> Economists, board members, bankers, c-level execs - the shot callers of the world are much less clever and equipped to lead than they collectively think they are.
I completely agree with this, but disagree that Musk is constructively channeling his creativity and nonconformity here. He's trying to pivot from a niche product for tech enthusiasts to a mass market car, with a client base whose first questions will be about the car's reliability, not how quickly it can go 0 - 60. A guy who flies off to Thailand, accuses people of being pedophiles, curses out journalists, and yes, smokes a huge blunt during an interview, does not inspire confidence to most people at a time when his company is hemorrhaging cash, straining to meet production goals, slashing investments in the future, and losing senior execs left and right.
If Tesla was humming along it'd be one thing to have more of this edge, but to me this looks like a slow motion breakdown prompted by deep problems at his company.
Agree with Jacques M on solar, and would also add that much of the battery tech is Panasonic's and self-driving is a long ways away from being road-ready.
"Shorts" didn't cause the CEO to invent a $420/share offer for the company out of whole cloth, nor did they force him to smoke a blunt on video. The mental gymnastics you have to do not see the red flags here, completely the result of the CEO's actions and mismanagement, is something.
"Wall Street" is not betting on them to go bankrupt. Collectively, investors value this company that produces, at best, 7K cars a week at $45 billion. The idea that one quarter of profitability achieved through slashing capex to the bone fundamentally would fundamentally change their valuation doesn't carry much water in my view.
Protectionism would benefit some U.S. farmers, but certainly not all. The U.S. is a net exporter of corn, soybeans, dairy, etc. to Mexico and they are our third largest agricultural export market.
I'm not sure they vision you're describing is the direction private equity would take it, but with the major tech buyers shying away it does seem like a private exit is the most likely way this ends.
It turns out Pew found the opposite in their 2016 poll of global opinion of the United States. Favorability of the U.S. increased from 50% favorable to 57% in Germany from 2015 - 2016, while unfavorable views declined from 42% to 38%.
If you haven't seen "a shred" of NYT coverage of Hillary's email scandals then all that means is you haven't looked for it. They covered it ad nauseum.
Please, the media covers Hillary extensively and it is almost always negative. This story is a great example - tantalizing headlines about impropriety but then actually nothing that really indicates wrongdoing. People that ran charities got meetings with the Secretary of State -- what is the scandal here?
While there is certainly a credentialed labor issue in higher education, we don't exactly have a shortage of PhDs and it's not like there has been a rapid ramping up in compensation for professors. In fact it has been the opposite as colleges have moved to use more adjuncts who have far fewer protections than tenured professors and yet the costs continue to rise unabated.
In healthcare too I don't think the credentialing of doctors and nurses is the predominant reason for why healthcare is so expensive. It is rather a complex mix of tremendous overhead and administrative costs, drug/device monopolies, over-consumption of medical services, etc.
“Over the past two years we’ve been focused on growth, operational excellence, and customer satisfaction with a primary focus on profitability,” AptDeco’s co-founder Kalam Dennis told TechCrunch. “We have spoken with Move Loot regarding their interest in an acquisition. Ultimately we’re only interested in opportunities that align with the previously mentioned strategic goals.”
Ouch. Add it to the list of on-demand services that don't scale very well.
I completely agree with this, but disagree that Musk is constructively channeling his creativity and nonconformity here. He's trying to pivot from a niche product for tech enthusiasts to a mass market car, with a client base whose first questions will be about the car's reliability, not how quickly it can go 0 - 60. A guy who flies off to Thailand, accuses people of being pedophiles, curses out journalists, and yes, smokes a huge blunt during an interview, does not inspire confidence to most people at a time when his company is hemorrhaging cash, straining to meet production goals, slashing investments in the future, and losing senior execs left and right.
If Tesla was humming along it'd be one thing to have more of this edge, but to me this looks like a slow motion breakdown prompted by deep problems at his company.