I would recommend Barry Eichengreen: Globalizing Capital, and Golden Fetters. I get very anxious when I start writing about such things, because I compare myself to Barry, and he is ssssoooo good…
"What should be the first things I rescue from the cutting room floor from the Slouching Towards Utopia <bit.ly/3pP3Krk> process and add to to turn into another—shorter—book?"
1907 and the gold standard through the interwar years (internationally and not just the US); if I remember the missing sections correctly, you've covered most of that. The missing bits I can't find when poking around Amazon or such is the actual economics of the gold standard and the post-gold standard, not some regurgitated von Mises crud.
The Tesla story still looks like smoke and mirrors to me.
"So what’s the catch?
First, TSLA is valued at ~45 times EBITDA, so it needs to continue to deliver on its growth story to justify its valuation."
The problem is that needs to deliver on a growth story that defies credibility.
"If Tesla can solve Full Self Driving and capture that value through software-related sales, it could dramatically improve its long-term prospects."
This seems to me to be a huge 'if'. 'If' it can solve full self driving - something that it is not clear can be solved in the relatively short term - and capture that value - which means that it must be unique in solving that problem... . But the first seems as yet completely uncertain and the second seems staggeringly unlikely.
And, of course, Tesla's margins for autos will be under pressure as the market matures. As I noted in an earlier comment, this week it was reported that Tesla is cutting its prices in China due to increasing competition there.
As for the robotics, the first comment in the linked summary, by Georgia Chalvatzaki, seems to sum up the general response from roboticists:
"Looking at the Tesla Bot as a roboticist, I am impressed by what the engineers achieved for this prototype in a year. However, the behaviors demonstrated are less impressive than that of Honda’s Asimo from 20 years ago."
That is: yes, they have managed to accomplish a lot in a short time, but they have only accomplished something that is completely derivative and thus avoided all of the hard problems. It remains possible that they could achieve some real game-changing breakthrough, but there is no particular reason to believe that they will.
I would recommend Barry Eichengreen: Globalizing Capital, and Golden Fetters. I get very anxious when I start writing about such things, because I compare myself to Barry, and he is ssssoooo good…
Title: "Milton Friedman Questioned Keynesianism and Ended up Founding a Religious Cult in Economics Departments."
Subtitle: "But he was OK with that."
I'd like to see a counter-history to Graeber's Dawn of Everything, if you're down for it.
(Or if not a book, at least a blog post.)
"What should be the first things I rescue from the cutting room floor from the Slouching Towards Utopia <bit.ly/3pP3Krk> process and add to to turn into another—shorter—book?"
1907 and the gold standard through the interwar years (internationally and not just the US); if I remember the missing sections correctly, you've covered most of that. The missing bits I can't find when poking around Amazon or such is the actual economics of the gold standard and the post-gold standard, not some regurgitated von Mises crud.
elm
you asked
The Tesla story still looks like smoke and mirrors to me.
"So what’s the catch?
First, TSLA is valued at ~45 times EBITDA, so it needs to continue to deliver on its growth story to justify its valuation."
The problem is that needs to deliver on a growth story that defies credibility.
"If Tesla can solve Full Self Driving and capture that value through software-related sales, it could dramatically improve its long-term prospects."
This seems to me to be a huge 'if'. 'If' it can solve full self driving - something that it is not clear can be solved in the relatively short term - and capture that value - which means that it must be unique in solving that problem... . But the first seems as yet completely uncertain and the second seems staggeringly unlikely.
And, of course, Tesla's margins for autos will be under pressure as the market matures. As I noted in an earlier comment, this week it was reported that Tesla is cutting its prices in China due to increasing competition there.
As for the robotics, the first comment in the linked summary, by Georgia Chalvatzaki, seems to sum up the general response from roboticists:
"Looking at the Tesla Bot as a roboticist, I am impressed by what the engineers achieved for this prototype in a year. However, the behaviors demonstrated are less impressive than that of Honda’s Asimo from 20 years ago."
That is: yes, they have managed to accomplish a lot in a short time, but they have only accomplished something that is completely derivative and thus avoided all of the hard problems. It remains possible that they could achieve some real game-changing breakthrough, but there is no particular reason to believe that they will.
Please read George Orwell "Writers and Leviathan."
Someone please show me these big changes. I don't see them.
Noted in passing (familiar territory):
https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/27/economism/#what-would-i-do-if-i-were-a-horse
The biggest unanswered question is why technological change was what it was at any time. Why 1870 was such big change is just one part of it.
A data point to be examined is the Bronze Age Collapse.