Charter Commmunications

A post here on the Charter Communications bid for Time Warner Cable.

Charter Communications, John Malone and America's filty Rich.

For Charter shareholders this is a great deal. It is especially good for John Malone, the controlling shareholder whose wealth has allowed him to become the largest private landowner in the United States. 

Malone, who ranks 56th on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans, is a remarkable wealth builder. But his brilliant insights and unparalleled boldness as a telecommunications entrepreneur alone did not make him rich. Juicing his profits were government policies that tilted the economic rules in favor of his monopolies and against consumers.

That would be the same John Malone who said in a WSJ interview back in 2010. That he had plans to leave the country if things blew up here. The quote........

WSJ: What are you doing to protect against the weak American economy? 

Mr. Malone: Well, my wife, who is very concerned about these things, moved all her personal cash to Australia and Canada. She wants to have a place to go if things blow up here.Canada has a lot more fiscal and bank responsibility than most places in the world and lots of natural resources. 

We have a retreat that's right on the Quebec border. We own 18 miles on the border, so we can cross. Anytime we want to we can get away. 

It would probably be illegal but we could go. Actually our snowmobile trail goes right on the border.

Mr Malone, in 2010, was ready to leave the country by fleeing to Canada on a snowmobile across the 18 miles of US-Canadian borderland he owns, "if Things blow up here".

Now I don't know what he means by "if Things blow up here" but I'd guess it's something along the line of ,... "if the Occupy movement gathers some steam and the  Kenyan Muslim Socialist Marxist caves to the masses, tries to take my hard earned money or starts hanging rich people".

That's just a guess. Someone should ask him.

Regardless, Fuck Him. His bid for TimeWarner should be killed for the quote alone.

Mr Malone is filthy rich  (from a couple of earlier TNB posts [TNB: John Malone1] [TNB: John Malone2])

Mr. Malone is worth about 2.4 billion according to Forbes. That's $2,400,000,000. One-half of all US households have total wealth less than 93,100 (2004 - link). Let’s put those numbers together for comparison. 

John Malone's wealth --->    2,400,000,000. 

Median US Household --->               93,000. ---> 50% of US is less than this. 

Mr. Malone's wealth is equal to 25,778 of these median US families.

and (from the link at the top) the largest private landowner in the US.

John Malone. Filthy rich. Largest landowner in the US. Made it all from Americans with help of the US government and infrastructure. Ready to abandon ship at the first sign of trouble.

Fuck Him.