Private equity plunderers want to buy Simon and Schuster (pluralistic.net)

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It was the government that wouldn't allow them to sell to Penguin. I am sure Paramount would rather the 2.2 billion than the 1.6B they got.

Part of an economy that meets the metrics for "growth", but at what cost ?

I believe the more common terms are “vulture capitalists” or “vampire capitalists”.

His description of the former vibrant economy of hundreds of different companies all consolidating into monoliths (in more sectors than just publishing) makes me think of Internet centralization as kind of an instance of Conway's Law with regard to the wider economy. Where there was once diversity and decentralization, now there are single points of control and single points of failure.

A system that works like this is a bad system.