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This year has been absolutely amazing for Union drives: https://aflcio.org/formaunion/union-organizing-wins https://aflcio.org/formaunion/union-organizing-wins

This year has been absolutely amazing for Union drives: https://aflcio.org/formaunion/union-organizing-wins https://aflcio.org/formaunion/union-organizing-wins Anyone who is rightfully dissatisfied with the share of value they own compared to capital should be unionizing to seize the means from them

kbolino 3y ago
Growing tensions with the PRC have been essential for this. If VW had to compete with BYD, I doubt the former would survive.
- mattmaroon 3y ago
  Elon is right, tariffs are going to be necessary if we don’t want to cede the auto industry to China, and I cannot imagine we do. It’s really hard to compete with nearly slave labor.
  - Rinzler89 3y ago
    That same slave labor is the reason why so many western companies moved their factories to China in the first place form 1978 when China open to international business and leaving a working class of people without jobs, and VW was one of the first to open a factory there. Funny how we never saw the usage of Chinese slave labor as an issue warranting tariffs when it made western companies huge profits and leaving westerners jobless, but only when they have to face with the new Chinese competitors and loose profits do they cry wolf. Hypocrisy much?
    - mattmaroon 3y ago
      I’m not sure it’s hypocrisy so much as pure self-interest. It would be hypocrisy if the complaint was actually about the condition of Chinese workers. Few really care about that unless they’re jumping out of windows, and most not even then. In both cases, it’s just capitalists wanting to make money. It may be awful but it’s at least consistent.
    - kbolino 3y ago
      Three generations, several Presidential administrations, and a few massive shifts in geopolitical realities later, it's more amazing how much continuity there has been in policy than how "hypocritical" a bunch of totally different people are to each other.
  - impossiblefork 3y ago
    I don't think the problem is slave labour. I think it's just that the Chinese companies don't seem to care about undercutting themselves, and will instead sell as much as they can to whoever will buy. I can go on Alibaba and buy batteries directly from Eve Energy Co for reasonable prices-- batteries that I could stick in my homebuilt electric car, or do exactly whatever I wanted with. I can buy synthetic crystals, quartz, yttria stabilized zirconia monocrystals, sapphire boules, etc. In the west all these things are locked up. You can't buy them if you're an ordinary person, so no one buys them to experiment on. A western car manufacturer wouldn't sell batteries to an individual, nor would his supplier. But in China they don't care, if you pay, you get it. Of course, upon all this, they're also strategic. The government actually analyses things and figures out critical technologies for the future and makes sure that a decent number of people are working seriously on them, that they do this as a job, and with the intent of actually realising large-scale production with real impact.
    - sangnoir 3y ago
      > Of course, upon all this, they're also strategic. The Chinese government set out to build EVs in 1994 - GM was already well advanced on their electric vehicle (the EV1, which launched in 1996). However, GM discontinued the EV1[1] in 1999, but the Chinese government stayed the course. No publicly listed American company can stay on-task on a project that will only bear fruit in 30 years; long-term projects are the first to be lose funding when there are macro-economic headwinds; see multiple Google X projects, and Google is/was one of the better companies at attempting long-term projects. Hell, even government agencies like NASA struggle with projects that span more than one presidential administration. 1. Incidentally, the Tesla co-founders were inspired to start Tesla by the EV1 - which is why referencing traditional automotive OEMs as "dinosaurs" is laughable
verteu 3y ago
Are VW's shareholders actually doing well? It seems Volkswagen stock is down -16.23% last-5-years, and trading at a price-to-book ratio of 0.39. I'm not an accountant, but with such a low P/B ratio, is there a chance the company gets bought out and liquidated for its assets, costing everyone's jobs? For comparison: Ford trades at price-to-book ratio of 1.13 and is up 16.62% last-5-years (still not much better than the risk-free rate). And long-term TSLA shareholders, of course, have made incredible profits. https://ycharts.com/companies/VLKAF/price_to_book_value https://ycharts.com/companies/VLKAF/price_to_book_value https://ycharts.com/companies/F/price_to_book_value https://ycharts.com/companies/F/price_to_book_value
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  There is literally no connection between stock price and value to labor and customers from the activities of the business VW would be better off as a worker owned cooperative and have no stock price There was a time before the stock market created the mechanism to decouple labor from production The plan now is to create the inverted stock market - returning capital to its rightful owner
- srockets 3y ago
  It bears repeating that Tesla isn't in the same category: their main value is in their stock price, not stamped metal and batteries, or even the knowledge in assembling those into vehicles.
  - Rinzler89 3y ago
    >Tesla isn't in the same category: their main value is in their stock price, So it's like Bitcoin. It's worth a lot because a lot of people believe it's worth a lot.
    - srockets 3y ago
      This is true for any stock. The difference between speculation and investment is what drives that belief in future worth of the assest.

kbolino 3y ago

Growing tensions with the PRC have been essential for this. If VW had to compete with BYD, I doubt the former would survive.

mattmaroon 3y ago
Elon is right, tariffs are going to be necessary if we don’t want to cede the auto industry to China, and I cannot imagine we do. It’s really hard to compete with nearly slave labor.
- Rinzler89 3y ago
  That same slave labor is the reason why so many western companies moved their factories to China in the first place form 1978 when China open to international business and leaving a working class of people without jobs, and VW was one of the first to open a factory there. Funny how we never saw the usage of Chinese slave labor as an issue warranting tariffs when it made western companies huge profits and leaving westerners jobless, but only when they have to face with the new Chinese competitors and loose profits do they cry wolf. Hypocrisy much?
  - mattmaroon 3y ago
    I’m not sure it’s hypocrisy so much as pure self-interest. It would be hypocrisy if the complaint was actually about the condition of Chinese workers. Few really care about that unless they’re jumping out of windows, and most not even then. In both cases, it’s just capitalists wanting to make money. It may be awful but it’s at least consistent.
  - kbolino 3y ago
    Three generations, several Presidential administrations, and a few massive shifts in geopolitical realities later, it's more amazing how much continuity there has been in policy than how "hypocritical" a bunch of totally different people are to each other.
- impossiblefork 3y ago
  I don't think the problem is slave labour. I think it's just that the Chinese companies don't seem to care about undercutting themselves, and will instead sell as much as they can to whoever will buy. I can go on Alibaba and buy batteries directly from Eve Energy Co for reasonable prices-- batteries that I could stick in my homebuilt electric car, or do exactly whatever I wanted with. I can buy synthetic crystals, quartz, yttria stabilized zirconia monocrystals, sapphire boules, etc. In the west all these things are locked up. You can't buy them if you're an ordinary person, so no one buys them to experiment on. A western car manufacturer wouldn't sell batteries to an individual, nor would his supplier. But in China they don't care, if you pay, you get it. Of course, upon all this, they're also strategic. The government actually analyses things and figures out critical technologies for the future and makes sure that a decent number of people are working seriously on them, that they do this as a job, and with the intent of actually realising large-scale production with real impact.
  - sangnoir 3y ago
    > Of course, upon all this, they're also strategic. The Chinese government set out to build EVs in 1994 - GM was already well advanced on their electric vehicle (the EV1, which launched in 1996). However, GM discontinued the EV1[1] in 1999, but the Chinese government stayed the course. No publicly listed American company can stay on-task on a project that will only bear fruit in 30 years; long-term projects are the first to be lose funding when there are macro-economic headwinds; see multiple Google X projects, and Google is/was one of the better companies at attempting long-term projects. Hell, even government agencies like NASA struggle with projects that span more than one presidential administration. 1. Incidentally, the Tesla co-founders were inspired to start Tesla by the EV1 - which is why referencing traditional automotive OEMs as "dinosaurs" is laughable

verteu 3y ago

Are VW's shareholders actually doing well? It seems Volkswagen stock is down -16.23% last-5-years, and trading at a price-to-book ratio of 0.39. I'm not an accountant, but with such a low P/B ratio, is there a chance the company gets bought out and liquidated for its assets, costing everyone's jobs? For comparison: Ford trades at price-to-book ratio of 1.13 and is up 16.62% last-5-years (still not much better than the risk-free rate). And long-term TSLA shareholders, of course, have made incredible profits. https://ycharts.com/companies/VLKAF/price_to_book_value https://ycharts.com/companies/VLKAF/price_to_book_value https://ycharts.com/companies/F/price_to_book_value https://ycharts.com/companies/F/price_to_book_value

AndrewKemendo 3y ago
There is literally no connection between stock price and value to labor and customers from the activities of the business VW would be better off as a worker owned cooperative and have no stock price There was a time before the stock market created the mechanism to decouple labor from production The plan now is to create the inverted stock market - returning capital to its rightful owner
srockets 3y ago
It bears repeating that Tesla isn't in the same category: their main value is in their stock price, not stamped metal and batteries, or even the knowledge in assembling those into vehicles.
- Rinzler89 3y ago
  >Tesla isn't in the same category: their main value is in their stock price, So it's like Bitcoin. It's worth a lot because a lot of people believe it's worth a lot.
  - srockets 3y ago
    This is true for any stock. The difference between speculation and investment is what drives that belief in future worth of the assest.