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Re: Dividend vs. buyback... low ball priceThe answer depends on Supply and Demand that also depends on the timing or the deadline of the requirement, which seems to be unknown still. There wouldn’t be any price competition should no one need the fiber. However, the requirement itself indicates the demands are there and possibly huge. Here is the standard and interesting example of game theory: Prisoner's Dilemma (Poundstone, 1992): Two members of a criminal gang are arrested and imprisoned. Each prisoner is in solitary confinement with no means of communicating with the other. The prosecutors lack sufficient evidence to convict the pair on the principal charge. They hope to get both sentenced to a year in prison on a lesser charge. Simultaneously, the prosecutors offer each prisoner a bargain. Each prisoner is given the opportunity either to: betray the other by testifying that the other committed the crime, or to cooperate with the other by remaining silent. The offer is: * If A and B each betray the other, each of them serves 2 years in prison * If A betrays B but B remains silent, A will be set free and B will serve 3 years in prison (and vice versa) * If A and B both remain silent, both of them will only serve 1 year in prison (on the lesser charge) Because betraying a partner offers a greater reward than cooperating with them, the only possible outcome for two purely rational prisoners is for them to betray each other. The interesting part of this result is that pursuing individual reward logically leads both of the prisoners to betray, when they would get a better reward if they both kept silent. In reality, humans display a systemic bias towards cooperative behavior in this and similar games, much more so than predicted by simple models of "rational" self-interested action.[ |
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