked tool of economic interests is in no way a sign that things are going to get better.

[dcarrigg]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

I'm always shocked that you seem genuinely concerned with some type of libertarian takeover. I am constantly dismayed at the never ending war, insane regulation, increasing invasion of personal privacy and excessive taxation to pay for nonsense programs and I feel it's getting worse all the time, largely because of the two party stranglehold on American politics. And yet at the same time you seem to sincerely fear that we are on the brink of a radical third party taking over, repealing every law on the books and living in anarchy. I just can't understand how we could possibly see things so differently.

I think that it comes back to this exchange we had a couple of years back. I feel that America has to chart a course toward equality of opportunity. It was built into the bones of the fathers of this country and into the bedrock of our founding documents. Everything in extreme libertarian political philosophy disregards that in favor of social darwinism. I fear social darwinism as much as I fear equality of outcome. Either extreme deprives people of real liberty, real choice, and you'll notice that both extremes are antithetical to democracy and republican government. Both Von Mises and Lenin made this clear.

Any political movement based on a philosophy which proposes to divine the deductive scientific purpose of human action, be it to move the species collectively into the next stage of a Hegelian Dialectic, or be it to Rationally Act as isolated individuals in constant pursuit of propositional exchange through media, is dangerous and anti-democratic from the get-go.

There is no way to deduce the ultimate purpose of human action. Attempting this is the provence of religion, not political philosophy. Several concepts are essentially contested. Democracy is a platform through which we may publicly contest these ideas and come to collective conclusions about them. Republics protect the fundamental rights and liberties of minority groups in the process. At least in theory.

But the libertarian theory, especially the Austrian flavor, seeks to do away with public contest over ideas entirely in favor of a utopian vision of a stateless society. Communist theory, especially the German flavor, seeks to do away with public contest over ideas entirely in favor of a utopian vision of a stateless society. They are not so different in my mind. Both philosophies claim to know the purpose of human action. But neither of these has anything to do with the American Experiment. And they are both often antithetical to religion, as I think they must be by design once they claim to scientifically understand the purpose of human action.

The question of how much or how little government is not so consequential to me as the question of whether we can freely debate essentially contested ideas. Property is not worth so much to me as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And property and liberty are not one in the same, as John Locke so clearly delineated in the Second Treatise.

Chomsky's answer is right in my mind, but not simply for the utilitarian purpose of providing the greatest good for the greatest number of people that appears to be the argument on the face of it. Chomsky's answer is also right because the gridlock, the argument, the space itself, is valuable. There could be less gridlock than today. But ideologically hardliners with anti-democratic and anti-republican views are not a welcome element in Democracy in my mind.

It's not a radical third party I fear. It's a radical anti-democratic, anti-republican third party I fear. It's a radical view of all regulation as bad or all regulation as good that I fear. It's a radical view of all taxation as bad or all taxation as good that I fear. It's a radical view of all programs as bad or all programs as good that I fear. It's a radical view of all war as bad or all war as good that I fear. It's a radical view of all privacy as bad or all privacy as good that I fear.

These topics are not so black and white.

These are essentially contested concepts. And we may each, as our personal experiences and philosophies dictate, decide whether we would like more or less of one thing or another in any given circumstances. And we may have a public debate about these things.

But to go to extremes and hate all taxes, all regulations, all government programs, all wars, and all intrusions into private life regardless of the purpose or the circumstances at hand terrifies me.

It terrifies me just as much as someone who loves all taxes, all regulations, all government programs, all wars, and all intrusions into public life terrifies the both of us.

These are both extreme anti-democratic, anti-republican modes of thought. In the latter case we have what is commonly known as totalitarianism. And I think the former case is precisely as dangerous. Conservatives and Liberals will debate the merits of these various things in a given circumstance. Hard-liners will not. I've said before that I don't think all libertarians are so extreme. I particularly don't think that most average folk who identify as libertarian think things through this way. But an increasing number do. And the funders of the movement and their think-tanks clearly do.

I just call it like I see it. And I really enjoy having a civil place like this in which to have these public debates. There are precious few forums where these ideas can be batted about over years and people can respect each other and try to come around to understand, if not accept, the others' points of view. For this small experiment in democracy, I am thankful.

Sorry for derailing the thread with this long-winded post. It just took a bit of space for me to spell out my thought process on the matter.

[photon555]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

I really enjoyed that post. Thanks for illuminating your position so clearly and succinctly. I am a conservative leaning towards libertarianism, and a Christian; but I agree that unchecked ideology of any kind is very dangerous. I would say that most of the outrages inflicted upon humanity have had an extreme ideology as their basis. It's the belief in an attainable utopia (attainable by human action) that seems to drive people to commit the most horrific crimes against people. Since the end is so much to be desired then any means are justified to attain it. Of course, a lot of what passes for ideology is simply used to justify what people want to do anyway to empower themselves against the best interests of society as a whole.
Thanks again.

"Banking and Politics were invented so that weak, incompetent, cowardly men could have access to women, money and power." Jehu Galt

I suppose this quote tends toward an extreme ideological viewpoint, but I believe it is needed at this time to counteract against the overbearing weight that banking and politics has in our culture.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

The smart money thinks it's just fine that a small group of ultra rich beyond the reach of any government thrive and run the world as the rest sink into squalor.
They have plans to make some good money as this unfolds.
A shot of the top of the first page here, the entire thing attached.
Keyword -Plutonomy.


Why do I suddenly recall the old gambler's advice?
"Every card game has a patsy. If you don't know who it is, it's you."

[c1ue]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

A shot of the top of the first page here, the entire thing attached.
Keyword -Plutonomy.

Another interesting comment in the screen shot - the note that oil is irrelevant to equities.

Another fine example of Citigroup advisory quality?

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

...another fine example of citigroup advisory quality?

lol! +1

[lektrode]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

lol! +1

i'll 2nd that!
must say that gotta love mr c1ue's flavor of humor....

and dont it just figger that citigroup would have that kind of report circulating - almost as HILARIOUS as ole whatshisname being on the shortlist

and thanks to dc and dspencer mixing it up on this one - these types of debates make the 'tulip worth every dime!

[vinoveri]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

Because unchecked capitalism and a dismantling of the social safety net is worse than the two-party stalemate.

Yes, but what you seem to be overlooking is that there is no stalemate, albeit there are elements of gridlock at times, the Fed Gov continues to acquire power and promulgate policy and regulation in virtually every aspect of human endeavor (executive and judicial branches primarily). I agree that divided government is much better that united government, especially when it is intent on driving us into a hive-like society dominated by public opinion molded by elitist academics misinformed by arcane 19th century german philosophies and do-gooder OR egotistical social scientists who think they have the answers, all the while the plutocrats pull the strings. Can anyone really suggest that we are freer today than we were 50 or 100 years ago to live a self-actualized life (absent inherited wealth or unlimited access to credit). I'll take unchecked capitalism any day over soft-fascist crony-capitalism that we have today where the gov uses its power to assist "capitalist" in increasing their wealth. The problem is not capitalism, but corrupted capitalism whereby the laws are co-opted and politicians owned (why is this so hard to grasp for so many I wonder). This is exactly why small limited government with clearly defined roles and limited powers was the intent and genius of this country's (USA) founding Republic. But somehow most have their own ox to gore and need the government to see they get "their justice".

[lektrode]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

Yes, but what you seem to be overlooking is that there is no stalemate, albeit there are elements of gridlock at times, the Fed Gov continues to acquire power and promulgate policy and regulation in virtually every aspect of human endeavor....
....
This is exactly why small limited government with clearly defined roles and limited powers was the intent and genius of this country's (USA) founding Republic. But somehow most have their own ox to gore and need the government to see they get "their justice".

PRECISELY!
and 'most' would be that particular part of the political class that seems to think the .gov is The Answer

when CLEARLY, esp since 2008/9 - THEY ARE CLUELESS. (and one side of the aisle, particularly so)

just .02 from a 'small-r' type
formerly of The Great State of NH
where despite the 'best efforts' of the aforementioned, THEY STILL MANAGE WITH NO SALES TAX AND NO INCOME TAX
and get by quite well (unless one listens to the we-need-more crowd and its _always_ MORE with them)

[DSpencer]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

I think that it comes back to this exchange we had a couple of years back. I feel that America has to chart a course toward equality of opportunity. It was built into the bones of the fathers of this country and into the bedrock of our founding documents. Everything in extreme libertarian political philosophy disregards that in favor of social darwinism. I fear social darwinism as much as I fear equality of outcome. Either extreme deprives people of real liberty, real choice, and you'll notice that both extremes are antithetical to democracy and republican government. Both Von Mises and Lenin made this clear.

Any political movement based on a philosophy which proposes to divine the deductive scientific purpose of human action, be it to move the species collectively into the next stage of a Hegelian Dialectic, or be it to Rationally Act as isolated individuals in constant pursuit of propositional exchange through media, is dangerous and anti-democratic from the get-go.

There is no way to deduce the ultimate purpose of human action. Attempting this is the provence of religion, not political philosophy. Several concepts are essentially contested. Democracy is a platform through which we may publicly contest these ideas and come to collective conclusions about them. Republics protect the fundamental rights and liberties of minority groups in the process. At least in theory.

But the libertarian theory, especially the Austrian flavor, seeks to do away with public contest over ideas entirely in favor of a utopian vision of a stateless society. Communist theory, especially the German flavor, seeks to do away with public contest over ideas entirely in favor of a utopian vision of a stateless society. They are not so different in my mind. Both philosophies claim to know the purpose of human action. But neither of these has anything to do with the American Experiment. And they are both often antithetical to religion, as I think they must be by design once they claim to scientifically understand the purpose of human action.

The question of how much or how little government is not so consequential to me as the question of whether we can freely debate essentially contested ideas. Property is not worth so much to me as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And property and liberty are not one in the same, as John Locke so clearly delineated in the Second Treatise.

Chomsky's answer is right in my mind, but not simply for the utilitarian purpose of providing the greatest good for the greatest number of people that appears to be the argument on the face of it. Chomsky's answer is also right because the gridlock, the argument, the space itself, is valuable. There could be less gridlock than today. But ideologically hardliners with anti-democratic and anti-republican views are not a welcome element in Democracy in my mind.

It's not a radical third party I fear. It's a radical anti-democratic, anti-republican third party I fear. It's a radical view of all regulation as bad or all regulation as good that I fear. It's a radical view of all taxation as bad or all taxation as good that I fear. It's a radical view of all programs as bad or all programs as good that I fear. It's a radical view of all war as bad or all war as good that I fear. It's a radical view of all privacy as bad or all privacy as good that I fear.

These topics are not so black and white.

These are essentially contested concepts. And we may each, as our personal experiences and philosophies dictate, decide whether we would like more or less of one thing or another in any given circumstances. And we may have a public debate about these things.

But to go to extremes and hate all taxes, all regulations, all government programs, all wars, and all intrusions into private life regardless of the purpose or the circumstances at hand terrifies me.

It terrifies me just as much as someone who loves all taxes, all regulations, all government programs, all wars, and all intrusions into public life terrifies the both of us.

These are both extreme anti-democratic, anti-republican modes of thought. In the latter case we have what is commonly known as totalitarianism. And I think the former case is precisely as dangerous. Conservatives and Liberals will debate the merits of these various things in a given circumstance. Hard-liners will not. I've said before that I don't think all libertarians are so extreme. I particularly don't think that most average folk who identify as libertarian think things through this way. But an increasing number do. And the funders of the movement and their think-tanks clearly do.

I just call it like I see it. And I really enjoy having a civil place like this in which to have these public debates. There are precious few forums where these ideas can be batted about over years and people can respect each other and try to come around to understand, if not accept, the others' points of view. For this small experiment in democracy, I am thankful.

Sorry for derailing the thread with this long-winded post. It just took a bit of space for me to spell out my thought process on the matter.

I understand your viewpoint on why you don't want an extreme libertarian society. What I don't understand is how you can think there is some chance of this happening.

I consider myself a libertarian leaning person. I mostly want America returned to its past governance which I consider to be much more libertarian than today. Minus the aspects (slavery/equal rights issues) that are completely opposed to true libertarian ideas. If you asked me how the libertarian viewpoint is faring in America I would say it's taking an unimaginable beating. Almost nothing that I advocate is happening and nearly everything I oppose is happening.

Looking at recent history:

The "war" is neverending. How many people died in drone attacks today? Have we almost won yet?
Income tax, capital gains, dividend rates all recently increased. We also got a new tax on top of that.
The welfare state continues to grow. PPACA gets more people on government programs. Food stamp numbers are simply unbelievable (47 million people?!)
There is no hope for having a balanced budget in the foreseeable future.
Personal freedoms are under a constant assault. Including many which (at least in my opinion) are supposed to be constitutionally protected and a key part of the American Experiment.

The idea that we have gridlock is an illusion. The two party system generally agrees on everything that matters. They fight over gay marriage as political theater. And even then, they just make up their opinions. Obama was against gay marriage when he thought it was politically valuable and then reversed when he thought the opposite. He's against the war and spying on Americans until he's actually in charge and doesn't care about votes anymore.

What evidence suggests we should be worried about an extreme libertarian takeover? What percent of the population has even heard of von Mises? Far less than 1% I'd guess.

A guy who donates primarily to democrats, some to republicans, and none to libertarians that I'm aware of bought a dying newspaper. This is the sign that anarchy is coming?

I share (what I believe is) your view that the press is a complete disgrace at this point and getting worse. But I don't read news articles and think they are representative of libertarian philosophy.