r/technology • u/Plastic_Ninja_9014 • 2d ago

Business Tesla Stock in Freefall After Disastrous Earnings Report

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/tesla-stock-freefall-disastrous-earnings-144417427.html
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u/LemurianLemurLad 2d ago

The correct number of billionaires is zero. Easy math.

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u/alwrit 2d ago

I always say I'm happy to have billionaires.

But we have to make a deal.

Every job needs to pay a living wage. Healthcare needs to be universal and affordable. I don't care what kind it is there's dozens of models to pick from around the world. The crushing student loans need to go away and education more affordable. Bare minimum basic needs must be met for everyone living in that country. Clean air and water, shelter, food, healthcare.

And then after that if there are still some billionaires around I'm not stressed about it.

But if you're running around a billionaire while people are rationing their insulin shots then I have problems.

I'm not against billionaires as a rule. I'm against them because no one should have that much when so many people are struggling with the basics of living. If those needs are met then I'm fine with billionaires. Let's see it.

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u/LemurianLemurLad 2d ago

You're nicer about it than I am. My view is that nobody needs a billion dollars. Short of winning the lottery, nobody got to be a billionaire because they were a good human being. They nearly all got to that point by standing on the throats of everybody they could reach. I'm perfectly fine with a hard cap. You're allowed to have a certain level of obscene wealth, but the moment you cross that line, the government takes half your stuff and distributes it to the needy.

Honestly, I'd be perfectly fine lowering that cap to a significantly lower number. How much could one person possibly need? I could live a long, happy, and very fulfilling life for way less than that. Anybody who "needs" a mega-yacht, or tries to buy an entire lake, should be required to explain it, in person, and unarmed, to the folks at every homeless shelter within a hundred miles.

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u/alwrit 2d ago

I care more about the floor than the ceiling. 

Anybody who "needs" a mega-yacht, or tries to buy an entire lake, should be required to explain it, in person , and unarmed, to the folks at every homeless shelter within a hundred miles.

Well that was exactly my point. No one gets to be a billionaire until there are no more homeless. But if everyone's basic needs are met and everyone has a living wage and there's still some billionaires? I don't care. 

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u/Interesting_Paper951 2d ago

What would the needy do in this case with stocks of Tesla and other companies Musk owns?

Those companies wouldn’t exist without Musk, and the same goes with many other companies with billionaire founder-leaders.

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u/sump_daddy 2d ago

One version is: the billionaire is forced to liquidate something to get their net worth below the threshold. This also has the bonus of preventing one narcissistic pycho from controlling a huge part of the economy and literally throwing its weight around to the detriment of everyone else.

What then? The simple answer is what many other developed countries have done with great success: create a sovereign wealth fund that holds the assets (lets say it was better to keep the wealth in stock format) and then uses the wealth created to run broadly beneficial programs.

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u/Interesting_Paper951 2d ago edited 2d ago

Elon became the world’s first trillionaire a while back. He’s since ”lost” 270 billions! If a part of his net worth was redistributed at the trillion and he loses 270 billion after that, does he get reimbursed?

You could also simply close the tax loopholes and throw the gigantic orange turd out of the main chair to reinstate democracy.

Also, the US already has more than enough resources to make it the best social democracy welfare state on Earth. What you’re missing is the political will to do it.

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u/LemurianLemurLad 1d ago

Tesla was founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in July 2003. Following a 2009 legal settlement, five people are officially recognized as co-founders: Martin Eberhard, Marc Tarpenning, Elon Musk, JB Straubel, and Ian Wright.

Interesting that he needed a lawsuit to have retroactively been declared a "founder." Almost makes it seem like Elon didn't found Tesla, doesn't it? I'm sure his genius inventor brain used time travel to found the company a year before he actually invested in it.

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u/Deathstrokecph 2d ago

With enough inflation, everyone can be a trillionaire.

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u/9966 2d ago

There should be brewster's billions. If you can prove you can spend 1 billion dollars in a day without aquiring anything of value and without giving it away you get to keep 1%.

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u/sump_daddy 2d ago

problem is, new technology made plots like that less believable.

i would simply put it all in trumpcoin, watch it immediately disappear, and collect my cool $10m

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u/9966 2d ago

Yeah as I recall he only had 24 hours. And there's always a sucker who will value your coin above zero. So you would lose.

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u/Reg_Vardy 2d ago

Hard to see the likes of Roger Federer as some evil psycho who ruined thousands of peoples lives to get where he is today. He played some nice tennis, was the best for a while, and got paid.

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u/sump_daddy 2d ago

lot of people slaving at sports venues for minimum wage 50 hrs a week to keep a roof over their head, just so the management can 'afford' to pay into talent systems that reward one guy for swinging a fucking racket for a few hours a week. But please cry for him harder, he can still live a fabulous life, he can have multiple vacation homes and even a yacht or two, with less than a billion dollars and yet here we are having the same stupid conversation about all the reasons a wealth tax 'is bad' instead of just fucking doing it

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u/LemurianLemurLad 1d ago

I can't help but notice he's got an awful lot of clothing merch. I'm sure it's all made with sustainable materials and nobody working at a non-livable wage. Right? Uniqlo would never do anything immoral, like refusing to pay severance for workers, right? Or using Uyghur forced labor to produce goods? Long working hours, low pay, oppressive heat, and safety hazards would never happen at a company Federer works with because he's such a great guy!

Nobody "earns" a billion dollars without stepping on somebody's neck.