Quotulatiousness

January 27, 2019

Some reasons to be bearish on Tesla’s future

Filed under: Business, Media, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

At Coyote Blog, Warren Meyer climbs back onto one of his favourite hobby horses:

Yes, I am like an addict on Tesla but I find the company absolutely fascinating. Books and HBS case studies will be written on this saga some day (a couple are being written right now but seem to be headed for Musk hagiography rather than a real accounting ala business classics like Barbarians at the Gate or Bad Blood).

I still stand by my past thoughts here, where I predicted in advance of results that 3Q2018 was probably going to be Tesla’s high water mark, and explained the reasons why. I won’t go into them all. There are more than one. But I do want to give an update on one of them, which is the growth and investment story.

First, I want to explain that I have nothing against electric vehicles. I actually have solar panels on my roof and a deposit down on an EV, though it is months away from being available. What Tesla bulls don’t really understand about the short position on Tesla is that most of us don’t hate on the concept — I respect them for really bootstrapping the mass EV market into existence. If they were valued in the market at five or even ten billion dollars, you would not hear a peep out of me. But they are valued (depending on the day, it is a volatile stock) between $55 to $65 billion.

The difference in valuation is entirely due to the charisma and relentless promotion by the 21st century’s PT Barnum — Elon Musk. I used to get super excited by Musk as well, until two things happened. One, he committed what I consider outright fraud in bailing out friends and family by getting Tesla to buy out SolarCity when SolarCity was days or weeks from falling apart. And two, he started talking about things I know about and I realized he was totally full of sh*t. That is a common reaction from people I read about Musk — “I found him totally spellbinding until he was discussing something I am an expert in, and I then realized he was a fraud.”

Elon Musk spins great technology visions. Like Popular Mechanics magazine covers from the sixties and seventies (e.g. a flying RV! a mile long blimp will change logging!) he spins exciting visions that geeky males in particular resonate with. Long time readers will know I identify as one of this tribe — my most lamented two lost products in the marketplace are Omni Magazine and the Firefly TV series. So I see his appeal, but I have also seen his BS — something I think a lot more people have caught on to after his embarrassing Boring Company tunnel reveal.

The Enigma of Germany’s Wartime Economy – WW2 – 022 – January 26 1940

Filed under: Europe, France, Germany, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published on 26 Jan 2019

This week shows the Allies first attempts to break the German Enigma code. Meanwhile, the German war economy shows some flaws and the Soviets are massing artillery in an effort to break the Finnish defences.

As the Winter War rolls on the only help the Finns are getting are from volunteers. The Western Allies still have their thoughts on Norway, little do they know that the Phoney​ War almost ends this week…

Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @World_war_two_realtime https://www.instagram.com/world_war_t…

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tv

Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…

Written and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Produced and Directed by: Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Map animations: Eastory

Colorizations by Norman Stewart.

Photos of the Winter War are mostly from the Finnish Wartime Photograph Archive (SA-Kuva).

Eastory’s channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEly…
Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

Modern advertising – “wokeness … for millennials, is basically Corinthian leather for the soul”

Filed under: Business, History, Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

I’m still not caught up on all my RSS feeds, so this Jonathan Kay piece at Quillette is more than a week old, which is why we’re selling it at half-price:

… Coca-Cola doesn’t make you smile. The “Rich Corinthian Leather” that Chrysler used to upholster car seats wasn’t actually from Corinth. And smoking Virginia Slims doesn’t actually mean “You’ve come a long way, baby.” It probably just means you’re going to die of lung cancer.

But misleading as that Personna ad may have been, it had more substance than most modern commercials. At the very least, it purported to extol the actual physical quality of the product being advertised — even if the evidence presented in support of that claim was thin. Coke, Chrysler and Virginia Slims (a 1960s-era spinoff of Benson & Hedges), on the other hand, were selling fairy tales based on happiness, wealth and liberation, respectively.

A close Mad Men-era analogue to Gillette’s new ad would be this Virginia Slims ad from 1967. It starts with a woman in 19th-century clothing, staring mournfully at her feet while a sad tune plays. “It used to be, baby, you had no rights,” intones a male voice saucily. “No right to vote. No right to property. No right to the wage you earned. That was back when you were laced in, hemmed in, and left with not a whole lot to do. That was back when you had to sneak up to the attic if you wanted a cigarette. Smoke in front of a man? Heaven forbid!”

[…]

In some respects, the act of watching that ad is a voyage to a distant land: It’s not just that cigarette ads have been illegal in western countries for decades (the woman actually takes a puff — right there on TV). But the very idea that “women” smoke with a small “feminine hand” also would constitute its own sort of transphobic thoughtcrime. Nevertheless, the basic Madison Avenue impulse behind the ad is recognizable to modern eyes: There’s this cool social trend out there. Let’s present our product as part of that cool trend. In the 1960s, the cool trend was empowering women. A half century later, it’s hectoring men. In the 1960s, being progressive meant expanding the range of permissible behaviour. A half century later, it’s about imposing constraints. In the 1960’s, the puritans were the bad guys. Today, they’re the ones setting the moral agenda.

As a bonus, he also walks you through a Marketing 101 course (at least, the few things you’d remember after taking a Marketing 101 course) in his local store:

At my local Toronto pharmacy, a pack of eight Gillette “Fusion5™ ProShield™” razors goes for $42.14 (all figures in U.S. dollars) — a staggering $5.27 per razor. These are displayed, of course, at eye level, since they provide the highest profit margin. Stoop down to waist level, and you will find a package of three quad-bladed cartridges—in generic packaging, though they provide more or less the same quality shave as the Fusion5 — for just $2.26 per razor. And if you’re willing to go down to ankle level, you can get a 10-pack of “Life” brand twin blades for just 60 cents each. (They’re marked “disposable,” but I often will use the same one for several weeks.) Do the math here, and you’ll see that we are talking about an almost 10-fold difference in price for products that — notwithstanding the many protestations I’m set to receive from hipsters who shave with hand-forged titanium blades stored in sealed alabaster canisters full of ionized gas — do the same basic thing.

This is true for a lot of product categories where there are no real differences between competing products except what the geniuses in the respective corporate marketing departments can conjure up out of their collective vivid imaginations.

Churchill Tank vs German 88 – Tunisia 1943

Filed under: Africa, Britain, Germany, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Mark Felton Productions
Published on 19 Dec 2018

The Battle of Steamroller Farm in Tunisia in 1943 is notable for how much damage a pair of British Churchill tanks managed to inflict on the Germans, whom they surprised after climbing a ‘tank-proof’ ridge. Find out the full thrilling story of the tough Churchill in action.

Help support Mark’s channel:

https://www.paypal.me/markfeltonprodu…
https://www.patreon.com/markfeltonpro…

QotD: Political tribalism

Filed under: Politics, Quotations — Tags: — Nicholas @ 01:00

This is one of my emerging rules of politics: if one political group holds a position that does not seem consistent or logical in the context of their other positions, assume they are holding this position because their rival political group has already staked out the opposite side.

Warren Meyer, “Tribalism”, Coyote Blog, 2017-02-17.

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