Is Tesla TOAST ?

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

A..in what way is that a "mini-submarine"? Does it have capabilities that aren't readily apparent? It appears to be just a watertight tube with handles and a tube for air supply.

It's better than any submarine I could build in that time-frame, so maybe I shouldn't criticize. But still, it has no propulsion, steering, viewing capabilities.

When the boys on the soccer team were stuck in that cave in Thailand, Musk made a show of quickly trying to build a little rescue submarine.
It was never used and nobody knows if it would have worked, but he added a feather to his cap for having offered to help.

[touchring]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

Is this a serious post or intended to be funny? I don't know that I've met a person that loves both Trump and Musk. Maybe it shouldn't be surprising, but it seems like they have totally separate fan bases.

As an aside, in what way is that a "mini-submarine"? Does it have capabilities that aren't readily apparent? It appears to be just a watertight tube with handles and a tube for air supply.

It's better than any submarine I could build in that time-frame, so maybe I shouldn't criticize. But still, it has no propulsion, steering, viewing capabilities.

I'll be very direct. The deep state (bankers) trash both Trump and Musk because they pose a threat to their power. The deep state doesn't want an America that makes things because they want to control America, use it to undermine Russia that threatens their banker friends in Eastern Europe.

The job of America is just to incur more debt, consume products, not make them, that's the job of the Chinese and Germans, and to supply youths to fight Russia and their allies.

[DSpencer]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

When the boys on the soccer team were stuck in that cave in Thailand, Musk made a show of quickly trying to build a little rescue submarine.
It was never used and nobody knows if it would have worked, but he added a feather to his cap for having offered to help.

I followed the story, I just hadn't yet seen a close-up picture of the actual "sub". Saying it is a submarine built from rocket parts makes it sound high-tech, this just isn't what I expected.

[DSpencer]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

I'll be very direct. The deep state (bankers) trash both Trump and Musk because they pose a threat to their power. The deep state doesn't want an America that makes things because they want to control America, use it to undermine Russia that threatens their banker friends in Eastern Europe.

The job of America is just to incur more debt, consume products, not make them, that's the job of the Chinese and Germans, and to supply youths to fight Russia and their allies.

For being a threat to the bankers, Musk sure has managed to raise a hell of a lot of money.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

For being a threat to the bankers, Musk sure has managed to raise a hell of a lot of money.

+1. Without Wall Street, there is no Musk. Without Deutsche Bank, there is no Trump.

[jk]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

credit default insurance on $10mil of tesla debt now costs $2mil.

[GRG55]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

I'll be very direct. The deep state (bankers) trash both Trump and Musk because they pose a threat to their power. The deep state doesn't want an America that makes things because they want to control America, use it to undermine Russia that threatens their banker friends in Eastern Europe.

The job of America is just to incur more debt, consume products, not make them, that's the job of the Chinese and Germans, and to supply youths to fight Russia and their allies.

I'll be very direct. I think the dark conspiracy currently known as the "deep state" fits right in with the concepts of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.

Elon Musk is a genius for figuring out one thing, and one thing only. In this financialized world it takes a BIG Story to raise BIG Capital. The way to go from raising hundreds of $millions to many $Billions from Silicon Valley VCs and New England private equity is to make the story ever more fantastical. Even better, make it three or four or five interwoven fantastical stories.

Gigafactories, PowerWalls (unlike the Trumpian wall), Superchargers, Flamethrowers, Ludicrous Mode, instant Submarines, rockets to foreign planets, Hyperloops and so much more, ALL of it larger than life. Even the contradictions go unquestioned - we are going to save this planet driving electric cars and plastering SolarCity shingles on our roofs, but there's also an urgent need to colonize Mars. Hedging our bets are we?

Go ahead and take your profitable, positive cash flowing & solid balance sheet two or three year old enterprise, built on you & your partner's/family's risk capital and sweat equity and try to raise $5 million or $10 million to scale it. Good luck. Today the answer you are most likely to get is "Come back when you need $100 million". In other words "We need a BIGGER story boy". A much bigger story.

Tesla Roadsters to Mars anyone?

[GRG55]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

The thing I'll never understand about this mentality is how easily people fall for the idea that a great businessman is also a great scientist and a great engineer and a great politician and a great designer etc. etc.

No man can be all these things. Especially in large capital endeavors. Long gone are the days of Da Vinci. But still his myth persists.

I've even known engineers, who, despite the fact they have respect for their own field and education, simply insist that Musk is an engineer, despite the fact the man has taken zero engineering classes. Funner still, ask what kind. He's a software engineer and a mechanical engineer. Also electrical. Just pure genius. Probably biomedical too. The man does it all. He's magic!

Malarkey. Nobody is all that. This is just another rich boy whose daddy owned a colonial African emerald mine and shunted him cash for a world-class education and a startup in the dotcom boom. Very slick at business and PR, his actual fields of study, he got Paypal to buy up his stuff. Then he bought, not founded, Tesla. Not a calling. Not a maniacal genius engineer. Just a businessman. A very successful one who has done very well for himself. But nothing more.

Probably he should leave the submarines to General Dynamics next time. Or not use a tragedy to buy himself PR then call the actual heroes pedophiles when they call him out on it. But propaganda is powerful and he's spending god knows what making sure he shows up at the top of every social media feed and google search result and news item. "No money on advertising" my ass. The man has literally spent so much he has convinced millions of people he's a god. And he's not the only one.

I have long considered lottery tickets as a tax on poor people.
I wonder if the capital notes of the fantastical creations of Musk and his peers (Elizabeth Holmes comes to mind) are the equivalent for wealthy people?

[touchring]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

I'll be very direct. I think the dark conspiracy currently known as the "deep state" fits right in with the concepts of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.

Elon Musk is a genius for figuring out one thing, and one thing only. In this financialized world it takes a BIG Story to raise BIG Capital. The way to go from raising hundreds of $millions to many $Billions from Silicon Valley VCs and New England private equity is to make the story ever more fantastical. Even better, make it three or four or five interwoven fantastical stories.

Gigafactories, PowerWalls (unlike the Trumpian wall), Superchargers, Flamethrowers, Ludicrous Mode, instant Submarines, rockets to foreign planets, Hyperloops and so much more, ALL of it larger than life. Even the contradictions go unquestioned - we are going to save this planet driving electric cars and plastering SolarCity shingles on our roofs, but there's also an urgent need to colonize Mars. Hedging our bets are we?

Go ahead and take your profitable, positive cash flowing & solid balance sheet two or three year old enterprise, built on you & your partner's/family's risk capital and sweat equity and try to raise $5 million or $10 million to scale it. Good luck. Today the answer you are most likely to get is "Come back when you need $100 million". In other words "We need a BIGGER story boy". A much bigger story.

Tesla Roadsters to Mars anyone?

I see why we see things differently. You're seeing it in terms of profit while I'm seeing it as a progress of mankind and technology.

In today's world, it's a million times more profitable to engage in businesses that creates no value to mankind - worst still, waste electricity and resources, such as bitcoin mining..

That being said, I'm not endorsing Tesla stock, I think it's very priced, just like every technology stock out there.

[jk]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

I have long considered lottery tickets as a tax on poor people.
I wonder if the capital notes of the fantastical creations of Musk and his peers (Elizabeth Holmes comes to mind) are the equivalent for wealthy people?

the selected post below is from court documents. also see the lead-in re: the timing of false statements and the sale of corp bonds

https://twitter.com/CVCResearch/status/1021773585025617926

[jk]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

More



Deepak CFO Retweeted J Pierpont Morgan
"5 year credit default swaps on Lehman Brothers rose 135 basis points to a record 610 basis points on Wednesday, or $610,000 a year to protect $10 million of debt"spreads to insure $TSLA bonds are worse than they were for Lehman in Sep 2008. Great!

[dcarrigg]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

I have long considered lottery tickets as a tax on poor people.
I wonder if the capital notes of the fantastical creations of Musk and his peers (Elizabeth Holmes comes to mind) are the equivalent for wealthy people?

Reminds me of Keynes' Beauty Contest. You can go up multiple orders of abstraction when rationalizing why to buy into these things. You might buy because you believe the god/da vinci mythos. You might buy because you believe enough people believe the mythos that they'll inflate the stock. You might buy because you believe that enough people believe that enough people believe the mythos that they'll inflate the stock....etc....etc...or you might just buy because you figure there's a bigger fool you can pawn the bag off on in the end. Probably there are people operating on all these levels, and probably a fair number of them will make money. But it's more wildcat speculation than anything.

Anyways, also reminds me of this tune...

[Woodsman]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

I'll be very direct. I think the dark conspiracy currently known as the "deep state" fits right in with the concepts of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy...

Ah, but by this whistling past the graveyard, it seems you do believe in ghosts.

The Counterintelligence state (sometimes also called intelligence state, securocracy or spookocracy) is a state where the state security service penetrates and permeates all societal institutions, including the military.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] The term has been applied by historians and political commentators to the former Soviet Union, the former German Democratic Republic, Cuba after the 1959 revolution, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, post-Soviet Russia under Vladimir Putin and the United States of America, especially after the Global surveillance disclosures.

&

A state within a state or a deep state is a political situation in a country when an internal organ ("deep state"), such as the armed forces or public authorities (intelligence agencies, police, secret police, administrative agencies, and branches of government bureaucracy), does not respond to the civilian political leadership. Although the state within a state can be conspiratorial in nature, the deep state can also take the form of entrenched unelected career civil servants acting in a non-conspiratorial manner, to further their own interests (e.g. continuity of the state as distinct from the administration, job security, enhanced power and authority, pursuit of ideological goals and objectives, and the general growth of their agency) and in opposition to the policies of elected officials, by obstructing, resisting, and subverting the policies, conditions and directives of elected officials. The term, like many in politics, derives from the Greek language (κράτος εν κράτει, kratos en kratei, later adopted into Latin as imperium in imperio or status in statu).

&

In Turkey there is a popular belief that the Counter-Guerrilla are responsible for numerous unsolved acts of violence, and have exerted great influence over the country's Cold War history, most notably for engendering the military coups of 1971 and 1980.

The military accepts that the ÖKK is tasked with subverting a possible invasion, though it denies that the unit is Gladio's "Counter-Guerrilla", i.e., that it has engaged in "Black Operations". After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Counter-Guerrilla were used to fight the militant PKK (cf. Susurluk scandal), which has since its inception been regarded as a major threat. Mehmet Ali Agca was part of the group in the ending 1970s.

Counter-Guerilla's existence was revealed in 1971 by survivors of the Ziverbey incident, and officially on 26 September 1973 by prime minister Bülent Ecevit. Twenty days later he was shot at; he survived. The next prime minister who openly talked about such matters, Turgut Özal, also narrowly evaded an assassination attempt. The subject has been broached by parliament at least 27 times since 1990, however no successful investigation has taken place. Deputies of the incumbent party in any given administration always voted in dissent.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

Go ahead and take your profitable, positive cash flowing & solid balance sheet two or three year old enterprise, built on you & your partner's/family's risk capital and sweat equity and try to raise $5 million or $10 million to scale it. Good luck. Today the answer you are most likely to get is "Come back when you need $100 million". In other words "We need a BIGGER story boy". A much bigger story.

Tesla Roadsters to Mars anyone?

We run in parallel agreement on a lot of things, but I would differ a good bit with you here.

During the last bunch of years I’ve been immersed on both sides of seed startup stage companies.

Access to capital for startups has never been easier, so much so that too much capital has been chasing too few good ideas/founders with clearly defined problems and viable solutions.

In the 60’s/70’s/80’s there were a lot of good ideas and not much risk capital.

Steve Blank’s Secret history of Silicon Valley is brilliant: https://steveblank.com/secret-history/

It even panders(comically) to Woodsman’s belief of the deep state boogeyman hiding under every rock and in every tech company.

Fast forward to today and you have Y-Combinator, a future focused entity that mashes up the concept of tech accelerator, seed investment, and startup/investment education: http://www.ycombinator.com/

The best tech business/engineering/news forum on the net: https://news.ycombinator.com/

And the best free startup education for all: https://www.startupschool.org/library

I had the chance to spend a week with YC earlier this year and heading back later this year and next.

They’ve backed Airbnb, Dropbox, Instacart, Reddit, Stripe, Twitch, Zenefits. Over $65 billion in value creation for a $7 billion raise across 1700+ companies. Even if you cut the value creation in half, and half again it’s pretty solid.

I’m biased, but they are making the right noises, and executing...including a new form of lobbying, such as universal basic income research in California that they are underwriting for an unbiased data set.

The Wall Street infected tech sector equity markets are seperate to the seed round risk capital sector.

YC constantly harps on about rational investment rounds both to it’s YC backed founders as well as the angel community YC allows into its closed demo days(I’ve been to the last one)

My Stanford Prof Ilya Strebulaev told us 2 years ago about the overvalued unicorns(I shared it hear previously) finally published it: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insight...are-overvalued

He’s got the best data set on VC investment in the world, period. So there is a BIG problem, but there are some doing the right thing and doing well for it.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

Ah, but by this whistling past the graveyard, it seems you do believe in ghosts.



&



&

https://steveblank.com/secret-history/

I got to hang out with Steve Blank in DC for a few days just prior to the 2017 Inaugeration.

Along with his two partners(I met them at Stanford) who are retired Colonels, one of whom is now an Assistant Undersecretary of Defence.

Woooooooooo.......spoooooooooooky.

Alas, there were no secret decoder rings, code words, secret society memberships, or Cold War era unconventional warfare extrajudicial killings. Just Lean Start Up methodology applied to national security problems.

PS, the Gladio(or Turk CG franchise)narrative doesn’t add up when a Turkish cop assassinates the Russian ambassador and Erdogan and Putin wind up as BFFs.