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Posted by bjhess 13 hours ago

Let's Buy Spirit Air(letsbuyspiritair.com)
370 points | 351 commentspage 2
testemailfordg2 8 hours ago|
A similar large scale success in India decades ago:- AMUL is an Indian multinational dairy cooperative, founded on 19 December 1946. With a turnover of US$6.2 billion (2022) and 3.6 million farmer-members, it is the world's largest dairy cooperative and a household name for milk and milk products across India.

The cooperative was born out of exploitation: farmers in Kheda, Gujarat, were forced to supply milk to Polson Dairy, which held a monopoly and paid farmers unfairly through commission-taking agents.

AMUL returns 85% of every rupee earned back to farmers — far above the global average of 33% — and procures milk at rates 15–20% higher than private dairies.

AMUL's democratic governance ensures farmers elect board members who represent their interests, and the Managing Director of each unit is appointed by this farmer-led board — not the state government — preventing political interference and corruption.

AMUL demonstrates how a business can achieve large-scale commercial success while prioritising social justice and environmental care — through collective ownership, democratic governance, equitable profit-sharing, and community investment — offering a powerful model for cooperatives worldwide.

anonymouscaller 12 hours ago||
Seems like an interesting idea. Wish I could get some more information on who is behind this website for credibility purposes
godzillabrennus 12 hours ago|
Looks like an AI-generated site that says it's not for investment purposes but basically makes the case for investment... I'd run from this.
kqr2 7 hours ago|||
SEC should investigate this.
corvad 12 hours ago|||
Yeah it honestly seems like an opportunity scam.
kylecazar 12 hours ago||
Average pledge size is $666 (from 40k pledges). That strikes me as a lot. And obviously cursed.
danpalmer 12 hours ago||
That's like 39,900 people pledging at the minimum $45, and 100 investors pledging at $250k. Averages can be misleading.
corvad 12 hours ago|||
Agreed, a median would be a better indication.
kylecazar 12 hours ago|||
[dead]
zaptheimpaler 11 hours ago||
Awesome, I hope we see a lot more of this. Co-ops do work, REI is one, Modo is another and we could have many more. Over and over again companies are slowly destroyed by extractive shareholders or PE firms, the current structure of a public company is not the only possible shape.
smackeyacky 9 hours ago|
https://youtu.be/GbIimta-TJs?si=3Sm-Dgl8DtfubFSt

A period documentary about the Meridian Triumph motorcycles co op. Sad, thoughtful take on a particular bit of British manufacturing history. That the co op started with a strike, had to trade exclusively with a single customer, and that the senior workers became the managers they hated.

Due to the structure of that co op there was no way for them to access the capital they needed to redevelop their products and it ended up in private hands as a result, leaving the workers with nothing. I don’t think I would wish a co op on anybody.

zaptheimpaler 8 hours ago||
Thanks I will watch it, looks interesting. But i would say there's also a million documentaries, movies, news reports, examples and more about insane, evil, stupid shit that goes on in various corporations or how organizations turn to shit when acquired by PE as well. We know for example that cigarette companies knew their products caused cancer and other health problems for decades(!) while denying it publicly, and this is the bar regulators expect today - that they will do absolutely anything including letting people die through smoking or pollution or blocking access to healthcare to make a profit. So a co-op going poorly doesn't invalidate the concept.
smackeyacky 6 hours ago||
No doubt there is evil in the corporate world. I do think there is something in that documentary that changed my mind about a few things. It might not be representative o today since we’re talking 1970s UK but thought provoking anyway.
ho_schi 4 hours ago||
Reading from Wikipedia Spirit sounds like a horrible low-cost Airline like Ryanair. Why should we rescue something which hurts employees and passengers?

If it would be TWA or PanAm my reaction would be positive.

danelski 3 hours ago|
Many people, myself included, will gladly be 'hurt' on a 2-3 hour flight, if that means we can save some noticeable amount of money on the fare.
divbzero 7 hours ago||
> The only thing missing is ownership that answers to the people — not to shareholders.

To be clear, the proposed Spirit Air 2.0 would also be answerable to shareholders. A structural difference is that each shareholder would have one vote regardless of capital contribution. But the real substantive difference is the spirit of what they’re fighting for: worker ownership, affordable fares, transparent operations, no golden parachutes, etc.

metalman 1 hour ago||
100% guarantee of years of uncertainty, so any large venture built on disposable income is a non starter. The Cruise Ship industry is precarious, and with a hanta virus outbreak on one ship pointing to just how shoddy the whole thing needs to be for profit, a surge of sick ships is likely. Fuel for planes and ships could cost much more, and then become unavailible in certain locations, which would be part of the recipie for a full crisis involving a sick ship or resort, some small country refusing (legitametly) a quarantiened ship, whatever scenario, the point is that running these huge tourist operations requires significant EXCESS capacity, not missing pieces and ultra slim margins.
lefrenchy 10 hours ago||
Can someone help me understand the argument that the FTC blocking the merger was bad?

The argument I have seen is that blocking it resulted in Spirit dying and people losing their jobs and there being less competition.

Wouldn’t the same exact thing have happened regardless? Am i supposed to believe that Jet Blue would have kept all of those employees? There would be one less competitor anyway, and in the merger case they’re even more powerful now meaning competing is harder.

It seems to me it’s just that creditors want to be paid out by a merger rather than paid our for cents on the dollar when it died on it’s own.

sephamorr 9 hours ago||
JetBlue is a small rival (JetBlue at ~5% of US traffic, Spirit at ~3%) to the big 4 United/American/Southwest/Delta (each with ~17%). At least on the surface, a larger JetBlue might be more competitive rather than forcing them into the unequal partnerships like they have with United at the moment. Certainly, some jobs would be lost, but I do think that Spirit dying is a worse outcome than joining another small airline.
tbrownaw 8 hours ago|||
A merger would be more orderly, especially if overall capacity only needed to go down by part of what's in the chunk being cut out.
midnitewarrior 10 hours ago||
The straw that broke the camel's back is the fuel spike due to the Iran War. That drained the remaining liquidity.

No idea if the extra time "normal" fuel prices would have allowed Spirit to find a way to stay afloat, but the fuel price spike stole any time they had to figure it out.

jumperabg 4 hours ago||
Interesting, what will happen to the current planes and crews, why would I want to invest and bring back Spirit?
veltas 8 hours ago|
> PROPOSED ONLY: Profit shares would scale with pledge amount under the proposed structure. This is not a confirmed financial instrument. Nothing here constitutes an offer of securities.

There's no way they could get away with something significantly different, right? Like anything else they'd just be liable for being sued?

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