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LOL "Yamnana" drive. Your autocorrect is a music fan! https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=JqTwlM3lvfU

The thing about betting on Musk's imagination is that it's the suckers bet: tails you lose, heads you don't win. If one of his dreams works out, he'll spirit it out of Tesla and into a vehicle that he owns completely. Like Levine says, a basket of options is worth more than an option on a basket.

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Touché... -B.

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Tesla. It has been in a price bubble for a long time. Less car company and more tech stock. Given his performance on self-driving cars, I wouldn't expect any self-driving "taxis" to be safe. Who is going to accept accident liability and class-action lawsuits. As for optimus robots. Don't make me laugh. Smoke and mirrors.

It is good that Shotwell manages SpaceX, the only business that is truly exceptional.

Musk may find himself eventually facing a lot of lawsuits over his business practices. No wonder he is supporting Trump who may give him cover for as long as he is in powert.

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Neofascism. The rich are making a similar mistake to those in interwar germany selecting Hitler as Chancellor to keep the Communists from power. The Democratic Party is not Communist or even Socialist despite the well-worn epithets. The rich want their tax cuts and hope to keep themselves insulated from draconian social policies with their wealth. If Nazi Germany, and more recently Hungary, is any indication, it won't work. If Bezos is forced to divest himself of the WaPo, how will he justify that to keep on Trump's "less evil" side?

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Republican ground game. My local congressman is Republican - gaining office by a hair. The defeated Democrat is running again. I spoke to the D candidate because I was appalled by the few bland mailers I had received whilst his opponent was sending the same hard-hitting message in various mailers several times a week. I was surprised that as a "reliable Democrat voter" that I would not be getting the mailers sent to Republican-voting households. Yet the lack of canvassing (no canvassers for either party came to the door) and a lack of reasons to vote for the D candidate makes me wonder if the somewhat compacent belief by the D candidate that he will win in a Presidential Election year is misplaced. Both candidates have a very similar list of "issues" mostly aimed at their big Ag donors and not the city dwellers. He is the "expert" so I hope he is right, but I have my misgivings.

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re: "nothing is transactional"

Back in the 1980s when I briefly worked at a small London brokerage, all the brokers were public school graduates and sold stocks to their friends.

The the "Big Bang" happened and the Japanese (esp. Nomura Securities) became teh elephant in the room. Yet the received wisdom was that all their money would not overcome the relationships between all the bankers in the City. I left the City before the outcome was clear.

There was a lot of transactional business when I became a fund manager with a tax haven bank. Past favors by brokers had to be rewarded. Gifts of trading infrastructure required regular business flow. I would have called that corruption.

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