Tesla Investor's General Macroeconomic / Market Discussion

[Paracelsus]

................People are fed up with bullshit from an unrepresentative federal government.................

...............and speaking of bullshit from an unrepresented federal government....... The Russia story is beyond tiring to me because it feels too much like Machiavellian politics on steroids - 'hey - look over there at those people because they stole the election'.......instead of looking right under our nose. It is much like when the last administration was traveling around the country to bring awareness to Native American Heritage Month to create a positive spin at the same time they turned the other cheek while a bunch of hired thugs were shooting rubber bullets and tear gas at the Standing Rock DAPL protesters on their own reservation. Or all the mainstream media FUD against Tesla we know to be completely untrue especially when many of us on this board are driving a superior product from Tesla. I am sure @Intl Professor could share several better references. There are plenty of us still very frustrated that the DNC stole the primary, and still needs to be held accountable for ultimately electing the current administration as a result. But constantly dripping Russia stories wears away rocks. People that I know that relentlessly bitch about the current Administration seem to have lost the ability to recall that the DNC ultimately elected the current Administration by rigging the primary election for someone that was even less popular, and they have done a pretty good job of sweeping it under the rug in the media with stories of Russia instead. But I am confident that enough people have permanently lost their trust in that camp that the DNC will be held accountable in the next round as well if they don't change their bad behaviors. Policies of austerity have failed hard at home and in the EU, and no matter what spin the media tries to put on it, you can't polish a turd - but maybe you can make people think the turd is somewhere else instead of right here at home.

The whole situation is a complete comedy of errors, and would be funny if we weren't living it. A metaphor for the mess is the German auto industry emissions scandal that once only seemed to include VW/Audi while the rest of the mfg's sat in silence hoping not to get caught. And then it turns out they were all guilty of deception, misrepresentation, and unethical behavior (Congratulations Mercedes for making the news this week). On a board where concepts of First Principles and grassroots movements rule the day, everyday......it would be wonderful to see some discussions of changing the current paradigm instead of feeding the current paradigm that hopes to divide and conquer us with Machaiavellian Trump/Hillary/Russia stories IMHO.

Standing by for an onslaught of 'disagrees', but hopeful that some Socratic discussion is acceptable on such a divisive topic

(note - in NO way was this rant aimed at @neroden or his previous post. I find his contributions extremely enjoyable, informative, and helpful. I just had to take advantage of the "bullshit from unrepresented government" line in slog of Russia stories.)

 

[Intl Professor]

I'm not quite so cynical as the rank and file voter (or rational non voter) who probably got fed up with our system long ago.

Before I could receive my first paycheck at my primary academic post I had under California Law to sign a loyalty oath to our constitution and that of the United States. (I have never read the Cal Const., it's too long, few have.) Recently I've learned my old department changed its name from Government to Political Science a retrograde move. I used to defend the old label by saying we are parochial, like Harvard. We believed politics should be judged and taught from the basis of principles. It always has need of moral qualification. We had then an extremely strong political theory lineup of courses and people. (I have more formal education in political theory than any other field.) From my seniors there I learned early on that teachers of government have a duty more than others to defend it and a special obligation to criticize the system for all its shortcomings. That was easy to do in an academic setting during the Vietnam War. Students were dying for nothing. I remember one guy saying it would be better to die quickly in a nuclear war than slowly rotting in a jungle.

A few of us tried to innovate in our teaching to get ahead of students and we never had a threat of violence in those years whilst other campuses in our system did. This despite repeated efforts by our system's central administrators and the White House under Johnson and Nixon to frustrate discussion in academic settings. Our Academic Senate voted to endorse the negotiating position of insurgents in South Vietnam and urged immediate peace talks. (I don't remember the details of debate, but one was the phoniness of the Johnson Administration's insistence that prisoners be exchanged, first, then talks could begin. Also, then we did not know that the Tonkin Gulf resolution was a set up, though we did know of military ops against the North by the South Vietnam government preceded the incident and the resolution had been drafted in advance by the White House.)

I would like to use the strongest terms to condemn the nominating process of both parties in the last election, but minimal decorum prevails in this family oriented forum. The parties put up the weakest candidates possible from a moral and strategic standpoint. Though he handily lost the popular vote, the electoral system and Hillary's strategy was wrong. What the DNC did to Bernie well cleared the path to national socialism we have entered.

Now there are signs liberals are doing it to themselves again by fighting primary battles against true progressives. Given California's open primary law the demands of some to win require supporting some Republican candidates to make sure perfectly acceptable progressive candidates don't cancel each other out and by default, have two Republicans and no Democrats on the final ballot. Putting on the political science hat in such situations the lack of a clear endorsement strategy by the established parties has put Democratic leadership in the old dilemma, how can we assure the worst candidates are not elected? To illustrate: There are sixteen candidates on the primary ballot for governor. Many are democrats. I, who have raised up to 10 percent of McGovern's money in our county in 1972 (through scare tactics with my colleagues), who have successfully led a defeat of Reagan in our County (the nuclear freeze), and have taught American Government to about one percent of our metropolitan area (some 18,000 students), had to ask a former student, a retired politician how to vote for governor, for God's sake. What about the booboisie or the well-intentioned voter? When so much excrement is flying, we can't see for the turdstorm of reform itself!

Tomorrow's primary may decide the pace of reform. At least we are seeing signs people are really urinated off!

 

[neroden]

I'm not saying anything positive about the DNC; I was following the shenanigans with changing the caucus rules to exclude Bernie delegates in Arizona.

I don't even think Trump knows he's being played by Putin. Cohen definitely knows he's working for Russia, though.

In some sense these are all minor compared to the following:
(1) Trump's manifest incompetence and unfitness for any administrative position, most evident in his refusal to appoint people to empty positions, but also in his erratic actions, tweeting policies which are the opposite of what his administration announced earlier that day;
(2) Trump's blatant self-dealing -- make a business deal with the Trump administration, get exempted from tarriffs or sanctions, don't and get hit with tarriffs or sanctions;
(3) The complete lawless authoritarianism of the administration, which has now actually claimed that Trump can never be prosecuted for anything because anything the President does is automatically legal: murder, rape, terrorism, anything. This is their actual "legal" argument (it was also Nixon's "legal" argument before Nixon resigned);
(4) The supine acceptance of this lawless, incompetent, corrupt authoritarianism by the vast majority of elected national-level Republicans. This is what proves that the Republican Party is no longer a political party, but a cult. An actual political party might overlook self dealing in a competent administrator; incompetence in an honest administrator; or authoritarian lawlessness in service to a coherent agenda. Supporing self-dealing, incompetence, and authoritarian lawlessness with no coherent agenda? This is a cult.

 

[Intl Professor]

Again, I had to use Google for spelling of booboisie. Also, found this reference to a Mencken quote:

"The prescient words of journalist H.L. Mencken in the July 26, 1920 edition of the Baltimore Evening Sun perfectly sum up our 2016 presidential election:

'As democracy is perfected, the office of the president represents more and more closely the inner souls of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and a complete narcissistic moron.'

LaDoris H. Cordell
Retired Superior Court judge
Palo Alto"

Source: Nov. 14 Readers Letters: H.L. Mencken sums up the 2016 election

 

[luvb2b]

some time, not necessarily today, @TrendTrader007 will have to explain to me the path from being down 90% to owning 43,000 shares and more.

they tried calling me but could not reach me. I had $7.2 million margin loan and they told me the amount was too large for them to wait
so they liquidated well over half of my position at a loss. sadly, I had bought even more stock just before the ER
I ended up liquidating all of my Tesla stock at the open today for a total loss of $5.3 million since all my buying before ER had pushed up my cost basis steeply.
I only have less than 10% of my original capital left. I lost over 90% of my total capital. I am shell shocked and have never ever taken these kind of huge losses before
I will stay on the sidelines and hope for a pullback to $280 before I can gather the courage to pull the trigger on TSLA again
let this be a cautionary tale for all those who go on margin
I will never go on margin ever again and maybe stay out of the stock market for the rest of the year

 

[JRP3]

Give him some time to make something up.

 

[MP3Mike]

some time, not necessarily today, @TrendTrader007 will have to explain to me the path from being down 90% to owning 43,000 shares and more.

I don't recall where he said it but he said that was just a story to suss out his friends. He did have a margin call and took a hit, but it wasn't 90%.

 

[sundaymorning]

The second half of 2018 is looking really solid. Jobs data point to 18 year low in unemployment while income has risen 2.3%. The Dow today jumped over 300 points, crossing the 25,000 mark for the first time in awhile. Good times ahead, hopefully we get another 3-4 years of a bull market.

 

[defc0n]

The second half of 2018 is looking really solid. Jobs data point to 18 year low in unemployment while income has risen 2.3%. The Dow today jumped over 300 points, crossing the 25,000 mark for the first time in awhile. Good times ahead, hopefully we get another 3-4 years of a bull market.

Bernanke Says U.S. Economy Faces a ‘Wile E. Coyote’ Moment in 2020 Bernanke Says U.S. Economy Faces a ‘Wile E. Coyote’ Moment in 2020

Do you give much weight to this? I was planning on getting out of equities after 2019Q1.

 

[sundaymorning]

Bernanke Says U.S. Economy Faces a ‘Wile E. Coyote’ Moment in 2020 Bernanke Says U.S. Economy Faces a ‘Wile E. Coyote’ Moment in 2020

Do you give much weight to this? I was planning on getting out of equities after 2019Q1.

When it comes to the economy no one can predict what’s going to happen tomorrow, let alone 2-3 years from now. Since 2011 there has been countless “professional” analysts who has sounded the alarm bells, and were proven wrong. There are just too many moving parts and too many variables for any one person to accurately predict. Having said that, you always want to be conservative and keep a close watch on things as they develop. My opinion is that right now things are looking solid. And because of this thinking, I don’t want to miss this train if the economy does take off, and I’m willing to bet that things won’t turn sour in the next 3-6 months, barring any black swan event. Keep this in mind though, for every person who predicts what can go wrong with the economy, you’ll be able to find another person who offers the exact opposite. I respect Bernarke and will keep him in mind, just as I would any other economist. Thanks for the article.

 

[MacRocket]

I apologise if this is a little off topic but if TMC folks get involved here it might really help the TSLA stock price.

Tech savi TMC members who have a little spare time you might like to consider helping Elon and Tesla in their mission in a fun way.

TMC member DurandalAI has started a really good site called teslaFUD.com. The idea is to have a trusted place where people can go to get the truth on any tesla related topic.
Durandal and his small band are looking for help to develop this site further and also for contributions to the sites content. Help here would be greatly appreciated, PM to DurandalAI if this is your thing.

Hop on line and check out teslaFUD.com. It’s early days for this site and already it is showing great promise. With TMC members extensive knowledge about all things Tesla we should be able to develope a world class site.
Come on, what are you waiting for, PM to DurandalAI

 

[neroden]

Bernanke Says U.S. Economy Faces a ‘Wile E. Coyote’ Moment in 2020 Bernanke Says U.S. Economy Faces a ‘Wile E. Coyote’ Moment in 2020

Do you give much weight to this? I was planning on getting out of equities after 2019Q1.

Oh, there's going to be a general economic crash sometimeish; there always is.

I don't believe that I can predict the timing. This is actually why I invest in individual stocks instead, and I pick ones where I believe their underlying fundamentals mean they'll do OK even in a general economic crash.

This is the long-term-investing strategy and it works pretty well barring a 1929 event. (Even then, if you'd picked the right companies, you could have survived.)

 

[Starno]

Crash coming somewhere between end of 2019 and July 2020. IMO.

 

[JRP3]

Crash coming somewhere between end of 2019 and July 2020. IMO.

And what are the triggers?

 

[Starno]

And what are the triggers?

Interest rate hike that will happen at the wrong moment.

I think toward the end of this year, we're going to enter some sort of balancing act where central banks will start to think about countering inflation (it start to be a concern now, but not really). They'll do it right for a little while, until they get it wrong.

 

[neroden]

Watch out for the upcoming trade war, which has already started. Trump seems intent on raising tarriffs in the stupidest possible way, and the rest of the world (China, Europe, Canada, and Mexico) is already retaliating by raising tarriffs in a substantially more intelligent way. The Iran sanctions insanity, where Trump is violating the treaty and trying to blackmail Europe into violating it too, is going to make a bigger mess.

A trade war won't really cause a recession (the renewable energy boom is too large to be affected much by a mere trade war), but it will hurt some sectors really hard. If Trump doesn't back down on the Iran business, the US is likely to be cut off from the international banking system, which will certainly throw some roadblocks, and probably hurt financial stocks worst.

 

[Intl Professor]

Just to ad to our paranoia, a real wave where both the House and Senate change hands would really roil the markets for awhile, but probably not going to happen since the prevailing wisdom is the Senate will still be in the shaky hands of the Republicans.

Sometimes Trump shows a spark of genius in some of his tirades. Half-baked they seem but half-logical as well. I guess today or yesterday he shouted out to the media something like "it would be good to get rid of all tariffs and similar restraints on trade and services." I almost thought that might be a good idea, but then emerging technologies need some preference and emerging nations need a lot of protection and price supports, leaving aside how to get there. There may be some serious academic research on how to thread these needles. We forget we were once one of those emerging nations.

 

[sundaymorning]

Making progress:

Amid tensions, all G-7 members sign statement

 

[The Blue Owl]

Making progress:

Amid tensions, all G-7 members sign statement

Wow. Not so fast.

Trump blasts Trudeau for ‘false statements,’ pulls U.S. off G-7 joint statement

 

[sundaymorning]

Wow. Not so fast.

Trump blasts Trudeau for ‘false statements,’ pulls U.S. off G-7 joint statement

I just saw that.