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You don't get to be Musk level without reaching your hands deep into the pockets of other people and taking it for yourself. All you have to do is look at the p
by MisterBastahrd 2y ago
You don't get to be Musk level without reaching your hands deep into the pockets of other people and taking it for yourself. All you have to do is look at the propaganda surrounding "PPP loans" versus the money given out to stretch people's paychecks during the pandemic. Most businesses weren't affected in any substantial way, but governments still gave away trillions, and the companies got to keep the money. Meanwhile, we're supposed to hate ole Jimbob because he's poor, his hours were cut, and he received a $1200 check.
- m463 2y ago> reaching your hands deep into the pockets of other people I think you're right, but not in that way. Tesla charged wealthy people a lot for the original tesla roadster. Then they took what they learned and charged wealthy people a lot for a better car, the original model S. Then the X. He continued reaching into the pockets of wealthy people for further updates to the model S/X, updating the motor, then motors. Now the model 3 and Y are available for less wealthy people. I'm sure the next generation of tesla cars will be more affordable, maybe even Jimbob.
- Jensson 2y agoAnd most important: Wealthy people invested into Tesla stock hype, that is where most of Musks money comes from.
- schmidtleonard 2y agoIf you want to understand the problems, spend less time worrying about the parts of the economy where over time you pay less and get more, and spend more time worrying about the parts of the economy where over time you pay more and get less. That's where it's broken. Health care, housing, education.
- swaginator 2y ago> He continued reaching into the pockets of wealthy people I'd argue he used subsidies from the government, both direct and indirect. Buyers get a tax credit for electric cars. SolarCity received hundreds of millions of dollars in direct grants from different state governments, I believe this all went to Tesla. Tesla's high curb weight causes more damage to roads. Tesla's lack of unionization means that it relies on mistreatment of workers to get its cars made. There are a lot of examples of Musk taking money both directly and indirectly from those who are not in his customer base. I won't argue whether or not Tesla has been a net benefit or not for the USA, but the result of this is that Musk can point to his company's success and marketing to pump the share price-- and he is now attempting to dump it. The sneaky thing about inequality is that a lot of the direct costs are externalized. Musk can still appear "self-made" when he has externalized so many of his costs to the taxpayer and his workers.
- Jensson 2y ago> Buyers get a tax credit for electric cars. SolarCity received hundreds of millions of dollars in direct grants from different state governments, I believe this all went to Tesla. Those cars wouldn't have been made or bought without those grants, the grants offset the extra cost of electric cars so they didn't put money into anyone's pockets, its just the government investing in getting electrification happen earlier. Without them that money the profits would just have went to combustion car manufacturers instead like before.
- specialist 2y agoSure. But acknowledging the source of the investments would be swell. And it's a bit cheeky to be vehemently against govt and taxes after being one of the largest beneficiaries of said govt.
- swaginator 2y agoYep! It's not a bad thing at all, it just ought to be acknowledged.
- refurb 2y agoThis is a bizarre way to look at a private transaction for a luxury good. Nobody needs a Tesla. If a wealthy person pays $100k for a car, it’s because they think it’s worth $100k. If the price later drops to $80k, that’s not money out of the first persons pocket. They were willing to trade $100k for a car they wanted. And by this very logic, lowering the price of goods over time is bad. What a insane world we’d live in if that were true.
- m463 2y ago> Nobody needs a Tesla. But does everybody need another 100 years of gasoline cars? It probably is a bizarre way to look at things, but the wealthy people are paying to develop EVs, then the not so wealthy to develop even more practical cars and so on until they are practical for normal folks. And they reach price parity with ICE cars. People have been saying that the economical/low impact car to buy is a used car that was already built. Now you can buy used teslas.
- refurb 2y ago> You don't get to be Musk level without reaching your hands deep into the pockets of other people and taking it for yourself. There was no "reaching into others pocket". It's a luxury car, not a fire extinguisher being sold to a guy on fire. People reached into their own pocket and handed him cash. Voluntarily. For something they wanted. Then Elon sold off pieces of his company to people who reached into their pockets and handed him cash for it. Voluntarily. Because they wanted it. It's one of the least coercise set of transactions I can possibly think of.
- dventimi 2y agoAnd it created homeless people in San Francisco.
- schmidtleonard 2y agoYep. $2T printed into the real estate market, $1T to Wall St, $800b to stimulus checks... and the latter catches 100% of the blame, though it always seems to be people benefiting from #1 or #2 doing the talking. In every mixed economy, there's a capital side and a labor side. Rich people getting paid for owning things, poor people getting paid for working. There's a healthy tension there, but for the last 50 years capital has been kicking the shit out of labor and it's really starting to show.
- Manuel_D 2y agoThis kind of zero-sum thinking - then notion that accumulation of wealth necessarily means it must have been taken from others - is extremely detrimental to society.
- dventimi 2y agoIt is zero sum: there are finite goods and services in the world, and we're all competing for them. There are losers and winners. "That's just zero sum thinking" has been the smokescreen for gullible people for at least fifty years.
- Manuel_D 2y agoNo, goods and services are not finite. This is just patently false. How many automobiles existed in 1800? How many jey liners existed in 1900? How many smartphones existed in 1950? The pool of goods grows in absolute terms. It's not just goods, services too grow in absolute terms. We invented radio in 1900 (ish) and introduced a wholly novel set of services. Before photography, in order to get one's likeness recorded you had to sit for a portrait painter. After practical photography was developed, portraits became much more accessible. I could go on. Humanity is increasing the pool of goods and services in absolute terms all the time.
- cool_dude85 2y agoBuddy. Are you really trying to say that there can exist infinite goods and services in a finite universe? Growing is not the same as infinite.
- Manuel_D 2y agoSure, it's finite in that it's can't grow with literally no limit: there's a fixed amount of mass an energy in the universe. But the above commenter states that goods and services are zero-sum, which is not true. Goods and services do grow in absolute terms. His whole thesis is that accumulation of wealth necessarily entails the depravation of others. This is not at all true: wealthy can and does grow in absolute terms.