23 March—This morning’s “Classic Peanuts” comic strip, which was originally published in 1979, has Linus van Pelt lamenting in the first two panels, “I guess it’s wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow. Maybe we should think only about today . . . .” To which, in the last two panels, Charlie Brown retorts, “No, that’s not giving up . . . I’m still hoping that yesterday will get better.”

I’m still hoping that yesterday will get better. That is seriously profound. Relax, you’re not going to be subjected to a homily on any aspect of or in any way related to rewriting or actually changing history. But think about it: What if . . . ?

So on Saturday I found stuffed in my extortionate PO box a one-inch-thick, 22-ounce, 300-or-so-page proxy statement from Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., dated 17 February 2026, about the “Amended and Restated Agreement and Plan of Merger” with Netflix “dated as of 19 January 2026” addressed to my son. For whatever reason, even though my son has his own extortionate PO box, the hefty solicitation was addressed to him at my PO box.

My son had no idea he owned any shares in Warner Bros. Discovery. And indeed he doesn’t, but evidently at least one of the index funds in which he holds positions does. But he says he’d never before the WBD-Netflix kerfuffle received proxies nor other literature from indirectly-owned holdings. Nor, in fact, have I. Have I? Why should we? In the circumstance, though, who knows?

In all events, the enclosed proxy form recommended voting for the proposed takeover by Netflix (which is what the merger really is), which the WBD board was favoring at the time and about which my son had been receiving pleas and warnings from the WBD board about a deal with Paramount Skydance—but addressed to his own extortionate PO box. Go figure. And the recommendation was amplified and illustrated by Superman on the letter-size card pictured below.

You may recall the WBD board agreed to the more lucrative takeover deal by Paramount Skydance 12 days after the date of the pro-Netflix mailing, on 27 February. So the heavy proxy solicitation was moot, a waste of shareholder money, but needed revenue for the USPS. Not that it makes any difference, then, but why did it take a month for the time-sensitive mailing to reach its destination?

Anyway, in a weak moment, I actually opened the mammoth proxy statement. (Does anyone other than brokers and lawyers actually bother to read proxy statements and lavishly produced annual reports?) The page I serendipitously opened to was 134 and it contained, inter alia, “Merger-Related Compensation for WBD’s Named Executive Officers.”

Without going into to silly detail, then, WBD CEO and president David Zaslav seemed happy enough on 17 February to receive a total compensation of $645 million in the Netflix deal. Not bad, not bad at all. But it didn’t take much googling to WB Discover [that’s a pun, by the way] that David will be getting over 37 percent more in the Paramount deal, about $887 million. And of course the other board members and shareholders will also be doing better in the Paramount deal.

Money talks, as they say. So who cares about WBD employees, contractors, and customers?