If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/10/smartest-guys-in-the-room/#can-you-hear-me-now
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When it comes to the modern world of #enshittified, terrible businesses, no addition to your vocabulary is more essential than "#bezzle," #JKGalbraith's term for "the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it"
https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/09/accounting-gimmicks/#unter
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Discussion
The bezzle is contained by two forces.
* First, #SteinsLaw: "Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop."
* Second, #Keynes's: "Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."
On the one hand, extremely badly run businesses that strip all the value out of the firm, making things progressively worse for its suppliers, workers and customers will eventually fail (Stein's Law).
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