Ross Featured In the News - Week of Feb. 23
Week Ending Feb. 23
Feb. 20 - Reuters - Capital One to Buy Discover Financial in $35.3 Billion All-Stock Deal (Jeremy Kress)
"I predict that this deal...will provoke a significant push-back and receive heightened regulatory scrutiny," Jeremy Kress, a University of Michigan professor of business law who previously worked on bank merger oversight at the Federal Reserve, wrote in an email.
"It will be the first big test of bank merger regulation since the Biden administration's executive order on promoting competition in 2021."
Feb. 20 - London Reviews - Is Jon Stewart’s return the best thing to happen to late night – or a sign that the industry is stuck? (Marcus Collins)
While Stewart’s 2024 comeback is not likely to change the fractured media landscape, it may bring some renewed attention and buzz to the fading appeal of live late-night television.
And that jolt of interest may not be a moment too soon for The Daily Show in a competitive media world offering a dizzying array of options from TikTok to Netflix and beyond. Marcus Collins, clinical assistant professor of marketing at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan and author of For the Culture, suggests Stewart’s presence may bring some viewers back into the fold of watching live or cable television.
“Stewart’s return will likely be a shot of adrenaline to late-night TV, providing an appointment-based viewing occasion, if only for Monday nights, that linear television needs,” explained Collins. “There was a shrinkage in viewership for The Daily Show after Stewart left, but I imagine many of those people will come back.”
Feb. 18 - KCBS San Francisco - Survey Continues to Show Diverging Realities of Americans (Jerry Davis)
"One of the things that becomes really clear from the polls is that if you ask Biden and Trump voters about basic facts about the economy, they come up with really different views on things. It's not just that they have different opinions; it's that they have different understandings of basic facts - has unemployment gone up or down, has the stock market gone up or down. They really seem to be living different realities."
"One possibility is that they're just really following different news sources. It could also be that when pollsters ask questions, Trump voters want to say negative things and Biden voters want to say positive things. It's a little bit tricky to tell exactly why, but they seem to be following different news sources and having really different views."
Feb. 17 - Associated Press - Trump avoids ‘corporate death penalty’ in civil fraud case, but his business will still get slammed (Will Thomas)
The ban on Trump serving as an officer or director for a New York corporation suggests a big shakeup at the Trump Organization, but the real impact isn’t clear.
Trump may be removed from the corner office, but as an owner of the business his right to appoint someone to act on his behalf has not been revoked.
“It’s not that he can’t have influence at these enterprises,” said University of Michigan law professor William Thomas. “He just can’t hold any actually appointed positions.”
Thomas added, however, much depends on how the monitor will handle Trump’s attempt to run his company by proxy.
“He might want to walk in the office and tell them what to do, but there will be pushback,” he said. “It could limit the avenues through which he can exert control.”
Two obvious candidates to help Trump maintain control, his two adult sons, are already off-limits. The judge’s ruling barred Donald Jr. and Eric from being officers of New York companies for two years.
Week Ending Feb. 16
Feb. 14 - Radio New Zealand - Money and Relationships with Dr. Scott Rick
Google is not the best place to seek advice about what to get your partner for Valentine's Day. The best gifts require a bit of sacrifice of your time and thought, not just a lot of money, says Dr. Scott Rick, who studies the emotions behind our financial decisions. His new book helps us see the invisible forces that shape the way we handle our money so we can use it to live happier lives. It's called Tightwads and Spendthrifts: Navigating the Money Minefield in Real Relationships.
Feb. 12 - Thomson Reuters - What Are the Consequences of Auditors Subject to Regulatory Enforcement Actions? Apparently Not Much (Mihir Mehta)
Researchers at Temple University and the University of Michigan looked at what happened to the auditors one year after settled orders were issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), and they observed three intriguing consequences, or lack thereof.
“The punchline is that many auditors don’t lose their jobs, and the ones that do get other jobs quite easily,” said Mihir Mehta, an accounting professor at the University of Michigan, who is the corresponding author of the working paper dated November 2023.
Feb. 12 - Yahoo! Finance - Super Bowl Ads: Is Fear of Controversy Stifling Creativity? (Marcus Collins)
RACHELLE AKUFFO: Marcus, what did you think was the recipe for a really successful outcome and really how companies can build on this once they have the buzz going?
MARCUS COLLINS: I think it's actually becoming increasingly difficult. One, because our expectations of Super Bowl ads are through the roof. It's almost like New Year's Eve. It's never going to actually live up to your expectation. That's the first. The second is that today, we're such a divisive time post-Bud Lights debacle last summer that brands are much more cautious about what they say, what they do, especially on a stage like the Super Bowl. And therefore, they don't take very many risks. So while the ads were fine, they were good, they were well-served, they weren't superb. I think a lot of it had to do with that, we have constrained the creative brief that they cannot play in a lot of spaces. It's a lot more confined. And therefore, you get what you get. And you don't get upset, like we tell our four-year-old.
Legal experts say most corporations set up legal shop in Delaware because laws there favor corporations. “Delaware built its preferred state of incorporation business by being friendly to company management, not shareholders,” said Erik Gordon, a business and law professor at the University of Michigan.
