
Snoopy Has Been Fired by MetLife - uptown
http://www.wsj.com/articles/snoopy-has-been-fired-by-metlife-1476966706
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snowwrestler
> The decision to hive off the U.S. life insurance operations—into a new
> company called Brighthouse Financial—happened because of strategic and
> regulatory reasons. Company officials have said the new company will be
> small enough to avoid federal designation as “systemically important” and
> thus should be able to sidestep potentially stiff capital rules.

This is a key paragraph and it should be understood that this is an intended
effect of the regulations.

The "Dodd-Frank" bill that was passed in the wake of the financial crisis gave
the Federal Reserve new responsibility and authority to regulate "systemically
important" financial institutions of _any_ industry. These are the companies
that would come to mind when you think "too big too fail." Prior to this bill,
the Fed only had authority over commercial banks.

If a company gets designated as "systemically important," it has to meet
higher capital ratio requirements and other extra regulatory hurdles. This is
to (try to) make it less likely that the company will fail. But it will
obviously have an impact on financial performance.

Some companies--like GE and now MetLife--instead choose to downsize their
financial operations to get them under the "too big to fail" line.

This has the same effect as if the federal government "broke them up"\--but it
was accomplished via incentive instead of direct action.

The potential downside is that large companies do have some financial
advantages, and foreign companies don't have the same regulatory requirement.
(Their U.S. subsidiaries do, but not their business overseas.) Thus, over time
we might see capital flow out of the U.S.

~~~
tvanantwerp
Reminds me of when I lived in Copenhagen. There were laws against businesses
being opened on Sunday. But if your store was small enough, you were exempt.
And so I regularly saw two or three tiny and separate H&M stores side-by-side
with each other.

~~~
matt4077
It's a bit different because they're actually selling (parts of) that business
unit – a holding is evaluated as single entity.

Oh, and H&M frequently does small shops in locations without such laws as
well. They often have separate stores for men/women/children or along segments
of style (i. e. stores with only formal menswear). It could be marketing,
availability of retails space or an attempt to remain flexible.

It's also not too hard to make such laws airtight, or to leave some details to
the executive branch which can react much faster.

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baldfat
This is 100% about MetLife cutting its business in America (No more life
insurance polices).

Also am I the only one who finds the Peanuts to be depressing? I hated the way
everyone treated Charlie Brown and I disliked everyone, including Charlie
Brown. I have felt this way since I was 5.

~~~
jameskilton
Go read the original Peanuts strips. They weren't about entertainment, they
were a look into bullying and the depressing life of Charlie Brown. (please
forgive linking to Kotaku but I enjoyed this article [http://kotaku.com/how-
snoopy-killed-peanuts-1724269473](http://kotaku.com/how-snoopy-killed-
peanuts-1724269473))

~~~
coldtea
> _Go read the original Peanuts strips. They weren 't about entertainment,
> they were a look into bullying and the depressing life of Charlie Brown._

From his phrasing that seems to be the parent's problem.

They would probably like the lighter, more fluff and less serious Peanuts
better.

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benmarks
And here's some content not behind a paywall: [http://adage.com/article/cmo-
strategy/goodbye-snoopy-metlife...](http://adage.com/article/cmo-
strategy/goodbye-snoopy-metlife-rebrands/306363/)

~~~
B1FF_PSUVM
Also [http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2016/10/20/metlife-
fires...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2016/10/20/metlife-fires-
snoopy/92452986/)

(Via the web link on top of the page, there's other news pages if you don't
feel like sneaking into the WSJ through the Google stable door.)

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levicole
Am I the only one disappointed that this means Snoopy won't be in the Macy's
Thanksgiving Day Parade?

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D-Coder
I found the title of this article misleading — clickbaity. "Fired" suggests
that Snoopy did something that cost him his job. The company changed
direction, and Snoopy was no longer needed.

Snoopy was laid off, or rightsized, or something. Not fired.

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B1FF_PSUVM
Another old-timer loses his job, probably not going to land another gig
anytime soon. Hopefully can draw a pension.

"People familiar with the matter said the most-recent contract was signed in
2014 and costs MetLife $10 million to $15 million a year."

That's peanuts.

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jonathankoren
I'm glad they've finally stopped selling life insurance and retirement
annuities to children.

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Spooky23
Modern marketing and iconography is so bland. The new MetLife logo looks like
a feminine product.

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user5994461
The article is blocked by paywall for me, even when coming from google.com

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bluetidepro
_Slightly off topic:_ When I click this article link via HN, the article gives
me a paywall. Ugh. However, If I then copy and paste the article title into
Google ("Snoopy Has Been Fired by MetLife"), I get the same exact link but WSJ
doesn't paywall the user from Google. *smh

Is that a common practice with news sites? ...seems kind of silly to me.

EDIT: Wow, derp. I never realized the HN link labeled "web" takes you to a web
search for the title of the submitted article, so that you can bypass the
paywall. Thanks for the insight, everyone!

~~~
detaro
Google penalizes sites that don't show the same content the crawler saw to to
users clicking links, so if you want your content to be indexed and high in
the rankings you have to give visitors from Google the full articles. Nobody
else has the market power to do that, so links from all other sites lead to
the paywall.

~~~
bluetidepro
Ah, I didn't realize this was a thing. Not sure why I got downvoted by someone
for asking about it, but I do appreciate you taking the time to give some more
insight! ha

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gjolund
I guess business news = hacker news now.

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markm248
Bastards

