Thought for the Day

[Stavros]

I don't want to read any more about this disgusting human being who went to Buffalo to shoot African Americans at a grocery store and murdered 10 people.

He wrote a manifesto, which I also don't want to read, and the fact that he may have live streamed his shooting is repulsive beyond words. The forums he posted on are littered with the kind of stuff that will inevitably be in his demented manifesto. Again, I don't think it's an acceptable thing to facilitate discussions among white supremacists as they share their hateful ideas and feed off of each other's stupidity. You can't keep people from talking but you don't have to make it easier for every hateful person to find their group of likeminded haters and conspire to commit similar acts of mayhem and murder.

Your anger is justified, and you have not lost the moral argument. But you have lost the process by which laws are made, and in which the Constitution is used to justify an extension, not a reduction of the firearms that can be legally obtained, or for those determined enough, illegally obtained. There is a long list of mass murders, be they targeted at people because they are Gay, Hispanic, Black or Asian, and it is therefore no surprise that the teenager in this case says he is not guilty, because in his eyes, I daresay he doesn't believe he has committed a crime.

The States you read about are on the road to independence, and there is nothing you can do about it. States Rights is no longer the base of local decision, but the precursor to State Independence or so much Autonomy Idaho may as well declare itself to be a separate country. This could just be a phase the US is going through, but who is going to reverse the process that is energising individuals to take the law into their own hands, and how can it be achieved when the Supreme Court is now dedicated to returning most if not all decisions before it, back to the State they came from?

More people are going to die. And is it not the same people who say they are 'Pro-Life' who defend the guns that kill?

[Stavros]

Last night Channel 4 in the UK aired a profile of Elon Musk. I admit I knew next to nothing about him so I was surprised to find out he was born in South Africa, but not surprised to discover he doesn't do failure, and takes a dim view of anyone who criticises his companies, especially if they work in them. What struck me most about him, is not so much his enthusiasm for space travel and the plain stupid idea that humans can populate Mars, but that I wonder if he has chosen a project that is not that difficult to achieve.

Think about it, once you have the machines and the fuel to get humans to Mars and back, all you need is a safe network of domes within which humans can live without having to wear specially designed suits. Setting aside accidents which I am sure will happen, and unforeseen environmental impacts on such a planet, as per The Martian, the project is not that hard to achieve.

Now compare the Mars missions with something closer to home: Homelessness. I wonder, does Musk not address a problem he can see every day if he lives in LA or San Francisco, because it appears to be a problem without a solution that does not bear with it the accolades that one assumes will accompany a 'manned' mission to Mars?

It has been calculated that the cost of ending homelessness in the US is $20 billion, so why don't America's billionaires agree to chip in a billion of their own money to end it? The stats are there, the justification is there, the pay-off would not just be the end of the visible signs of failure , but become part of a success story in which people without a home have a home in which they can live with dignity and one hopes, turn their lives around from whatever it is that has left them on the streets.

Maybe Musk should be more concerned with Main St than Mars. Or maybe he doesn't care.

Stats here-

"According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, it would cost $20 billion to end homelessness in the United States. That is a big number, yes, but let’s put it into perspective:

• Americans spend $19 billion a year on unplugged appliances.
• Americans spend more than $35 billion a year on gym memberships.
• The US government spent around $718 billion on its military in 2019 alone."
• How Much Would It Cost To End Homelessness In America? (globalgiving.org)

[Stavros]

"Former President Donald Trump, in a series of posts on his Truth Social platform Wednesday morning, encouraged Pennsylvania Senate candidate Mehmet Oz to "declare victory" in the Republican primary despite being deadlocked in a two-way contest with former hedge fund manager David McCormick."Dr. Oz should declare victory," the former President wrote of his endorsed candidate, instructing him to take a page from Trump's own playbook in 2020, when he declared "Frankly, we did win this election" while votes were still being counted."
Trump encourages Dr. Oz to declare victory in too-close-to-call Pennsylvania Senate race - CNNPolitics

Maybe best to scrap voting altogether, and appoint all the Senators and Representatives. Who should do this? Hmmm..The Wizard of Oz?

[broncofan]

Elon Musk owns a big chunk of a company that made about 6 billion dollars last year. The reason I put it that way is because the market cap of Tesla has ranged from 1 trillion dollars to about 650 billion dollars. And not to be pedantic but the value of a company if one isn't hoping to sell at an inflated price is the income its assets produce over time or the liquidation value of its assets if it's not a profitable company. So he does own something very valuable just based on what Tesla sells. But man he is an incredible buffoon and is behaving like an incredible buffoon every day.

He has recently been accused of offering a flight attendant on a private jet a pony in exchange for sexual favors. His response is that it's a liberal attack on him. It is so obviously the Trump playbook and such a childish non-response to the revelation that he paid a woman 250,000 dollars not to sue him and not to talk about why she's getting the money.

Musk is becoming a right wing cult figure and it's actually not hard to figure out why. People on the left will not worship him or tell him his ideas are worthwhile when they're facile and lame. People on the right will worship a man with money. But I've asked it before, who on the left who is in the market for an electric car would buy a tesla? The problem is that enough people will and the company does not have to trade at inflated valuations for him to be very very rich and obnoxious.

[broncofan]

I thought about buying put options on Tesla a month ago. But since I don't have any experience pricing options or trading options I didn't do it. But I looked at the price of the options with various expiration periods. Bill Gates had a short position in Tesla, which means he's done reasonably well in a bad market.

[MrFanti]

Elon Musk

I think it's hilarious to watch the whole thing unfold from both sides....

At first he was the darling of the left. He and his Tesla, Liberals loved him and Conservatives hated him.
Now, Liberals can't stand him and Conservatives love him!

Big question now is: Are Liberals who worshipped him going to sell their Tesla's now?

[Stavros]

I thought about buying put options on Tesla a month ago. But since I don't have any experience pricing options or trading options I didn't do it. But I looked at the price of the options with various expiration periods. Bill Gates had a short position in Tesla, which means he's done reasonably well in a bad market.

The only reason I would buy stock in Tesla is to make money, on the basis that over the next five year the company will face more competition, and be vulnerable to a takeover -that's where you make the money, on the share price you are offered by Ford or whoever is taking over, the main caveat being that Tesla's share price might have fallen so the offer would have to reflect the value of the company, not just its share price. I think when the price is right or the conditions favourable, Musk will sell up to fund some other venture, probably mining on the moon, Total Recall-type jaunts to Mars -the real one or a fake one, but definitely not ending homelessness in San Francisco, or LA, or Fremont.

Musk has said he is opposed to subsidies, but Tesla would probably not exist without them, so Tesla is little different from Chinese companies subsidized by the State. Entrepreneurs in Free markets? Ha-ha.

FT has been doing a survey -the first link is on the EV market, the second an intriguing assessment of how 'green' the EV is, and right now, not so Green, and one doesn't envy the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo which produced most of the world's Cobalt essential for EVs -they have been screwed over so many times it is hard to imagine them benefiting from the trade, though someone else will.

Tesla and subsidies
Tesla's dirty little secret: Its net profit doesn't come from selling cars (mercurynews.com)

Electric vehicles: the revolution is finally here | Financial Times (ft.com)

How green is your electric vehicle? (ft.com)

[blackchubby38]

Last night Channel 4 in the UK aired a profile of Elon Musk. I admit I knew next to nothing about him so I was surprised to find out he was born in South Africa, but not surprised to discover he doesn't do failure, and takes a dim view of anyone who criticises his companies, especially if they work in them. What struck me most about him, is not so much his enthusiasm for space travel and the plain stupid idea that humans can populate Mars, but that I wonder if he has chosen a project that is not that difficult to achieve.

Think about it, once you have the machines and the fuel to get humans to Mars and back, all you need is a safe network of domes within which humans can live without having to wear specially designed suits. Setting aside accidents which I am sure will happen, and unforeseen environmental impacts on such a planet, as per The Martian, the project is not that hard to achieve.

Now compare the Mars missions with something closer to home: Homelessness. I wonder, does Musk not address a problem he can see every day if he lives in LA or San Francisco, because it appears to be a problem without a solution that does not bear with it the accolades that one assumes will accompany a 'manned' mission to Mars?

It has been calculated that the cost of ending homelessness in the US is $20 billion, so why don't America's billionaires agree to chip in a billion of their own money to end it? The stats are there, the justification is there, the pay-off would not just be the end of the visible signs of failure , but become part of a success story in which people without a home have a home in which they can live with dignity and one hopes, turn their lives around from whatever it is that has left them on the streets.

Maybe Musk should be more concerned with Main St than Mars. Or maybe he doesn't care.

Stats here-

"According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, it would cost $20 billion to end homelessness in the United States. That is a big number, yes, but let’s put it into perspective:

• Americans spend $19 billion a year on unplugged appliances.
• Americans spend more than $35 billion a year on gym memberships.
• The US government spent around $718 billion on its military in 2019 alone."
• How Much Would It Cost To End Homelessness In America? (globalgiving.org)

Americans spend 35 million dollars a year in gym memberships, yet we are the fattest nation in the world. Go figure.

Lets say hypothetically Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg each contributed 5 billion dollars to fight homelessness in America. Are they contributing the money to the cities where homelessness is a problem and letting those local governments use that money as how they see fit. Or are they financing a private organization that will be in charge of building affordable housing, providing mental health services, sending drug addicts and alcoholics to rehab, and creating job training programs. Because to tackle a problem like homelessness, I think there has to be a cooperative effort between both the private and public sector. Especially since the latter hasn't been able to solve the problem on its own or in certain cases has made it worse.

For instance like what happened recently here in NYC. Apparently there were 2,000 vacant apartments run by the city that were specifically earmarked for homeless families. But because of staff shortages, a cumbersome application process and the typical red tape, those apartments were never filled. So instead of going to homeless shelters and screening/selecting 1,500 families and 500 single adults to house in those apartments, a committee is going to hold hearings next month to see why there was a problem in the first place. You know instead of being proactive and trying to solve the problem.

As someone who routinely reads the medical records of homeless people, along with what I see on a regular basis on my commute to work, there are going to be few individuals who are going to need long term treatment in a mental health facility before being placed in supportive housing where they can receive it as an outpatient. I know the words "mental institution" bring up memories of a past where patients were treated inhumanely. But I think we come along way since then and know more about how to treat mental illness than just giving a person shock therapy. So the question becomes once again who is in charge of running a facility like that and who would be the most effective at it.

Finally, I have never been someone who thought like a fiscal conservative. Having said that, with all the money that has been spent in the past two years when it comes to the fight against Covid and the war in Ukraine, I have been wondering not about the amount of money that is being spent, but if there is a breaking point when that bill is going to come due. Also when I hear someone say, its going to cost x amount of dollars to solve a particular problem, I'm starting to wonder how did they come up with that particular figure and why is it going to cost that much.

[Stavros]

Your fascinating post raises two important issues, around what I would call 'Intelligence' and 'Delivery'. In the first case, as you raise the question, where does the intelligence come from to quantify the cost of ending homelessness, or for that matter the cost of not ending it? Some answers may be in the links below to the articles on Finland, which claims to have solved most of its homelessness problem, you may already know about it.
Housing is a human right: How Finland is eradicating homelessness | CBC Radio
Finland ends homelessness and provides shelter for all in need (scoop.me)
'It’s a miracle': Helsinki's radical solution to homelessness | Cities | The Guardian


The second is a phenomenon you refer to which we have in the UK, and that is the poor record on 'Delivery' by Central and Local Government. It is quite dispiriting to visit a country like Germany where everything seems to work, not because it does all the time, but because across a wide range of issues in housing, transport and the environment, there are structures and systems in place that are accountable to local people and which the authorities fund, and most of the time they deliver what they are supposed to. Talking to Germans, their concerns are not so much about public services but issues such as immigration.

Consider that in France, Italy, Germany and Spain there are high-speed rail links between major cities, and that these have most of the time been completed on time and without going over the budget, the link between Madrid and Seville is one good example. The line is 472 km where in the UK the high-speed rail link from London to Birmingham is 215km and after 11 years of the project has yet to lay more than a mile of track, while costs have escalated vastly from the original figure, and the proposal to extend the link to Manchester has been dropped -how can Spain do something we can't? And as the link shows, the US is also spending vast amounts of money on what may become 'forever projects', if that is not too cynical.
New Starts: Spain’s Dirt-Cheap High-Speed Rail, Upgrading Toronto Commuter Rail, NYC Elevator Woes (nextcity.org)

Covid has been a lamentable example of Delivery failure. Boris Johnson may brag about the speed and efficiency of the vaccine development and its nationwide distribution, but most of that success was down to non-government organizations or the NHS. His own Government was not only slow to react, but failed to incorporate the lessons of Exercise Cygnus that was a trial run for an epidemic -so there were major supply chain problems with PPE, the Test and Trace system that cost staggering sums of money didn't work when it was first implemented, and a member of the Treasury team resigned in disgust earlier this year at the billions of pounds lost to fraud from people claiming money from a Govt that couldn't stop giving it away.

I don't know how we ended up in 2022 after a century or more of public service, with such dismal and costly failures. I think it feeds into the general view some have the Govt is not the solution to the problem. The perception here, for example, is that however well-intentioned they are, Biden and Harris can't deliver, either because of a hostile Congress, or because they don't know how. Is there a paralysis of policy implementation? I don't know, but the general feeling is that things don't work anymore, and we can't keep blaming Covid. Brexit has cost this country billions, but where's the debate on that?

My other point about the Billionaires is merely to register my 'disappointment' that they are sitting on vast caches of wealth but either do not invest in the economy and jobs -or, as in the UK the preferred investments for Hedge Funds seems to be property and restaurants- while Elon Musk proposing to throw money down the Martian hole is beyond contemptible. There are times when a hitherto unknown Trotskyist in me thinks 'take it all away from him, and give it to the workers'.

[Stavros]

I see Peter Navarro has been indicted, and complains, bitterly, " “Who are these people? This is not America. I was with distinguished public servants for four years. Nobody ever questioned my ethics.”", but wonder, what did he actually do when he was in the White House where I read his job was " to "defend and serve American workers and domestic manufacturers." " for which he was paid £183,000 pa. And the man has a PhD from Harvard!

I wonder too what Kellyanne Conway ($183,000) actually achieved in four years, her job being described as "she advises the president, tweets a lot, and makes television appearances to defend the administration"...

The list of adviser's and their salaries is in this link-
Meet Trump's 22 Highest-Paid Staffers, Who All Earn $183,000 + a Year (businessinsider.com)