Carl Icahn tells the story of when he fired 12 floors of people

The report on Carl Icahn's sort of extortion ("greenmail") of Anchor Hocking starts at 13:21.

Kenaneeser Beckelay wrote:

zxczxcv wrote:

Name one real contribution this man has made to the United States, aside from a hard to get to track.

Shockingly hard to get to...no cabbie wants to take you there.

Frequently, it would be inaccessible from the 104th? St pedestrian bridge--which was closed quite a bit when I was there, while the bus was infrequent and the narrow walkway on the main bridge from 125th St. traps you behind high walls and is unsafe and makes for a slow, circuitous trip. To get to the pedestrian bridge is slow because it is far from the subway.

"In the ten deals reviewed below, Carl Icahn made money by driving the destruction of more than 35,000 American jobs in key industries across the country, as well as the elimination of pensions and/or health benefits for more than 126,000 American families."

There needs to be some checks and balances. When a guy like Icahn forces his way into a company, and threatens the board of directors with lawsuits If they don’t resign and then places his cronies on the board along with his hand picked ceo, that is a problem. Furthermore, the new ceo and hand picked board have no idea what they are doing. But that does not matter since the short term goal is to raise the stock price so I CON can cash out his stock and leave the company in tatters. I’m all for a free market economy but this is a flaw with our system that parasites like I CON take advantage of.

ADKrnr wrote:

There needs to be some checks and balances. When a guy like Icahn forces his way into a company, and threatens the board of directors with lawsuits If they don’t resign and then places his cronies on the board along with his hand picked ceo, that is a problem. Furthermore, the new ceo and hand picked board have no idea what they are doing. But that does not matter since the short term goal is to raise the stock price so I CON can cash out his stock and leave the company in tatters. I’m all for a free market economy but this is a flaw with our system that parasites like I CON take advantage of.

Many or should I say most, of the people who can provide the checks & balances and close the loopholes from the parasites, are on the take as well. And I am referring to politicians of both parties. They do not stop this because the Icahns of the world grease the greasy politicians pockets along the way. Capitalism at its finest.

Can we agree on few things?

It would be a terrible thing if a robber baron took over a company, just to dismantle it and make some quick money. Even worse if it left people destitute.

Lots of people have jobs that are completely unnecessary, and these jobs would ultimately go away eventually. Sometimes people will see their careers vanish. Whoever made candles when light bulbs came out, or whoever took care of horses when cars came about.

There are some companies/jobs/people who add virtually nothing to the industry they are in. These people are basically putting the costs of everything on the rest of us. Isn't this also reprehensible.

I'm not saying I believe Icahn was giving an accurate representation of the situation, but it seems like his punchline was kind of his point: he gave the people their severance, and never heard a word of complaint from anywhere. In other words, we are to suppose that there were 12 floors of people who all knew that they were all hacks. I think this is a possibility. If that's true, Icahn is the hero of the story.