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#4 | Posted by snoofy at 2025-05-21 12:11 PM
... tenet which Capitalists use elevate Capitalism above other economic systems.

"Other economic systems"?

Kind of like "democracy" being the "worst form of government except all the others that have been tried"?

Because in Capitalism there is "freedom."

If you don't like "freedom" - try using "choice / choices." All better?

... very few are willing to accept the truth that humans are not rational decision makers.

That's overly broad and really depends on circumstances and nature of decision making. For the most part, in the course of ordinary lives, most people do make rational decisions. Kahneman (and Taleb) provided very specific circumstances (economic, financial) where most people (95% ?) are uneducated, illiterate, or simply don't have enough time or desire to think of choosing differently, e.g., where they don't see a materially different outcome.

That's what their research into behavioral economics and finance (and they had disagreements on some issues) was all about.
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FTA: |------- "Kahneman was considered a pioneer in the field of behavioral economics, best known for upending the assumption of classical economics that human beings are essentially rational decision-makers.

In 2002, he won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his research integrating psychology and economics, which challenged the notion that people act rationally. Instead, he argued, people's mental biases often lead them to make decisions that run counter to their own interests."
-------|

Kahneman was ahead of his time. His research is now widely used in politics, military, economics and financial markets, e.g., Nassim Taleb who wrote Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness were directly influenced by Kahneman's works.

Some ideas in one of his books, Thinking Fast and Slow, were adapted into 4-part PBS series Hacking Your Mind that ran during COVID "hiatus" in 2020. Not nearly as good as the book, but was entertaining.

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#1 | Posted by ScottS at 2025-05-15 09:03 AM
... the 'expert' consensus was an INCREASE of .3% for April. So, the 'experts' were off by a full .8%. They deserve no credibility.

The numbers you refer are usually an average of number of "experts" who make them several months in advance, i.e., well before Trump attacked the world economy with the "most stupid tariffs" (that's according to even most MAGA tariff-sympathetic economists and "experts") ever seen.

The numbers, and the resulting "expert opinions", reflect much sharper slowdown of the economy than "experts" expected, solely due to businesses dumping existing inventory and volume discounts to businesses that rushed to stock on pre-tariff arriving inventory - IOW, caused by Trump's much higher and wider tariffs than businesses and sane "experts" expected. That's a one-off, and some prices for inelastic items will resume their upward movement, coupled with tariffs/taxes, while others may rise on demand shortages or drop for a month or two due to rising prices.

Then again, you probably approve of President who can not only institute what amounts to a "federal/national sales tax" of any size on any item, but also raise or lower it at any time for any reason (or any whim) at all? Trump lost whatever economic "credibility" he might have had even with people who generally support tariffs (for protectionist / "fairness" reasons), no matter how poorly economically "justified" they may be.

.

#2 | Posted by ScottS at 2025-05-15 09:20 AM
Well I am SHOCKED. The 'experts' expected a rise in wholesales prices but instead, they were DOWN .5% from March. This is a HUGE deal. First, our 'experts' once again proved their forecasts are fueled by political bias and/or they have no idea how trade actually works.

Second, there is ZERO need for the Fed to continue holding interest rates high when wholesale prices are actually deflationary.

Again, you are using a single [one-off] variable for a single period of usually multi-months of economic indicators to make a sweeping economic policy statement / decision. Cherry picking volatile and "unadjusted for real life" indicators is "unwise," to put it mildly.

Also - first drop in 4 years - I wonder what kind of ------- had been running the show for the prior 4 years to bring such horrible results.

Considering the drop was undeniably caused by an abrupt and radical (and illegal) Trump's tariff/tax decision, contrary to even his economic disciples, we know who is the certifiable s**thead that is running the show now.

Here is just one of real experts, who successfully ran the largest active bond funds in the world (Allianz-PIMCO) - Mohamed El-Erian:
|------- "While quoting the central banker [Powell] verbatim, El-Erian asks if the concerns raised "Sounds familiar?" This two-word response by the renowned economist highlights how the Fed's messaging mirrors prior inflationary cycles and supply-side shocks over the years.

... [El-Erian is] alluding to the stagflation of the 1970s, a period El-Erian has frequently referenced in past commentary. He has warned that tariffs and trade wars risk creating conditions reminiscent of the Carter era, marked by low growth and high inflation.
-------|

Let's see other, more relevant and forward-looking numbers from the same and next days' reports:
April's Empire State Manufacturing went -1.1 to -9.2, Industrial Production lost 0.3%, Import prices +0.5% (future inflation indicator) and Consumer Sentiment for May dropped to 50.8 (-26.5% Y-Y, -30% since Jan. 2025) - all were expected to improve or stay stable.

How is that for being SHOCKED?

Curb your enthusiasm. And welcome to the "95% Club"!
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NBC Cancels Night Court, Suits LA

Whatever little "TV" I see, the writing is atrocious, the sound is mumbled, and topics are mostly just boring and uninteresting.

The weekly game shows, as pointed out, became so expensive to produce in the US, it's cheaper to pack the planes with contestants and fly them to Ireland (or Eastern Europe) and back.

Besides destroying many suppliers, service and peripheral movie businesses during the strike, the productions in Hollywood are down by "existential" levels.

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#1 | Posted by Sycophant at 2025-05-13 10:54 AM
This is what Saudi's get for giving the Trumps billions of dollars.

#3 | Posted by REDIAL at 2025-05-13 11:07 AM
US policy has always been to let Israel have F-35 fighters but not give them to the Arabs so Israel stays ahead of the game.
I wonder if Saudi and Qatar have bribed Lewzer enough to change that policy? Israel is notably absent from this "tour".

Saudis are not getting F-35s, at least not yet. This is announcement of "big beautiful Trump deal" of the package Saudis have negotiated last year with Biden administration for 54 F-15EX initially and up to 200 overall, to add, replace and refit aging Saudi fleet of F-15SR.

Qatar AF was the first to use F-15EX under F-15QA name.

It's a hot item and the F-15EX wait list includes Qatar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Japan, SoKorea, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand...

There is also a grab bag of possible development of nuclear plants, AI, "tourism and leisure projects" etc., so the figures of "deals" will be as inflated as possible.

"Man of Peace" Trump, who pines for Nobel Peace Prize, wants Saudis to join Abraham Accords and negotiate some kind of "deal" with Iran, which became more difficult since his idiotic tariffs and bluster openly "united" China, Russia and Iran (after 50 years of 'Kissinger Doctrine' of keeping China and USSR/Russia antagonistic, which led to USSR's fall - "keep your enemies closer") against now common adversary / enemy.

Trump doesn't care about consequences as long as he can stay out of jail and stuff his pockets with as much money as possible and set up himself and his family in positions of power and free flow of "brand" royalties, dividends and fees from crypto and "brand" licensing.
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#12 | Posted by ScottS at 2025-05-10 10:40 PM
Anyone with 'sticker shock' is the reason why the American economy is where it is today...

Reason for what? And "sticker shock" (inflation) is directly due to Trump-45+Biden+Congress throwing money at the economy and Trump's tariffs.

Just like US agriculture employment went from ~50% of US labor force in 1870 to ~33% in 1900 to ~1.5% in 2023, while supplying the nation with almost everything the population needs and significant exports to other countries (including China) who find their product desirable, the US manufacturing employment was reduced by automation (not "offshoring") while providing most of what the US needs and having significant exports of finished goods. Along with almost a third of $1T in accompanying service "trade surplus" to other countries.

Peak of manufacturing employment in 1970s - 19.5M people in 1979, 33% of labor force - was producing ~11% of real GDP (how is that for "efficiency / productivity"?); now 12.8M people in manufacturing account for 8.5% of labor force and is responsible for ~11% of real GDP, but is likely to slide lower still. Economies adjust for efficiency and productivity through automation and/or outsourcing when the costs of domestic production become untenable - IOW, when US labor "prices themselves out of the market."

"Money goes where it's welcome, and stays and multiplies where it's respected and appreciated."

Building a "Berlin Wall" trough tariffs doesn't work - we already saw predictable results here. "Industrial policy" doesn't work either - ask Biden.

No one is crying to "bring agriculture home" anymore but both left and right phony "populists" promise to "bring manufacturing home" to end "offshoring" because we have "empty factory towns" that couldn't adjust because they are not needed any more for various reasons, including younger population moving to city-centers for better education and service / professional jobs. It's not like we have a high unemployment because of "offshoring" - country has long moved on to service economy because "manu-facturing" (Latin: manufactura = making by hand) has been largely automated.

In 1960s computers were much more expensive than human labor; since 1980s human labor (union labor, in particular) became increasingly much more expensive relative to automation needed to produce better or higher quality output - hence, Third Industrial Revolution. **

Lutnick's "army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little screws to make iPhones - that kind of thing is going to come to America" is not "coming to America" - it's a fantasy in the times long past by the "globalism deniers" and believers in Trump Org "Central Committee economic planning" - it plays on the voters' economic illiteracy and ignorance of history, and party-line bros in particular, who put the "blame" on one or the other party / President / "the rich / elite" / "greed" for natural progress and adoption of technology, inventions and ingenuity.

No one is forcing you to buy "cheap crap" from China or any other country, you can still buy ugly expensive Cybertruck (65% built in US and Canada, 25% in Mexico, was planned for 80+% in Mexico Gigafactory but paused because... "Trump. will. fix. it") or any other "expensive crap" from anywhere. No one talked about being "ripped off" by availability of Japanese "cheap crap" from Epson, Citizen, Sanyo electronics or watches instead of US brands or expensive "high-precision" Swiss watches.

The worst monsters offer you the best dreams... Then you wake up.
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#10 | Posted by chiligordo at 2025-05-03 06:20 PM
Short term pain for long term gain.

Pain is obvious. What makes you think it's only short term? Because we'll get used to it, so won't feel it as much?

1. What exactly would constitute "long term gain" (even if achievable by businesses-killing, inflationary tariffs) because Trump has not defined it.
2. Expect about as much "long term gain" from Trump as was promised by his numerous failed businesses, including first DJT public company.

The trade deficits and resulting debt must be addressed or else Americans will end up picking cotton on Chinese-owned plantations.

This is nonsense - "[national] trade deficits" don't result in fiscal deficits and debt - you're conflating different things: real, government fiscal / budget deficits (government spending and having to borrow more money than it brings in from various sources) with purely statistical "[national] trade deficits / surpluses" (balance of trade, i.e., buying and selling goods and services by people and businesses who happen to live in "other" countries, mostly unencumbered by protectionist tariffs) - that's just parroting our seriously economically illiterate Influencer-in-Chief.

In fact, "[national] trade deficits" actually allowed / subsidized disinflationary expansion of our economic growth and helped finance fiscal budget deficits, and firmed up USD as world's "reserve currency" through non-inflationary growth of US money supply. Trade "deficits" is a non-issue, a "fake problem":

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#6 | Posted by ScottS at 2025-04-24 06:39 PM
China's economy is collapsing and the speculation inside the country is that Xi may lose control of the CCP.

Chinese economy has been "collapsing" for years, because of failed BRI and wild overinvestment in real estate and what are now "ghost cities" - not unlike our poor investments in "manufacturing infrastructure."

In the latest move, countries like Vietnam are ending the Chinese trans-shipments to hide the true country of origin.

Korean and Chinese-owned factories in North Vietnam, like Goertek, Luxshare, etc., are already part of Apple's supply chain and didn't need to "hide country of origin." India couldn't ramp up and has much higher manufacturing costs.

#12 | Posted by ScottS at 2025-04-24 08:02 PM
... due to the Chinese economic collapse kicked off by Trump's tariffs his first time around.

... Hard facts - China has already lost the trade war. The latest news is Foxconn moving their iPhone manufacturing to India and Vietnam causing a few million more Chinese to lose their jobs.

Apple and Hon Hai/Foxconn have been trying to move their supply chain and manufacturing to India, Vietnam and elsewhere for years. If you've ever been to Shenzhen (China's 'Silicon Valley') and seen Foxconn's factories, they are highly automated and there aren't "millions of Chinese" working there. Foxconn - Taiwanese co, and world's largest EMS, dwarfing (3x) 3 largest US + 1 Canadian EMS combined - has been replacing iPhone factory in Shenzhen with other customers.

US farmers lost soy and sorghum sales (again), since China can easily source them from Brazil and Argentina. China is now buying LNG from Russia instead of US.

Millions of US jobs are at stake as VARs/VADs are or will be closing their shops if they can't replenish their inventories with Chinese or other cheap enough components.

Hard fact is that everybody loses from trade wars, but the US has most to lose, including trust, good will, and USD status as "reserve currency."

If China already "lost" why are CEOs of S&P500 asking Trump to stop it? Why is Charlie Gasparino **, Fox biz commentator and NYPost columnist, saying we lost it, and begging Trump to save face by "declaring victory" and back off trade wars?

But, due to your blind hatred of Trump - you can't seem to understand these things. Doesn't matter - reality is reality regardless of how much your plug your ears and bury your head in the sand.

That's "Apprentice" TV version. Reality: replace "blind hatred" with "blind adulation of 'golden calf' Trump" and you'll be on right track.

Can you explain what is the end goal of the stupid tariffs, and what "winning" trade wars in global economy looks like? Because Trump didn't, except saying that "America was treated very badly and was taken advantage of" which is economically illiterate and literally and figuratively stupid.

Far from playing 3D/4D chess, Trump is can't see beyond his half-moves. Peter Navarro and Stephen Miran are the same kind of economic charlatans, claiming "new financial theories" as Stephanie Kelton (Bernie's/Biden's economic guru) was with her "MMT doesn't cause inflation and deficits don't matter."

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#4 | Posted by donnerboy at 2025-04-24 01:43 PM
I was a bit surprised that this blatant attempt at propaganda was not headline news for a week. But it was buried under a mountain of his lies so it's understandable. It was briefly mentioned then just as quickly forgotten. Just one more example of probably thousands of his blatant lies to the American people he has made in the first 100 days.

So many lies and "headlines" - so little time to cover, process and remember them all.

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#8 | Posted by itchyp at 2025-04-07 12:58 AM
WE are winning! All of US! Say THANKS PWESIDENT TWUMP!!

The reason you think "we" are winning is because you don't understand the game, and in all of the excitement of "Winning!" you lost the sight of the end-game - you're just one of the "apprentices" who buy DJT "vision" and stock and meme-coins... and HODL until they eventually go to 0... just like suckers who bought into his "brand" before.

Your attention is being focused [by Trump] on the "battle of tariffs" while it's only a tool that's supposedly is going to solve the "problem" of "trade deficits" and, of course, at the same time to make the US "rich" by collecting huge tariff duties and revive and protect jobs in US "manufacturing" - these are supposed to be the end goals of the "game" according to Trump, no?

That assumes that 1. the USA only has "trade deficits" because it's been "taken advantage of / raped" by countries with high tariffs that make US goods too expensive to import; and 2. the USA can import enough goods that taxes / tariffs on them will compensate for shrinking real inflation-adjusted GDP and higher costs to consumers.

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#2 | Posted by et_al at 2025-04-03 05:32 PM
Yeah, well good luck with dat.

Interesting recent development, from unexpected(?) source:

"The first known lawsuit against President Donald Trump's tariffs has been filed by the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) on behalf of a Simplified, a Florida-based home goods and stationary company, who is arguing that the president "unlawfully" overstepped his authority to impose the levies.

The lawsuit is challenging Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA), which requires extensive investigations before sanctions can be imposed. Trump has used opioid trafficking from China as a reason for the "emergency" tariffs against the country.

The lawsuit contends that Trump has not shown that his actions are "necessary" or tailored to address a drug trafficking emergency. In fact, lawyers note, Trump has said the actual reason for the tariffs is to reduce a trade deficit.

In any case, the IEEPA allows for asset freezes, trade embargos and similar sanctions, but not tariffs, the suit argues.

The law "authorizes presidents to order sanctions as a rapid response to international emergencies. It does not allow a president to impose tariffs on the American people ... Presidents can impose tariffs only when Congress grants permission," the suit states.

"Congress passed the IEEPA to counter external emergencies, not to grant presidents a blank check to write domestic economic policy," it states.

"In the IEEPA's almost 50-year history, no previous president has used it to impose tariffs. Which is not surprising, since the statute does not even mention tariffs, nor does it say anything else suggesting it authorizes presidents to tax American citizens," the lawsuit notes.

NCLA is a right-wing group with financial ties to Leonard Leo and the Koch network is aiming to halt Donald Trump's tariff plan.
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#12 | Posted by itchyp at 2025-04-04 05:08 AM
-Of course Congress want 'more power'. They can't peddle the influence without the power.
It's sort of their own fault for paying themselves only 174K+tip. Most can make more than that on just one selfdeal.

No, actually they want to claw the power back, as Congress should have never delegated it to Executive / President in the first place, albeit with good intentions - to facilitate rapid execution of it in case of "product dumping" at costs below export country's production and negotiating trade agreements - which have not caused problems, until Trump decided to grossly abuse it - just like he did with many other laws in his personal-business-political-scam_artist life, which got him impeached twice and should have put him in prison, if not for the gross incompetence of Biden, DOJ, federal and state prosecutors and help from corrupt judges and lawyers.

"In recent years, Presidents Trump and Biden have exercised an aggressive level of executive authority to raise tariffs on imported goods. Most of these tariffs have been implemented under broad authority delegated by Congress to combat unfair practices or national security. As a result, tariff revenue as a share of total tax receipts peaked in 2019 over the last eighty years, surpassing levels not seen since the mid-1970s."

Ah, mid-70s, when we last had [national] trade surplus... and high inflation + stagnant growth ("stagflation") and "malaise" - why not re-live those "good times"?

.
|------- The constitutional authority to levy taxes, including customs duties (tariffs), indisputably rests with Congress under Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. This authority is fundamental to the government's ability to fund its operations, including national defense, public services, and infrastructure spending.

Until the early 1930s, tariffs, like all other tax rates, were determined by Congress. The enactment of the Trade Act of 1930, otherwise known as the Smoot-Hawley Act, exposed some of the risks of imposing large tariffs to protect American workers. Smoot-Hawley Act imposed the second-highest tariffs in American history, targeting agricultural imports to protect American farmers. The act triggered a global trade war - by 1933, U.S. exports had fallen by at least 60% - and deepened the on-going macroeconomic crisis. This would also be the last act implemented by Congress to set tariff rates.

On the heels of this disaster, Congress began a decades-long trend of ceding the authority to lay and collect customs duties to the executive branch. Importantly here, Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1934 granted authority to the president to impose tariffs if imports were found to threaten national security.

The Trade Act of 1974 granted the president new authority to negotiate trade agreements and adjust tariffs, while also creating mechanisms to protect U.S. industries and workers. Section 201 provides a mechanism for the U.S. to protect domestic industries from serious injury caused by import surges, and Section 301 grants authority to the U.S. Trade Representative (a cabinet-level position) to take action against foreign countries that violate trade agreements or engage in practices that are deemed unfair. -------|
.

These kinds of far-reaching decisions should never be left to a single person, just like the right to Presidential pardon (which is unfortunately in the Constitution) which clearly leads to temptation and/or corruption, and needs to be abolished / remedied by Constitutional Amendment... which after what we saw it having been abysmally abused by Trump and Biden recently (but also by Presidents before them) should not be that difficult.
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#8 | Posted by itchyp at 2025-04-04 04:10 AM
OK I know how to settle this. Make the law to apply the same tariffs on the same products that other countries charge us.

Settle what? What "problem" is Trump (and you) are trying to solve?

For example, do you think Canada's 40M people should buy the same amount of "stuff" from US, as 340M buy from Canada. Also, in case you didn't know, excluding oil trade, USA has trade "surplus" with Canada. So, should the companies in the US buy oil somewhere else because Trump can't do kindergarten-level math?

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#10 | Posted by dutch46 at 2025-03-31 12:07 PM
As I read the headline, the image of a snake devouring it's own tail instantly came to mind.

Ouroboros. Interesting visual, but analogy is not incongruous, especially in financial engineering.

As I've said here before, Musk's purchase of "X/Twitter" entity was never planned to be stand-alone, but rather a leveraged stage 1 for merger with another platform, most likely with financial or sales component - trying to emulate the Chinese all-in-one apps/ecosystems like Tencent or Alibaba.

X/Twitter was never going to go public, but xAI most likely will, at high enough valuation (Musk "proposed" the combo of xAI and X is now worth ~$80B) - not bad for a glorified search engine chatbot, trained on X-"wisdom" and disinformation. For comparison, OpenAI just closed a round of investment at valuation of $300B.

Guess what happens when xAI goes public - all personal debt Elon assumed with the purchase of Twitter will become debt of public company shareholders, allowing Musk to participate in public company riches while "sharing" the huge debt with people buying the common stock.

This is EXACTLY, only on much larger scale, the scam Donald Trump pulled when he used his [father's] name and reputation for ~$1B in personal loans for 2 casinos that he was certainly going to default on, then folded one into DJT / Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts public company, then did the same with another one... and poof, his personal debt disappeared and became "property" of the unsuspecting suckers aka DJT shareholders.

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Elon Musk's Company Buys Another Musk Company
Musk said his startup xAI is... valuing Twitter at $33 billion.

#3 | Posted by REDIAL at 2025-03-29 02:19 AM
Got a good deal too... $11 Billion less than he paid for it the first time.

Ha-ha, funny. Considering the market value of still money-losing eX-Twitter was most recently estimated at about $8B-$9B.

Seriously, though, this self-dealing (similar to Elon's "sweetheart deal" acquisition of nearly bankrupt SolarCity, partly owned and run by his cousins, by Tesla and renaming it into Tesla Energy) is "valued" by Musk/xAI at $45B ($33B + assumption of eX-Twitter's $12B debt) and is likely to provide lifetime of tax write-offs. It already pushed the EV (enterprise value) of xAI to "self-estimated" $80B MV, against which Musk can seek debt or outside investment, among other bennies.

As the song says:

Hah, that's the way you do it
You play the guitar on the MTV
That ain't workin', that's the way you do it
Money for nothing and your chicks for free
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The US is pushing to control all major future infrastructure and mineral investments in Ukraine, potentially gaining a veto over any role for Kyiv's other allies and undermining its bid for European Union membership.

Zelensky has already dismissed the latest version of the draft (middle finger emoji here) saying Ukraine will not agree to any deal that 1) doesn't have iron-clad "security guarantees" and 2) violates or undermines Ukraine's "economic sovereignty" required for EU accession, which is obviously exactly opposite of what Trump keeps looking and pushing for.

This was also confirmed by several members of Rada, who called revised draft a "horror show" that doesn't have "even a hint" of security guarantee.

Trump, of course, can use it as an excuse to deny support to Ukraine, but they are now making it clear that they know whose side he is on and don't expect much from Trump "easy deals" in any case.

Zelensky is also cleverly screwing with Trump's brain by planting the idea that "Putin will die soon."
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China's BYD Auto just reported final numbers for '24 revenues: $107B... compared to $97.7B for Tesla. Average price of BYD EVs is significantly lower than Tesla, which means they had to sell a lot more cars to reach that number.

And BYD announced a drive to double its foreign sales, targeting UK, LATAM and Southeast Asia in particular.

Elon Musk's reaction to buyers' strike / boycott: "Tesla is a peaceful company; we've never done anything harmful, I've never done anything harmful; I've always done productive things. So there's some kind of mental illness thing going on because this doesn't make any sense."
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"Hell hath no fury like a 'tribe' scorned."

Latest poll data on Elon Musk stuns CNN political analyst Harry Enten: "even MAGA voters are starting to get fed up with Musk"

"I have rarely ever seen any change of perception as dramatic as this one. I mean, Elon Musk's net favorable rating, it's dropped from +24 to -19 overall from 2017 to 2025. ... He used to be beloved by Democrats at +35. Look where it is now. -91 points on the net favorable rating.

That is a movement of over 120 points in the negative direction, falling through the floor. Now, among Republicans, he has gone up from +18 to +51, but that doesn't at all make up for the gap that the Democrats have completely fallen off the rails for Elon Musk, and among independents, that drop has been from +17 to -17."

... "I mean, you can see this in terms of new registrations for Teslas in the United States. Car registrations in 2024 versus 2023. ... Down 5%. I was interested, did that movement continue into the new year? Absolutely. If anything, it accelerated. ... New car registrations down 11 percent. And this has occurred as other EV carmakers have seen their registrations go up. And it has also occurred as Tesla's registrations and the people buying Teslas worldwide has also dropped. It's not just a U.S. phenomenon."

"Part of the reason is who buys EVs... The share of EV owners who are Republicans, just 20 percent. When you're falling with Democrats, falling with independents, you're giving up a large share of the market. And that is a big reason why Tesla is struggling..."

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#100 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-03-21 08:49 PM
Price-to-Earnings (P/E) Ratio: Definition, Formula, and Examples
...
The price-to-earnings ratio compares a company's share price with its earnings per share. Analysts and investors use it to determine the relative value of a company's shares in side-by-side comparisons.

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By comparison, Tesla's value makes no sense. It offers nothing that Toyota doesn't also offer.

Tesla value never made any sense - Toyota's stock is cheaper and better not just on P/E basis (P/E alone is subjective, may depend on many factors so is not sufficient to determine relative value), but:
Toyota's gross, operating and net profit margins, ROI, ROE are all better than TSLA's (not even counting "carbon credits" which accounted for 68%-100% of TSLA EBITDA profits) and Toyota has 3+x sales of TSLA (85% of GM+Ford combined), yet its market value is only 1/3 of latest TSLA MV, and only 1/8x of TSLA price/revenue, even after TSLA lost more than half its MV from Dec. 2024 peak.

The only reason for absurd valuation was Musk hyped as the "man of vision" and Tesla as the "tech, not car" company, with sell-side "financial analysts" raising PT with rosy scenarios of new "fantastic" capabilities and treating it as a "futuristic" tech company, so TSLA stock was the only way hoi polloi were able to participate in that "vision", providing Musk with a private currency to invest in / buy other tech products (AI, FSD, robotics)...

That's why he was/is frantically looking to buy [real] companies / tech while this currency still has/had absurdly oversized value, and was protected from [and probably denied capital to] better, cheaper competition:

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Capitalism has not been good to Trump; capitalism was 'very nasty' to Trump; Trump 'failed at capitalism, very very quickly, bigly' and often... Peter Navarro stepped in with "neomercantilism" which appeals to Trump because it suits him to a T:

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#61 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2025-03-10 05:20 AM
Musk, who is in regular contact with Putin, recently improved his AI computer platform Grok. Musk also wanted to purchase ChatGPT OpenAI

That's Elon Musk's MO: if you can't make it, try buying it... or poach talent from those who can. He tried / did that most recently with xAI, Neuralink etc.

Funny things: Musk's "anti-woke" chatbot, Grok 3 was "instructed" to ignore sources that state that Musk is spreading misinformation... yet it keeps spitting out "opinions" that are hilariously different from [current] Musk's views.

The latest Grok "gaffe" was that Donald Trump is 75%-85% likely to be a Russian asset. Wonder where it got that idea - eX-Twitter?

Grok 3: "Adjusting for uncertainty and alternative explanations (e.g., ideological alignment or naivety), I estimate a 75-85 percent likelihood Trump is a Putin-compromised asset, leaning toward the higher end due to the consistency of his behavior and the depth of historical ties."

Ironic, oui?
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** |------- The world's most popular artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots are infected with Russian Pravda Network disinformation.

Kremlin-Backed Disinformation Network "Pravda" Targets AI Chatbots to Spread Propaganda

A sophisticated disinformation network originating from Moscow, ironically named "Pravda" (Russian for "truth"), formed in April 2022, is employing a novel tactic to disseminate pro-Kremlin propaganda: targeting the data ingested by artificial intelligence chatbots. Rather than focusing on human audiences, Pravda floods search results and web crawlers with fabricated narratives and distorted information, aiming to contaminate the datasets used to train large language models (LLMs). This insidious strategy allows Russian propaganda to infiltrate the very core of Western AI systems, influencing their responses and potentially shaping public perception.

This targeted attack on AI was foreshadowed by John Mark Dougan, an American fugitive residing in Moscow and a known Kremlin propagandist. Dougan, speaking at a conference of Russian officials, asserted that manipulating AI narratives offered a powerful avenue for spreading Russian influence globally.

Pravda network, functions as a sophisticated laundering operation for Kremlin propaganda. ... The network spans over 150 websites in dozens of languages, targeting audiences in 49 countries. The sheer volume of content produced - an estimated 3.6 million articles in 2024 alone - underscores the scale of this operation. The world's leading AI chatbots have repeated false narratives trafficked by the Pravda network 33% of the time.

"By flooding search results and web crawlers with pro-Kremlin falsehoods, the network is distorting how LLMs process and present news and information" ... which results in massive "amounts of Russian propaganda - 3.6M articles in 2024 - are now incorporated in the outputs of Western AI systems, infecting their responses with false claims and propaganda."

The Pravda network achieves its impact through strategic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tactics. Despite having minimal organic reach among human audiences, the network's focus on SEO ensures its content ranks highly in search results. This makes it more likely for AI chatbots, which rely on web crawlers and indexed content, to encounter and incorporate the network's disinformation. This underscores the need for more robust mechanisms within AI systems to identify and filter out unreliable sources, particularly those engaging in manipulative SEO practices.

The implications of this AI infiltration are far-reaching. By corrupting the datasets upon which AI models are trained, the Pravda network aims to influence the very fabric of online information. This poses a significant threat to the integrity of information ecosystems and underscores the urgent need for AI developers to implement safeguards against such manipulation.

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Data poisoning by Russian dezinformatsiya, then spread over by Putin's army of troll-bots... many of which are present on this site.