It Pays to Be America's Most-Hated Companies

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It's encouraging to know that the most-hated companies in the country are making the most money. Wait. What?

The potential buyout offer for Time Warner Cable (TWC) serves as a reminder that the stock is up 39 percent this year through Dec. 13 and has surged 450 percent over the past five years. This is why companies don’t really care if you hate them. The companies you hate are making plenty of money. In fact, the scorned tend to perform better than the companies you like.
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Yeah, it also helps when you are an oligopoly and the phone company can't do much better. . ..
 
A little tough to hate companies that don't make money because they tend to go out of business.
 
So "cable and Internet providers, airlines, and banks" are hated but make lots of money. Lets see here.

Cable - Pretty much a oligopoly, so they can be a dick because all cable providers agreed to do the same.
Internet Providers - Essentially cable providers.
Airlines - Fuck them. Also an oligopoly.
Banks - Also oligopoly. Banks too big to fail, should be broken up into smaller pieces.

My experience with banks is that I had World Savings, but they got bought up by Wells Fargo. So now I'm with them, and they suck balls. HSBC gets bought up by Capital One, and this goes on and on. So good banks get customers, and then bad banks buy them.

We need to make oligopoly's illegal already.
 
What people forget is companies are in business to make money.

Yes.

Make money.

Not create jobs. Not make "happy customers". It's about making money.
 
This is the nature of free enterprise. You can make far greater profit through deceit and corruption, by taking advantage of people. Playing by the rules will always hold you back. Ergo the more you manipulate, the less you are liked, but the more money you make.
 
McFry said:
This is the nature of free enterprise. You can make far greater profit through deceit and corruption, by taking advantage of people. Playing by the rules will always hold you back. Ergo the more you manipulate, the less you are liked, but the more money you make.
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Ummm..... This is the nature of fascism. This is hardly free enterprise. A more interesting graph to see would be profits in relation to lobbying or profits in relation to how many politicians have been bought. Free enterprise would actually fix this problem.
 
PensFault said:
Free enterprise would actually fix this problem.
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hmmm

would it? I can see private corporate armies, territorial control, slavery all easily cropping up without some civil authority.

Your point on cronyism is well taken however
 
Ashbringer said:
So "cable and Internet providers, airlines, and banks" are hated but make lots of money. Lets see here.

Cable - Pretty much a oligopoly, so they can be a dick because all cable providers agreed to do the same.
Internet Providers - Essentially cable providers.
Airlines - Fuck them. Also an oligopoly.
Banks - Also oligopoly. Banks too big to fail, should be broken up into smaller pieces.

My experience with banks is that I had World Savings, but they got bought up by Wells Fargo. So now I'm with them, and they suck balls. HSBC gets bought up by Capital One, and this goes on and on. So good banks get customers, and then bad banks buy them.

We need to make oligopoly's illegal already.
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Not everything can have hundreds of thousands of options.

Some markets just can't handle more than a few companies.

Look at something like cell phones. There is nothing that stopped there from being more carriers, but more and more couldn't afford to stay in business and the numbers came down.

Same thing for ISPs. There is not a single thing stopping you from being an ISP. Many places have multiple choices. New ones start up all the time, and they can't get enough business and they go away. Go buy yourself a few 1Gbps links, bury fiber or get wireless internet equipment and start your own ISP if you want. What you will find is that without numbers on your side you can't afford to stay in business.

You can even start your own bank if you want to, all you need is money. Or people to give you their money to hold onto at least.

Same for some of the other ones you mentioned there. It is all about margins, the more and more you spread out your customer base between more companies the less you make. Some times companies merge just because they can. Other times it is because they can't survive on their own.

I would argue that airlines somewhat fall into the category of can't survive on their own. They don't make huge profits. Some quarters they make millions other they lose millions. I want to say that in a year the ones that are actually doing well normally come out ahead a few hundred million. Which sure I would love to have that. but to have money to buy new aircraft, upgrade old planes and all that they need money so in the large scheme of things they aren't exactly making extreme amounts of money.
 
PensFault said:
Ummm..... This is the nature of fascism. This is hardly free enterprise. A more interesting graph to see would be profits in relation to lobbying or profits in relation to how many politicians have been bought. Free enterprise would actually fix this problem.
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Free enterprise as in no regulations? Or free enterprise as in no oligopoly?

No regulations would allow greed to rule even more. We tried deregulating energy markets, what'd we get? Enron, absolute corruption. Rolled back banking regs .. That got us a huge recession from the corruption.

Big difference between free enterptose
 
I don't know much about what goes on behind the scenes in banks or why anyone would need to work with a big bank. But the cable companies for most are simply a real monopoly your only choice for many is the cable company for any decent internet.

Banks are nothing like that their are tons to choose from. Airlines are the same deal, although that is consolidating, however new competition is also springing up especially from international players.
 
I would just like to add, as a previous Telco employee, and as a current Cable Co. employee, why should the cable companies be blamed for the Telco's being fucking cheap shits unwilling to invest in the infrastructure to compete?
 
Exavior said:
Not everything can have hundreds of thousands of options.
SNIP.
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And some industries (such as the ones mentioned) have such a strong hold of government that they write laws that specifically cater to *their* way of doing business, and laws that prevent competitors from even having a chance.

Modern Business practices have killed progress and innovation, not to mention the government.
 
When you're the only game in town you have the leeway to have crappy services and horrid customer service. If a good, cheap, fast, and functional alternative ever came about eBay can kiss itself goodbye.
 
pigwalk said:
I would just like to add, as a previous Telco employee, and as a current Cable Co. employee, why should the cable companies be blamed for the Telco's being fucking cheap shits unwilling to invest in the infrastructure to compete?
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Possibly not but cable companies should be blamed when they sue municipalities for attempting to build their own internet infrastructure when the established companies refuse to invest in their area all because those established companies don't want any real competition and would rather pocket that potential investment money as profit. They're all cheap shits who would be on the skids if there was any real competition in their respective markets.
 
Correlation not causation. These companies are hated because of the dishonest, illegal and unethical business practices they employ to get these profits.
 
pigwalk said:
I would just like to add, as a previous Telco employee, and as a current Cable Co. employee, why should the cable companies be blamed for the Telco's being fucking cheap shits unwilling to invest in the infrastructure to compete?
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Problem is none of the service providers actually built 100% of their own networks. They accepted subsidies by taxpayers to help expand their coverage, therefore we should all own a little bit of them. On top of that they go out of their way to restrict competition. If they want to get their hands dirty then they should expect a little mud on their face.
 
TW is the only game in town for me if I don't want to go back to dial up, they know it and they don't care how they treat me. And their customer service is now outsourced, so you're not talking with a TW employee. And the call center happens to be one of the worst places to work. They want you to quit. So they treat you bad, and make sure you know you can be fired at any moment. No wonder everyone hates TW. They're saving a fortune on CS, though, with those call centers. (I never worked there, but stories about them are available on the internet if you know the company name that has the contract. Also, I've known some people that worked there, because one of the centers is about 30 miles from where I live.) I saved money by going to the website to change plans. They didn't even know about the offer the website had.
 
Banks are up this year because interest rates are up so their NIM isn't as compressed. Has nothing to do with being "good" or "evil".
 
ktk_ace said:
Karma doesnt work in 'murica
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This isn't an American problem, and it certainly isn't just a recent issue. It's always been like this, and it's everywhere. Companies get replaced over time, but the main issues will stay the same.
 
Exavior said:
Not everything can have hundreds of thousands of options.

Some markets just can't handle more than a few companies.

Look at something like cell phones. There is nothing that stopped there from being more carriers, but more and more couldn't afford to stay in business and the numbers came down.

Same thing for ISPs. There is not a single thing stopping you from being an ISP. Many places have multiple choices. New ones start up all the time, and they can't get enough business and they go away. Go buy yourself a few 1Gbps links, bury fiber or get wireless internet equipment and start your own ISP if you want. What you will find is that without numbers on your side you can't afford to stay in business.

You can even start your own bank if you want to, all you need is money. Or people to give you their money to hold onto at least.

Same for some of the other ones you mentioned there. It is all about margins, the more and more you spread out your customer base between more companies the less you make. Some times companies merge just because they can. Other times it is because they can't survive on their own.

I would argue that airlines somewhat fall into the category of can't survive on their own. They don't make huge profits. Some quarters they make millions other they lose millions. I want to say that in a year the ones that are actually doing well normally come out ahead a few hundred million. Which sure I would love to have that. but to have money to buy new aircraft, upgrade old planes and all that they need money so in the large scheme of things they aren't exactly making extreme amounts of money.
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I don't have the advantage of state-sanctioned violence giving me the ability to run my infrastructure over other people's property without their permission. Sure you can buy fiber but you can't compete with the oligarchs who can just use other people's property at will.
 
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