Most active commenters
  • kennywinker(6)

←back to thread

568 points rntn | 37 comments | | HN request time: 1.407s | source | bottom
1. chasil ◴[] No.41881693[source]
There was also a fatality in the last workplace strike.

Deere seems to have bad relations with their employees, customers, and regulatory bodies.

The shareholders should remove the board of directors.

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/business/2021/...

replies(4): >>41882429 #>>41883250 #>>41883570 #>>41884505 #
2. onlyrealcuzzo ◴[] No.41882429[source]
The shareholders don't care about any of that if they think the board did a decent job of propping up the stock price.

Firing a board is generally risky, and the shareholders probably haven't fired them because even though the board has, almost objectively, not been good - firing them is likely even worse for the stock short term, and there aren't a lot of long-term, active investors left in the world.

replies(3): >>41882589 #>>41883100 #>>41885612 #
3. chasil ◴[] No.41882589[source]
The board's goal was to lock-in maintenance with computer security, which failed catastrophically. All previous generations of Deere tractors have on-board electronics that can be jailbroken.

https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/16/john_deere_doom/

Just for that failure, they should all likely be gone.

replies(2): >>41882697 #>>41884859 #
4. adventured ◴[] No.41882697{3}[source]
Their business is booming. That significantly overwhelms the concern you're raising.

They have gone from $4.3b in operating income to $14.5b in three years, while their sales nearly doubled. That's an old industrial company boom the likes of which is almost never seen by those types of companies.

By comparison what you're calling catastrophic is entirely trivial. It's not even in the room as a consideration compared to the soaring profits. Nobody is removing a whole board with that kind of profit growth.

replies(1): >>41884088 #
5. badsandwitch ◴[] No.41883100[source]
Tragedy of the commons is why short term is all that matters and will ever matter to non-ideological investors.

If an action that hurts the stock short-term but will help int he long-term needs to be performed why would you as an investor enact it or even stay for the ride?

You are better off either opposing it or selling your stock and then waiting to see if someone will enact the changes, then you have the "insider" information to know that the short-term stock drop was a good thing for the long-term and rebuy the shares cheaper.

replies(3): >>41883351 #>>41888671 #>>41888696 #
6. b3ing ◴[] No.41883250[source]
Lots of people had to die for rights

Ludlow Massacre, 1914 - 21 people - men including their wives and children were killed

there are more

replies(1): >>41883627 #
7. kennywinker ◴[] No.41883351{3}[source]
> Tragedy of the commons is why short term is all that matters and will ever matter to non-ideological investors.

Tragedy of the commons was an ideological essay designed to justify privatization of public goods. It was disproven by data before it was published. I am sure there are some hyper specific examples where it has happened as described, but as a “fact” about the world and as a justification for any course of action, it’s highly suspect.

https://aeon.co/essays/the-tragedy-of-the-commons-is-a-false...

replies(5): >>41884101 #>>41884241 #>>41884329 #>>41884471 #>>41898271 #
8. IncreasePosts ◴[] No.41883570[source]
Well, yeah, putting thousands of pedestrians in a spot that was designed for, essentially, zero pedestrians is a good way to get them killed. The fatality was a dude was hit by a motorist(who was found not at fault) as he walked in the darkness across a street. It's not like John Deere called the Pinkertons in to bust heads and the fatality happened that way.
9. ◴[] No.41883627[source]
10. worik ◴[] No.41884088{4}[source]
> Their business is booming. That significantly overwhelms the concern you're raising.

Yes their profit is up, no it is unrelated to the concerns

The company is acting in a way that luts the whole food system at risk

They should be disbanded, by force. I recommend replacement with a farmer cooperative

replies(1): >>41884252 #
11. eutropia ◴[] No.41884101{4}[source]
This is the first I've heard that it's false; however it seems like many times in my life I've observed something suffering, seemingly from lack of ownership despite being a common good.

What do you call that if you can't call it a tragedy of the commons?

replies(2): >>41884839 #>>41893264 #
12. SideQuark ◴[] No.41884241{4}[source]
Tragedy of the common is a concept dating back to ancient times that has extremely broad empirical support throughout history. The essay you mention took the name from all this real world experience, and even if the essay is bad, the concept is anything but.

A simple search finds more examples and references to literature than you can likely read in years.

I’d recommend starting here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

replies(1): >>41893323 #
13. SideQuark ◴[] No.41884252{5}[source]
Countries that act so ignorantly of consequences or little regard for private property never end well.

If Deere is so bad buy from competitors, of which there are many.

replies(3): >>41884381 #>>41885784 #>>41888017 #
14. HDThoreaun ◴[] No.41884329{4}[source]
When the UK enclosed their fields so that they were privately controlled crop yield immediately went up 20%. Theres overwhelming empiric evidence of tragedy of the commons being real.
replies(1): >>41893219 #
15. phil21 ◴[] No.41884381{6}[source]
> If Deere is so bad buy from competitors, of which there are many.

I somewhat agree with your earlier comment, but this bit is ignoring the systemic issues involved.

Deere is a leader in much of the efficiency technology that allows large-scale farming operations to reach the economy of scale needed to farm the huge multi-thousand (tens of thousands of acres in many cases) grain operations that are slowly but surely taking over food production in the US.

This trend, unabated, is a weird form of monopoly power for lack of a better word. If one manufacturer is more or less the sole-source for the largest corporate farms, and those farming operations are putting smaller ones out of business due to cost pressure - eventually - and likely sooner than later it becomes a too big to fail situation and a systemic national security risk.

This is starting to get into the realm of arms manufacturing. If these trends continue for another decade or three, and then Deere has say a massive IT failure, planting and harvesting operations literally grind to a halt for the top-end equipment entirely reliant on the automation and data harvesting these machines require to operate. People will be at risk for starvation in the event of an extended outage. Farming as a Service has a hidden cost to it many are not seeing in these comments.

I don't agree with disbanding Deere and nationalizing it - however this really needs to be looked at much more than a simple competition issue. It's rapidly becoming a winner-takes-all market, which is subsequently running the smaller operations out of business and putting the US food supply at a systemic risk if nothing is done.

Of course a competitor could somehow battle through the patent forest and capital requirements, but I wouldn't bet our lives on that.

16. IggleSniggle ◴[] No.41884471{4}[source]
I don't disagree that it was an ideological "essay" but I dunno why you're linking that when it's most associated with Aristotle, in particular:

"What is common to many is taken least care of, for all men have greater regard for what is their own than for what they possess in common with others."

Maybe you're suggesting that that essay popularized the phrasing? But I'm pretty sure even as a coined "term" it was around before then

17. reaperman ◴[] No.41884839{5}[source]
On HN I’ve seen regular claims that “tragedy of the commons has been disproven”. I’ve not yet identified which social bubble propagates this or what it is based on but there seems to be some niche in which people are being taught that it is categorically proven to be an invalid concept.
replies(2): >>41885859 #>>41893273 #
18. jauntywundrkind ◴[] No.41884859{3}[source]
This post appears to be complaining that John Deere didn't do a good enough job DRM'ing their tractors? We should fire them and fine even worse dictators, who will draw even more ire & rage?

This does seem like capitalism at work. Still, I really want to hate the players and the game. This has been brutal extractive malevolence against an industry supporting the very base of the pyramid of needs: John Deere is hurting the world incredibly badly.

19. fny ◴[] No.41885612[source]
The myth that shareholders largely care about short-term returns has been disproved empirically over the last 30 years. Every mammoth stock exploded due to assumptions about revenues far, far into the future (dotcom stocks, FATMANG stocks, crypto.) And this should come as no surprise: company valuations are the discounted value of future returns after all.

More often, companies shill bullshit, inestimable long-term growth (AI-bullshit for example) to pump price. Tesla is the poster-child of this strategy.

In contrast, short-term thinking/marketing is a sure fire way to annihilate a stock. Why would the next buyer pay a premium for a squeezed orange?

The dark reality is that most things we customers and employees complain about as “short-term thinking” are tremendously profitable over the long run.

replies(3): >>41885698 #>>41886662 #>>41887956 #
20. onlyrealcuzzo ◴[] No.41885698{3}[source]
> company valuations are the discounted value of future returns after all.

Yes, future earnings are worth far less than current earnings - especially in a non-ZIRP world.

replies(1): >>41885961 #
21. Teever ◴[] No.41885784{6}[source]
Why do you seem so opposed to regulating away this kind of behaviour?

Like what's bad about fixing this growing issue with regulation?

replies(1): >>41885920 #
22. bombcar ◴[] No.41885859{6}[source]
It's more than one person - it happened in a recent comment I made: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41758008

I suspect some popular blog/YouTube channel made some waves around it.

replies(1): >>41886042 #
23. anonylizard ◴[] No.41885961{4}[source]
Stockholders don't even have that much influence. Because of all the index investing, board votes are often decided by say Vanguard/Blackrock, not mom and pop investors

It is only after stocks suffer severe shocks, does private equity spring into action, and discipline executives via the threat of acquisition & firings.

So its is actually executives that can be shortsighted, not an ultra-long-termist passive investment dominated US investor base.

24. 9dev ◴[] No.41886042{7}[source]
That persons argumentation is awful, however. Another patient soul took the time to challenge the idea with logic, and there wasn’t much actually supporting the idea in response.
replies(1): >>41893342 #
25. 7952 ◴[] No.41886662{3}[source]
But an assumption about long term gain can still deliver short term returns. Would shareholders behave the same if long term returns were the only returns available?
replies(1): >>41888606 #
26. whatshisface ◴[] No.41887956{3}[source]
Combining growth momentum from a past net-value-positive offering with revenue from a net-value-negative product change to project a future that will disappear when your users find your first competitor is an example of that strategy playing out that is difficult for shareholders to catch. Another is laying off and mistreating your employees while claiming that you're going to stay on the cutting edge.

It's not in the interest of shareholders to buy into tactics that pump up share price at the end of a quarter but we're talking about an information disadvantage; the seller is rearranging their books with respect to intangibles to deceive the buyer.

27. eschneider ◴[] No.41888017{6}[source]
I work for a direct JD competitor (the, um, orange one...) and I'm happy to say that JD's behavior does drive a lot of customers our way. :)

And the Deer example is sorta nice in that I don't have to explain to management why that sorta DRM is a horrible idea. They already know.

28. DennisP ◴[] No.41888606{4}[source]
Based on your first sentence, it seems that by "returns" you mean increases in stock price. Given that, I don't think there's a clear dividing line, since investors are always forward-looking.

I could see only long-term earnings being available but that's something quite different. Shareholders are often willing to put up with that situation, as long as they believe the long-term story (and see that other investors believe it).

A situation that could make short-term share price increases unlikely is if the stock is just way overvalued for its likely earnings in any reasonable timeframe, in which case shareholders will happily take profits rather than try to make the company change anything.

29. DennisP ◴[] No.41888671{3}[source]
Since investors are forward-looking, I don't think there are many situations where a change that's good for the long-term value of the company will necessarily drive down the share price in the short term.

You might drive down the share price if earnings go down, but that's not necessarily the case if the long-term value is clear. An example would be any company reinvesting earnings in a new factory.

30. fasa99 ◴[] No.41888696{3}[source]
>If an action that hurts the stock short-term but will help int he long-term needs to be performed why would you as an investor enact it or even stay for the ride?

Yes and this underpins what most consider the disgusting trait of being excessively greedy, not just executives, doctors specialties like dermatology, anything.

The doctor who wants the ultra high paying medical specialty sometimes cares nothing about becoming rich. Fear. Fear of being crushed by all that student debt. Doing everything possible to avoid that. Planning to start a family, fear of homeless, etc. Fear of being unable to retire. Excess, irrational fear. Then, it passes, and now we have what seems in retrospect, simply a greedy bastard with now an excessive amount of money.

Same with executives, the thought may not be "let me cheese short term gains as hard as possible" but "let me hedge against short term losses as much as possible".

Aggression from sheer greed is human human thought modality. Predatory. Aggression when cornered, anxiety / fear response, arguably a more vicious and nasty aggression, is another very much different type of aggression because it is not predatory. The difference is predatory feels more voluntary and fear is about whether I should risk being super aggressive or not. In defense-of-self aggression, fear as already there plenty, so a person can do about any hyper aggressive evil thing in the name of defending from a perceived threat - such as lay off half the work force, destroy customer relationships, etc. In this way a good leader must have a steady hand and outlook with regards to fear.

31. kennywinker ◴[] No.41893219{5}[source]
it’s a specific viewpoint that chooses to measure success in terms of crop yields, rather than quality of life…

The tragedy of the commons didn’t claim that crop yields are slightly depressed. The claim is that the commons will be overused to the point of threatening to destroy it.

32. kennywinker ◴[] No.41893264{5}[source]
Lack of accountability.

People cite the tragedy of the commons to discourage sharing of resources. The idea that common land should be divvied up into private ownership to prevent them falling into ruin. When really shared resources just need accountability between the people who make use of them. It’s just basic game theory: If there is no cost to abusing your opponent, that strategy will get used. But if you’re going to be playing long term with the same people, systems will form to deter abuse.

33. kennywinker ◴[] No.41893273{6}[source]
> I am sure there are some hyper specific examples where it has happened as described, but as a “fact” about the world and as a justification for any course of action, it’s highly suspect.

You read that and understood “categorically proven to be an invalid concept”?

replies(1): >>41893528 #
34. kennywinker ◴[] No.41893323{5}[source]
Dating back to ancient times - specifically Aristotle. Aristotle also believed that women are deformed men. That some people deserve to be enslaved. That deaf people are incapable of reason.

So, just because it’s old doesn’t mean it’s true. Just like “kids these days” or “seems like nobody wants to work anymore” some bad ideas are evergreen.

35. kennywinker ◴[] No.41893342{8}[source]
I’d just like to note that i disagree with your summarization. They defend their perspective quite well imo
36. reaperman ◴[] No.41893528{7}[source]
I hope it was clear to most readers of my comment that I was talking about a general line of rhetoric rather than this specific post.

However, from the parent comment I keyed in on your quote less, and much more on:

> It was disproven

FWIW.

37. ◴[] No.41898271{4}[source]