I mean look, it’s cool that they’re doing this and all, and the idea or a trans Atlantic flight in 3 hours is neat for sure … but air travel is already really damn fast, could we focus on making it less shit in other ways?
Can we get the carbon footprint down so it doesn’t contribute so much to the end of the world?
Can we cut fuel costs significantly so it doesn’t have to be so miserably expensive?
The shareholders can go and buy a diversified portfolio on their own, by investing in many companies, so they can derisk their portfolio without conglomeration.
If they already own shares of the conglomerating company, its returns will be lower (they don’t care that it’s less risky; they’ve diversified already). Similarly, the returns of the company that is now becoming part of the conglomeration will likely be reduced, which negatively affects shareholders of that company.
The benefit is really only for the people whose prospects are deeply tied to this company, and only this company… its management employees, who are compensated by the company (often in the form of stock that they can’t sell till they leave, or that vests over a long time frame).
Portuguese, there’s a few hundred million speakers of Portuguese in South America.
I suppose I should have included French and made it four … there’s Quebec, but also Martinique, French Guiana, and so on. Maybe 10-15 million all in all?
Vs. ~450m for Spanish, ~400m for English and ~300m for Portuguese.
Right? People are forgetting that we’ve got essentially three languages in the entire hemisphere.
You speak three languages in Europe? Congrats you speak 12% of the commonly spoken / national languages.
Speak one language in the Americas? Congrats, you speak 1/3 of them!
Sent an application in!
I remember them being a lot more interesting to watch, and you got a real feel for the candidate’s positions (at least their public persona). But for the last ~8 years, it’s been just gish galloping.
E.g., Obama vs. Romney was honestly pretty interesting to watch.
Well, they’re separated by the Panama canal, so by the same token that Africa and Asia aren’t the same land mass, neither are the Americas.