Malone’s Liberty Global Agrees to Buy Dutch Cable Provider Ziggo

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Liberty Global Plc (LBTYA), the company controlled by billionaire John Malone, agreed to fully take over Dutch broadband provider Ziggo NV (ZIGGO) for 4.9 billion euros ($6.7 billion) to cement its dominance in Europes cable industry.

Ziggo investors will receive 34.53 euros for each share -- including 11 euros in cash and the remainder in Liberty Global stock, the companies said today. Thats 3.8 percent more than the Jan. 24 close. Ziggo, which fell as much as 6.7 percent today, is seeking 3.7 billion euros of loans to finance its buyout, said a person with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be named because the discussions are confidential.

With 2.7 million customers, Ziggo allows Liberty Global to combine the business with its UPC cable unit to take on Dutch carrier Royal KPN NV. European cable and fixed-line assets are attracting buyers, with Vodafone Group Plc (VOD) acquiring Kabel Deutschland Holding AG for more than $10 billion in October -- beating an offer from Liberty Global -- to bolster its fixed-line business in Germany.

Its a fair offer, said Emmanuel Carlier, an analyst at ING Groep NV in Brussels. That the shares are falling is due to the offer being for a large part in stock, some people cant or dont want to have U.S. stocks.

A pedestrian passes a Ziggo BV store in Utrecht, Netherlands.

A pedestrian passes a Ziggo BV store in Utrecht, Netherlands. Close

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A pedestrian passes a Ziggo BV store in Utrecht, Netherlands.

Liberty Global has sought to extend its reach in Europe, acquiring the U.K.s Virgin Media Inc. last year for about $16 billion. The company also operates in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium and Ireland as well as eastern Europe.

Its also studying a spinoff of its Latin American businesses, a move that would make London-based Liberty Global a purely European cable company.

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Malone’s Liberty Global Agrees to Buy Dutch Cable Provider Ziggo

We Win the NY Times Prize

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The New York Times, whistling past the financial graveyard, paused over the weekend to smear the Mises Institute, Ron Paul, our other scholars, hardcore libertarianism, and me. Why? Because our ideas and our youth movement are gaining real traction. It is in effect a compliment. They have never faced opposition like ours before, and Ron Pauls tremendous resonance with young people has only made things worse from the Timess point of view.

The Times wants opponents who play the game, who accept the presuppositions of the regime, and who are willing to confine themselves to the narrow range of debate to which the Times would prefer to confine the American people.

The purpose of articles like the one over the weekend, it should be unnecessary to point out, is not to shed light. It is to demonize and destroy a school of thought that the regime considers threatening.

The article, for instance, notes that Ron spoke on the topic Do We Live in a Police State? earlier this month at a Mises Institute event, and that another speaker (me) spoke on American Fascism. The lecture titles are evidently supposed to be self-refuting, although you can listen to Rons remarks and read mine and decide for yourself. Its little wonder that the Times would want to ridicule the idea that American society could resemble a police state, given that papers cover-ups of the regimes surveillance of American citizens.

The rest of the article is an attempt to distort the philosophy of libertarianism and to demonize Ron and other prominent exponents of that philosophy.

The whole exercise reminds me of the time, not long ago, in which a state-endorsed hate group took a swipe at Murray Rothbard (1926-1995), known in his day as Mr. Libertarian. The writer summarized Murrays career in a single sentence about of all things lesbians during the Progressive Era.

Now consider: Rothbards 1,000-page treatise Man, Economy, and State was an extraordinary contribution to the field of economics; his two-volume history of economic thought has been praised by scholars across the board; his study of the Panic of 1819, published by Columbia University Press, received rave reviews in the scholarly journals and is still considered definitive; his Ethics of Liberty is a philosophical defense of self-ownership and the nonaggression principle, and so on.

And so on hardly does Rothbard justice: we havent mentioned his textbook on money and banking, his classic What Has Government Done to Our Money?, his four-volume history of colonial America, the scholarly journals he edited, the voluminous correspondence he kept up with the major thinkers of his day, and well, and so on.

And a critic tried to reduce this man this man! to one unfavorable sentence.

It used to be easy to do this: how, apart from driving to the library, was someone to discover Rothbard for himself? But today, discovering Rothbard is just a click away. And once you discover him his scholarship, his knowledge, the encouragement he gave to students, and his refusal to compromise his principles even when doing so would have meant career advancement you understand why the state wants to minimize or demonize him. No wonder the most popular piece of libertarian apparel is our Rothbard Enemy of the State T-shirt.

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We Win the NY Times Prize

January 26: Rand Paul, Dick Durbin, Michael Chertoff, Jesselyn Radack, Carolyn Ryan, Michael Powell, Mike Murphy …

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REP. LORETTA SANCHEZ:

Oh, I don't think so at all. I think the president has every single day of his presidency to look forward to. I remember when I was the national chair for the Democratic Party under Clinton and the Gore political season going on, and President Clinton was working so hard. And I know because we were out there and we were with the people, and I said to him, "Don't you ever get tired?" Because he'd work till 4:00, 5:00 in the morning campaigning and doing other things. And he said, "Loretta, I'm going to sleep the day after I leave the presidency."

DAVID GREGPRY:

Yeah, I don't know if that's--

REP. LORETTA SANCHEZ:

And he was just bubbly--

DAVID GREGORY:

--President Obama though, right?

REP. LORETTA SANCHEZ:

--energized. There was work to be done. And I still think-- when I look at immigration reform, which I believe we will see something happen this year, at least an effort to try to move it forward on the floor, we've got the small things, the debt ceiling that we've got to get passed right now. We've got tax reform. I know that my Michigan colleague, the chair of the Ways and Means, David Camp, is anxious to do this. Baucus is anxious to do this.

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January 26: Rand Paul, Dick Durbin, Michael Chertoff, Jesselyn Radack, Carolyn Ryan, Michael Powell, Mike Murphy ...

Channel Islands Aurigny Air Britten Norman Trislander from Alderney to Guernsey – Video

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Channel Islands Aurigny Air Britten Norman Trislander from Alderney to Guernsey
Korte vlucht aan het begin van een zonnige avond van Alderney naar Guernsey met een Britten Norman Trislander van Channel Islands Aurigny Air. Onderweg een m...

By: Hans Visser

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Channel Islands Aurigny Air Britten Norman Trislander from Alderney to Guernsey - Video

Motorcycle Tour to Norway 2013 (Cologne – North Cape) – Part 4 (Arctic Circle – Lofoten Islands) – Video

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Motorcycle Tour to Norway 2013 (Cologne - North Cape) - Part 4 (Arctic Circle - Lofoten Islands)
http://motorcyclepilgrim.blogspot.de/ On my motorcycle trip from Cologne (Germany) to the North Cape in Part 4 it takes me from the Arctic Circle to the Lofo...

By: Ulrike Fell

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Motorcycle Tour to Norway 2013 (Cologne - North Cape) - Part 4 (Arctic Circle - Lofoten Islands) - Video