Ancora Holdings, an investment group, is looking to instil a new set of directors, citing safety issues and higher operating ratio (railroad investor speak for lower profit profit margin). The labour union AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Dept. president Greg Regan has put out a statement against this takeover attempt, citing these investors running Bed Bath & Beyond into the ground.
Ancora’s plan, though some of it sounded nice on the surface, includes more “Precision Scheduled Railroading”, reducing headcount, and this is how Regan put it:
“Once Ancora has extracted value from the company, it will move on and leave shareholders, employees, customers, and the government to pick up the pieces.”
Yup, that’s how hedge funds work. Everyone and everything will be left even worse off, which is hard to even imagine given the current state of affairs.
I think this is critical infrastructure that we should nationalize via eminent domain. Given that it’s wildly profitable, what arguments can fiscal conservatives make against it? We can then make the capital investments and worker conditions changes to bring about the direly needed safety improvements. Nationalizing the rail lines could bring the costs down and safety & reliability up further still.
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