BahRamYou
2d ago
Diversification seems like a really good idea here, in that it seems to bring the nature of the disagreement into focus. Almost all the replies I'm seeing are related to SpaceX, but Musk has multiple businesses. Is the general consensus that those other businesses are write-offs, and thus SpaceX has all the value? Does anyone actually expect him to crack auto-driving or tunnel boring or robots or making twitter profitable? Is it just the rockets? Maybe the rockets are enough, maybe not, but is any of the rest plausible enough to bet on, or is it essentially fog?
SpaceX is so far the only really "cool" company that Musk has. Maybe Tesla used to be cool, when EVs were new and they could shatter acceleration records while talking big about "saving the earth." Now they just seem normal- lots of other companies make EVs now too, and we've all had a chance to ride in them and see "OK yeah it's pretty just another car." It's decent but no where near enough to justify it being one of the most valuable companies on earth, ahead of other companies that produce way more money.
SpaceX can still trade on that "we're going to mars!!!!" sci fi aspect. But I think their real value is launching spy sats for the military, and maybe eventually ABM missiles like Brilliant Pebbls, or straight up weapons like "Rods from God." For that, they can pretty much name their price to the military and the US taxpayer.
BahRamYou
3d ago
I've always thought of Elon Musk as being essentially the world's greatest tech recruiter. Maybe for a while he was also great at sales at marketing, but like you said, the reception to him has really turned a corner recently- people have started to notice that he never delivers anything like his promises and are openly mocking him. Plus it doesn't help that half of silicon valley now hates him for ideology reasons.
But the one thing he does still have in spades is to attract talented young engineers in spades who will work overtime for sub-market rates. Even at the boring company, which is literally boring and is out in the Nevada desert, they seem to be flooded with talent. Even if most of his ideas fail, it seems like all the talent he has working there should be able to make something worthwhile. It turns out that young engineers really want to work on sci-fi hardware, not manipulating data to sell ads.
SpaceX specifically might pay off if it can land a big military contract. Get the government to pay him an oversized for providing a service that no one else can do.
But yes I've been thinking for a while that Tesla is in trouble... vaguely considering buying some puts there. They've been in this game a long time now, still selling very few cars, and are now getting tons of competition from foreign car makers selling good EVs for cheaper prices.
BahRamYou
6d ago
Well it's always opportunity cost. "I can't afford to give away my house for nothing." Why not? It costs nothing, right? "Because it has a huge mortgage attached, and also it would be insane to give away something worth that much for nothing." "Oh, so you could give it away, you just don't want to?" "yes."
I think the finances of plantation slavery were also a bit weird to modern eyes. when cash was low they borrowed money, since selling slaves was tough. When cash was high they bought more slaves, since it paid better than paying off debt. I don't pretend to understand the business decisions of the time. Anyway I think we agree- this was a business decision, they weren't just giving up on something worth nothing.
BahRamYou
6d ago
Yeah but... that's with all sorts of legal and ethical rules.
Ask yourself. If there were no rules. You could own a slave. Human chattel. Do whatever you want. Do you really not think you could make money from that?
BahRamYou
6d ago
Thanks for linking the anecdote, I hadn't heard that before.
Presumably that debt was being serviced by the income of the land and slaves, no? In modern terms, it's possible to own a business (with income) that also has a debt. If you inherit that business, you also inherit the debt. It doesn't mean the business was worth nothing, even if you don't have the cash to pay off the debt instantly.
I agree that Jefferson's situation was wierd and maybe a bad example for the economics of slavery, since it seems like he was more concerned with other things like art, politics, etc and didn't really care about money. On the other hand... maybe that's the point? The guy was so rich, and from such easy money, that he never had to care about money at all. He could afford to throw away money on things like turning Monticello into his own personal architectural vanity project, while also being president, and it just didn't matter. Slavery was profitable.
BahRamYou
6d ago
like you said, Haiti was hell on earth. It didn't have to be that bad. I really think the US could have done it better, even under the rule of the old south. certainly the modern US could handle it better. But instead we just... let it rot because it's not our country and we have no responsibility.
BahRamYou
6d ago
Jefferson is admittedly a complicated case. The man spoke grandly about human liberty, but also spent money like water and needed slaves to pay his bills. I can't say for sure that he wanted to free all of them. He freed a few, while the others were sold to pay his debts. You can't say it's "straightforward" when we're talking about human slavery here, plus a very large amount of money for the time.
Regardless I think it goes to my original point- slavery was not on its way out economicacally, since those slaves were worth such a large amount of money. If you really want I'll link some books on "yes slaves were worth a large amount of money."
BahRamYou
6d ago
LOL i love the way you phrased this. As an Expat American it's incredibly annoying that my home country is still stuck on SMS messaging, and they just take that as a default ("texting") to where it's hard to even describe anything else to my friends back home.
BahRamYou
6d ago
Oh ok cool. Thanks for clearing that up. I mean, you didn't really make any logical argument or cite any sources but you're here on the internet so I'm sure you're a trusted authority figure. I trust you. All those southerners selling slaves at high prices were just idiots I guess. There's just no use for a free labor source, might as well just kill them all.
On another note, do you have any advice on where I can hire a good gardener? I've been paying a Mexican guy, but I feel weird paying a guy who's obviously here illegally. I'd like to hire an American, but the going rate is way too high and there's just no way I can afford that.
BahRamYou
6d ago
Weird how sweatshops, prison labor, and human trafficking are still things then.
BahRamYou
6d ago
Maybe it's to filter out guys with low social skills who don't know how to read non-verbal social cues?
Also: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Y6NWDBFo0gQ filters out guys like that
BahRamYou
6d ago
The long-term picture isn't much better. Since the end of the gold standard in 1971, gold has outperformed U.S. treasuries. Simply buying and holding a lump of rock is better than holding the debt of the U.S. government. And the government was actually in good financial health for most of those years, unlike now.
Gold Bugs love to talk about the price of gold since 1971. But the performance really depends on what year you start in. Turns out 1971 was an exceptionally good time to purchase gold, as it had just been deregulated and could be bought for like $50 an ounce because no one was paying attention. By the end of the decade it had already boomed to a price similar to what it is now, like $2000 an ounce. And there have been several boom and bust cycles since then. It's (ironically) not really a long-term, buy-and-hold investment, but something that can maybe save you during a big market crash but can just easily tank. Treasuries have outperformed over almost any period other than starting in 1971.
Incidentally- treasuries right now have a great interest rate and are still rock-solid safe. This might be the time to just park your money in bonds.
BahRamYou
6d ago
When America was founded, slavery was on the way out: turns out it wasn’t that profitable of a system for tobacco farming, and sugar couldn’t be grown in the continental US. Many northern states abolished slavery and then the south followed suit. If there was a time for the peaceful national abolition of slavery it was then.
I've always heard that as the conventional wisdom, but I wonder if it's really true? If you put aside all morality and politics, it seems odd that they couldn't find some profitable use for literally free labor. Especially in the rural south, where a natural resistance to both the sun and malaria would have been huge. Maybe tobacco farming would have gone out, but they could have grown something else, with black slaves working on peanut farms or whatever. And of course house slaves would have been useful anywhere.
More empirically: Jefferson famously tried to free his slaves on his death, but he couldn't afford it. The cost was too high. If slavery was really "on its way out" it seems odd that the price of slaves was still so high.
It seems more like this is a "just so story" that we tell to simplify things. But it didn't have to be. Slavery was always a choice. They did it because it was profitable, but only for a select few, and they were mostly growing things like tobacco and sugar that did nothing of any economic use. But there was also no particular reason it had to end, except that people started to feel bad about it. It had endured for hundreds of years, and could have gone right on into the present day if people hadn't developed a conscounce about it.
This is the first time I've ever heard about that "Knights of the Golden Circle" thing. Kind of a big hole in the American education system I guess. But I can see why they leave it out... it brings up too many awkward questions. Why didn't the US take over the caribbean? It would have made sense. Both for money/realpolitik (those caribbean islands were producing crazy amounts of cash, much more then the US did for a long time) and arguably would have been better off ruled by the US instead of distant European monarchies or "Ok you're free now" suddenly putting slaves in charge of everything, like Haiti. But instead we just took Puerto Rico and nothing else because... that's just the way it is, I guess.
Their brand is nowhere near as strong as it was 10 years ago. Rivian is the new "cool" EV company, while Kia, Hyundai, Ford, and GM offer perfectly good normie alternatives. They had the dream of being apple, selling for twice the price of anyone else, but I don't see that happening.
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