4 ms·

The thing is fundamentals really don't matter. TSLA and SPCX aren't paying dividends so there's no real performance they have to hit, no one is going to miss a

by mixdup 4mo ago

The thing is fundamentals really don't matter. TSLA and SPCX aren't paying dividends so there's no real performance they have to hit, no one is going to miss a dividend payment and dump the stock. The Elong vibes can carry it as long as people keep smoking what he's selling The real question is, when does that run out of steam? When do we wake up to the charade that has built up around us? That's a much bigger thing than just Elon and his businesses. Like someone else said, when the next crisis/downturn/depression hits the house of cards will fall. Unfortunately it will hit all of us not just people in the meme stocks

criddell 4mo ago
Would you say the same thing about Bitcoin? Will that house of cards all fall in the next crisis/downturn/depression?
- lokar 4mo ago
  Hasn’t it crashed in every economic downturn and financial panic so far?
  - criddell 4mo ago
    Not really, no. A decade ago it was under $1000 and has never been that low since. It's peak price is only about 2x the current price.
    - lokar 4mo ago
      Isn’t a 50% reduction pretty bad? And being higher over 10 years has little to do with it if acts counter cyclical to stocks and other assets.
      - tasuki 4mo ago
        Is it bad? Isn't 60x in 10 years still kind of ok? The things I invested in ten years ago didn't return 60x since.
        lokar 4mo ago
        Again, the original argument was that it was like gold, and provided a hedge against equities.
        criddell 4mo ago
        Who argued that? In 2008 Bitcoin was proposed as a peer-to-peer digital cash system. The comparison to gold didn't really take off until years later.
        lokar 4mo ago
        I mean the original thing I replied to. The idea that it was a stable or anti-cyclical store of value emerged after it became clear the payments stuff was not working.
        fluoridation 4mo ago
        As the sibling says, the original value proposition of Bitcoin was that it would supplant Paypal and wire transfers. The store of value narrative was a post hoc rationalization by stakeholders when it became clear that it was technically unsuited to serve Internet-wide throughputs. Not only that. I sat in during the meetings around the time of the segwit transition; I think they were debating making the blocks bigger or something. It was amazing to see first-hand how such a relatively minor and technically necessary change could generate so much friction. That was when I realized Bitcoin was never going to evolve in a useful direction, and sevenish years on I see that I was correct, as the block structure is pretty much the same as the last time I saw it.
        lokar 4mo ago
        Yeah, now both the first and second rationalization have fallen.
      - throw0101c 4mo ago
        > And being higher over 10 years has little to do with it if acts counter cyclical to stocks and other assets. BTC has been called many things at many different times. It was originally a payment system: > A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. * https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf And it can still be used for that, however the transaction throughput is tiny, and so it became a store of value in essence: but it's kind of hard to be that when the value swings up and won so much. While "fiat" currency inflation is annoying, it is, generally, fairly predictable in most cases (<4%) and so you can plan ahead with regards to future value and purchase. The same is hardly true of BTC.
    - thisisit 4mo ago
      There is some misunderstanding of what a crash really is. It doesn't necessarily mean that things get written down to 0 or some arbitrary level because everything has a price at which someone will buy. Even companies have some value after a crash and you could make a case that at some arbitrary point it was worth $x and since the crash didn't cause the company to crater to below $x it has not "crashed". Even companies filing for bankruptcy have some residual value above what they might have been founded on - it doesn't mean the company hasn't gone bankrupt.
      - lokar 4mo ago
        Yeah, I certainly did not mean go to zero, or near that. To be more specific, I have often seen people argue for including crypto in a portfolio based on the theory that if equities drop a lot (25, 30%?) crypto will hold or go up. People make the same argument for gold.
- senordevnyc 4mo ago
  To me the difference is that BTC's continued value isn't predicated on the actions of one person, who has continually proven himself to be childish, mercurial, and dishonest.
- mixdup 4mo ago
  I personally think Bitcoin will eventually peter out, and that it's fairly risky as it has definitely been pushed by vibes and promotion and everyone wanting to get in on it I mean that can apply to anything. There's nothing intrinsic about gold that makes it valuable other than it's rare, but there's plenty of things that are relatively rare that aren't valuable. Yes there's industrial uses of gold but that's not why we as a society and a species treat it as valuable Maybe bitcoin is the new gold and will hold value forever, and as more serious people get into it, it will lose its volatility and be less subject to the vibes shifting and there being a run on the market. Maybe not It is different from Elong stocks, though, because the myth of Satoshi aside, it's not exactly a cult of personality like his companies are
lossolo 4mo ago
If you exclude dividend paying stocks, then the entire stock market starts to look like a giant pyramid scheme casino.
- ethbr1 4mo ago
  No, there are a huge number of companies that are valued reasonably for their revenue / profitability / growth. There's basically two stock markets: things valued on fundamentals and things valued on vibes. And I don't think there's ever going to be a unified theory of value that can span both, because the former is quantitative and the latter is psychology.
- throw0101c 4mo ago
  > If you exclude dividend paying stocks, then the entire stock market starts to look like a giant pyramid scheme casino. Stocks can start paying dividends in the future: MSFT did not in the past, and does now. AAPL did, stopped in the 1990s, and started doing so again. You should be indifferent to the company's dividend scheme since it's the underlying business activity that drives total returns, and not its distribution policy. There is all sorts of magical thinking when it comes to dividends: * https://canadiancouchpotato.com/2011/01/18/debunking-dividend-myths-part-1/ https://canadiancouchpotato.com/2011/01/18/debunking-dividen... * https://pwlcapital.com/the-irrelevance-of-dividends-still-a-non-starter/ https://pwlcapital.com/the-irrelevance-of-dividends-still-a-... A pyramid scheme can run out of people to keep it going: the stock market is in a sense a 'savings scheme' for future consumption. Younger people work and turn their cash into savings, older people take their savings and turn it back into cash: as long as young people need to think about the future, and older people / retirees need to pay bills, there's a mechanism to maintain this cycle.
  - andrewflnr 4mo ago
    > it's the underlying business activity that drives total returns, and not its distribution policy That's exactly the question, though, since a lot of stocks seem priced disproportionately to their business activities.
ahcharades 4mo ago
Yes when will everyone wake up for the charade of having a monopoly on space launches? Of putting over 90% of all mass into space, of your closest competitor being the nation state of China, and they are years away from where you are right now. Ah yes, that charade, when will people learn am I right? Total genius.
- V__ 4mo ago
  Even if one assumes this is true, it still wouldn't justify the valuation.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- ben_w 4mo ago
  SpaceX are currently losing money on the "going to space" part of their business. They're making money on telecoms, and may have just started making a profit on renting out the data centres they originally built for the AI that it turned out hardly anyone wanted to actually use.
- mixdup 4mo ago
  An extreme majority of Space X's self-determined value proposition has nothing to do with space. Out of an overall TAM of $28.5 trillion, $26.5 trillion is based on AI. Personally I believe that number will actually approach zero, but it certainly even in my most optimistic view is a number with a B, not a T The total addressable market even at Space X's own calculation for space launches is only $370 billion. And, supposedly as the only company that can launch things into space they are still losing money on that business. This is bankrupt-a-casino levels of incompetence
- moogly 4mo ago
  The demand just isn't there, which is one of the reasons SpaceX is pretending they will generate more demand with their cosmic wizard spires.
philistine 4mo ago
I'm extremely cynical about the way the US government would react to any sort of financial crisis. I do not believe that they would not completely cave and bail out the AI companies and the monopolists if there is a downturn. And it's not that I don't trust the Republicans specifically. The whole political sphere is completely convinced that AI is a national security prerogative, and the cynical political atmosphere will equate national security with investor protection. Let me append the saying a bit: The US government can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent.
- fluoridation 4mo ago
  *The US government can remain irrational so you can stay solvent.
- namuol 4mo ago
  I’m pretty sure the market agrees with you.
  - philistine 4mo ago
    Unfortunately.

by mixdup 4mo ago

criddell 4mo ago

Would you say the same thing about Bitcoin? Will that house of cards all fall in the next crisis/downturn/depression?

lokar 4mo ago
Hasn’t it crashed in every economic downturn and financial panic so far?
- criddell 4mo ago
  Not really, no. A decade ago it was under $1000 and has never been that low since. It's peak price is only about 2x the current price.
  - lokar 4mo ago
    Isn’t a 50% reduction pretty bad? And being higher over 10 years has little to do with it if acts counter cyclical to stocks and other assets.
    - tasuki 4mo ago
      Is it bad? Isn't 60x in 10 years still kind of ok? The things I invested in ten years ago didn't return 60x since.
      - lokar 4mo ago
        Again, the original argument was that it was like gold, and provided a hedge against equities.
        criddell 4mo ago
        Who argued that? In 2008 Bitcoin was proposed as a peer-to-peer digital cash system. The comparison to gold didn't really take off until years later.
        lokar 4mo ago
        I mean the original thing I replied to. The idea that it was a stable or anti-cyclical store of value emerged after it became clear the payments stuff was not working.
        fluoridation 4mo ago
        As the sibling says, the original value proposition of Bitcoin was that it would supplant Paypal and wire transfers. The store of value narrative was a post hoc rationalization by stakeholders when it became clear that it was technically unsuited to serve Internet-wide throughputs. Not only that. I sat in during the meetings around the time of the segwit transition; I think they were debating making the blocks bigger or something. It was amazing to see first-hand how such a relatively minor and technically necessary change could generate so much friction. That was when I realized Bitcoin was never going to evolve in a useful direction, and sevenish years on I see that I was correct, as the block structure is pretty much the same as the last time I saw it.
        lokar 4mo ago
        Yeah, now both the first and second rationalization have fallen.
    - throw0101c 4mo ago
      > And being higher over 10 years has little to do with it if acts counter cyclical to stocks and other assets. BTC has been called many things at many different times. It was originally a payment system: > A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. * https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf And it can still be used for that, however the transaction throughput is tiny, and so it became a store of value in essence: but it's kind of hard to be that when the value swings up and won so much. While "fiat" currency inflation is annoying, it is, generally, fairly predictable in most cases (<4%) and so you can plan ahead with regards to future value and purchase. The same is hardly true of BTC.
  - thisisit 4mo ago
    There is some misunderstanding of what a crash really is. It doesn't necessarily mean that things get written down to 0 or some arbitrary level because everything has a price at which someone will buy. Even companies have some value after a crash and you could make a case that at some arbitrary point it was worth $x and since the crash didn't cause the company to crater to below $x it has not "crashed". Even companies filing for bankruptcy have some residual value above what they might have been founded on - it doesn't mean the company hasn't gone bankrupt.
    - lokar 4mo ago
      Yeah, I certainly did not mean go to zero, or near that. To be more specific, I have often seen people argue for including crypto in a portfolio based on the theory that if equities drop a lot (25, 30%?) crypto will hold or go up. People make the same argument for gold.
senordevnyc 4mo ago
To me the difference is that BTC's continued value isn't predicated on the actions of one person, who has continually proven himself to be childish, mercurial, and dishonest.
mixdup 4mo ago
I personally think Bitcoin will eventually peter out, and that it's fairly risky as it has definitely been pushed by vibes and promotion and everyone wanting to get in on it I mean that can apply to anything. There's nothing intrinsic about gold that makes it valuable other than it's rare, but there's plenty of things that are relatively rare that aren't valuable. Yes there's industrial uses of gold but that's not why we as a society and a species treat it as valuable Maybe bitcoin is the new gold and will hold value forever, and as more serious people get into it, it will lose its volatility and be less subject to the vibes shifting and there being a run on the market. Maybe not It is different from Elong stocks, though, because the myth of Satoshi aside, it's not exactly a cult of personality like his companies are

lossolo 4mo ago

If you exclude dividend paying stocks, then the entire stock market starts to look like a giant pyramid scheme casino.

ethbr1 4mo ago
No, there are a huge number of companies that are valued reasonably for their revenue / profitability / growth. There's basically two stock markets: things valued on fundamentals and things valued on vibes. And I don't think there's ever going to be a unified theory of value that can span both, because the former is quantitative and the latter is psychology.
throw0101c 4mo ago
> If you exclude dividend paying stocks, then the entire stock market starts to look like a giant pyramid scheme casino. Stocks can start paying dividends in the future: MSFT did not in the past, and does now. AAPL did, stopped in the 1990s, and started doing so again. You should be indifferent to the company's dividend scheme since it's the underlying business activity that drives total returns, and not its distribution policy. There is all sorts of magical thinking when it comes to dividends: * https://canadiancouchpotato.com/2011/01/18/debunking-dividend-myths-part-1/ https://canadiancouchpotato.com/2011/01/18/debunking-dividen... * https://pwlcapital.com/the-irrelevance-of-dividends-still-a-non-starter/ https://pwlcapital.com/the-irrelevance-of-dividends-still-a-... A pyramid scheme can run out of people to keep it going: the stock market is in a sense a 'savings scheme' for future consumption. Younger people work and turn their cash into savings, older people take their savings and turn it back into cash: as long as young people need to think about the future, and older people / retirees need to pay bills, there's a mechanism to maintain this cycle.
- andrewflnr 4mo ago
  > it's the underlying business activity that drives total returns, and not its distribution policy That's exactly the question, though, since a lot of stocks seem priced disproportionately to their business activities.

ahcharades 4mo ago

Yes when will everyone wake up for the charade of having a monopoly on space launches? Of putting over 90% of all mass into space, of your closest competitor being the nation state of China, and they are years away from where you are right now. Ah yes, that charade, when will people learn am I right? Total genius.

V__ 4mo ago
Even if one assumes this is true, it still wouldn't justify the valuation.
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
ben_w 4mo ago
SpaceX are currently losing money on the "going to space" part of their business. They're making money on telecoms, and may have just started making a profit on renting out the data centres they originally built for the AI that it turned out hardly anyone wanted to actually use.
mixdup 4mo ago
An extreme majority of Space X's self-determined value proposition has nothing to do with space. Out of an overall TAM of $28.5 trillion, $26.5 trillion is based on AI. Personally I believe that number will actually approach zero, but it certainly even in my most optimistic view is a number with a B, not a T The total addressable market even at Space X's own calculation for space launches is only $370 billion. And, supposedly as the only company that can launch things into space they are still losing money on that business. This is bankrupt-a-casino levels of incompetence
moogly 4mo ago
The demand just isn't there, which is one of the reasons SpaceX is pretending they will generate more demand with their cosmic wizard spires.

philistine 4mo ago

I'm extremely cynical about the way the US government would react to any sort of financial crisis. I do not believe that they would not completely cave and bail out the AI companies and the monopolists if there is a downturn. And it's not that I don't trust the Republicans specifically. The whole political sphere is completely convinced that AI is a national security prerogative, and the cynical political atmosphere will equate national security with investor protection. Let me append the saying a bit: The US government can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent.

fluoridation 4mo ago
*The US government can remain irrational so you can stay solvent.
namuol 4mo ago
I’m pretty sure the market agrees with you.
- philistine 4mo ago
  Unfortunately.