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New York, California pension leaders oppose 'extreme' SpaceX control structure

reuters.com

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Re: New York, California pension leaders oppose 'extreme' SpaceX control structure

#91

Post by ben_w »

pjc50 wrote: post #44
jnovek wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not just cutting food support. Hundreds of thousands of people have died because we cut USAID. https://www.cgdev.org/blog/update-lives-lost-usaid-cuts

I deliberately undersold the claim because this is one of those things that's so big and yet so invisible in the news and discourse. If we had 100k people die in a city anywhere on the globe due to, say, an earthquake, it would be headlines. These people just .. cease to exist, unremarked. (It does raise questions about how Elon might manage the food supply to Mars, if that ever happened)

> (It does raise questions about how Elon might manage the food supply to Mars, if that ever happened)

Indeed.

One of the various things which made me down-rate my estimation for Musk's competence was him suggesting someone may want to run the first pizza restaurant on Mars. Like, sure, someone will, but this is so far down the chain of necessary tech it's like me personally pontificating about what I'll do when I'm as rich as Musk is today: If he's thinking about pizza restaurants, one has to ask if anyone's bothered with figuring out how to clean the perchlorates from the soil to get the minerals needed to fertilise the wheat to make the dough for the pizza.

I've yet to see any sign SpaceX have even built a machine for doing the Sabatier process on Mars, which itself is a prerequisite for anything like a Starship-based Mars colony even getting started, though at least Musk has gotten as far as talking about it.

Re: New York, California pension leaders oppose 'extreme' SpaceX control structure

#92

Post by ben_w »

jbecke wrote: post #25
shafyy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must be living under a rock if you think all super rich billionaires like Musk are doing is "abuses the corporate entity a bit, as a piggy bank, or whatever"

You can either concentrate power or disperse it. NASA, Boing, etc. is what happens when you disperse it. Committees aren't bold. The reason SpaceX exists is because Elon willed it into existence.

> The reason SpaceX exists is because Elon willed it into existence.

And then sued the government into considering using them.

He's also setting the rules so shareholders can't sue him.

Concentrated power can indeed get a lot more done at speed; it does not say anything about if the things being done more of and faster are sensible, and while Musk used to make bets that seemed to be risky to him but with positive expected return, he's now openly talking about things like wanting the Tesla "robot army" under his control and the chance of AI killing everyone, where it becomes everyone else's problem if he's wrong.

Re: New York, California pension leaders oppose 'extreme' SpaceX control structure

#93

Post by jnovek »

phkahler wrote: post #56
jnovek wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not just cutting food support. Hundreds of thousands of people have died because we cut USAID. https://www.cgdev.org/blog/update-lives-lost-usaid-cuts

>> In addition, we are unable to directly update our analysis using the previous approach given the complexity of using USASpending.gov and SF133 report data from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to update from foreignassistance.gov because ID codes do not match up. They can't really tie the cuts to actually useful programs. That was a big reason for the cuts.

[dead]

Re: New York, California pension leaders oppose 'extreme' SpaceX control structure

#94

Post by altcognito »

elevation wrote: post #73
altcognito wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why he (and other billionaires) are pining to get Social Security replaced with an indexed based retirement fund?

> Social Security replaced with an index Yes please! I learned just how bad of a deal Social Security is when an employer (a bootstrapped startup) offered a predatory 401k plan. It was free for my employer to setup but the employees were stuck with extremely high fees. It was so bad that John Oliver made an episode[0] about it! Yet, even for the worst 401K plan in America, the projected retirement returns were 1600%…

Are you aware that SSI is an insurance (or lifetime annuity) not an investment?

SSI covers disability, and supplements income no matter what happens. Disability? You're covered. Live to 105? You're covered. Market dips 50% in a period you have a lot of expenses? Your benefits are unaffected.

Tax advantaged 401k is already the vehicle of choice for retirement funds.

Re: New York, California pension leaders oppose 'extreme' SpaceX control structure

#95

Post by marknutter »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #36
iamronaldo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why lie about something that's easily proven false with a Google search? Over last 5 years government revenue is under 25% and if you go off of last 2 years its closer to like 10-15% (and declining!) Starlink is the vast majority of spacex revenue

[flagged]

The government was a customer that paid for a product/service. Are you saying all entities that sell to the government are being "propped up" by the government?

Re: New York, California pension leaders oppose 'extreme' SpaceX control structure

#96

Post by jcranmer »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #17
jt2190 wrote: post #6

Same article syndicated on msn.com, without paywall: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/new-york-californi... The issues: > The New York and California pension systems would become holders of SpaceX shares through their passive allocations if the company is admitted to major U.S. stock indexes. > The officials… objected to the amount of power the board has given Musk over the company, including: - voting contr…

I’d love to hear one of you staunch capitalists tell me why the description of this persons control over 13,000+ employees is any different than a feudal “Lord” Over the entire lifetime of SpaceX Nearly 100% of the revenue comes from the government They pay gifts and tributes to the government They spend an absurd amount of money on lobbying and writing laws to take monopoly control of the subsection of the market Wh…

Feudalism is a political system whereby land is granted to vassals on the conditional basis that they provide levy or taxes to their lord. While the system is notionally a reciprocal system (the fief is a conditional grant, both sides have obligations to each other), by comparing it with the dominant form of taxation that preceded and succeeded it--tax farming--it's fairly clear that the locus of power is decisively with the vassal here and not the liege. Whereas a state who engages in tax farming lets out a new contract every few years, and usually to the same people, a fief is an explicitly hereditary instrument that is abrogated by the liege only at great risk, since the power he has to enforce such a decision comes from his other vassals and his ability to personally persuade them of a course of action.

That is to say that the hallmark of a feudal society is one with very, very weak central authority and powerful local authorities, mediated by the personal interrelationships within and across different levels of authority. Apply that to your analysis of SpaceX and the mismatch is clear. In your analysis, SpaceX is an entity that is utterly dependent on the government for its existence, and need to invest a large amount of energy in acquiring the beneficence of said government. That's not the behavior associated with a feudal society but rather the absolutist monarchies that replaced them, pretty much the antithesis of a feudal society.

Re: New York, California pension leaders oppose 'extreme' SpaceX control structure

#97

Post by AndrewKemendo »

jcranmer wrote: post #96
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d love to hear one of you staunch capitalists tell me why the description of this persons control over 13,000+ employees is any different than a feudal “Lord” Over the entire lifetime of SpaceX Nearly 100% of the revenue comes from the government They pay gifts and tributes to the government They spend an absurd amount of money on lobbying and writing laws to take monopoly control of the subsection of the market Wh…

Feudalism is a political system whereby land is granted to vassals on the conditional basis that they provide levy or taxes to their lord. While the system is notionally a reciprocal system (the fief is a conditional grant, both sides have obligations to each other), by comparing it with the dominant form of taxation that preceded and succeeded it--tax farming--it's fairly clear that the locus of power is decisively…

> That is to say that the hallmark of a feudal society is one with very, very weak central authority and powerful local authorities, mediated by the personal interrelationships within and across different levels of authority

This is precisely the state of affairs in the United States today. Where people get confused is that the idea of property being specific hectares of land rather than what property is at maximum is capitalism which is simply paper contracts and debt, per graeber

> In your analysis, SpaceX is an entity that is utterly dependent on the government for its existence, and need to invest a large amount of energy in acquiring the beneficence of said government. That's not the behavior associated with a feudal society

It is the behavior of a Lord.

The United States is not an absolute monarchy and it has a rotating set of governors

What doesn’t rotate are the capitalist leaders (investors) for the top 100 corporations and they are the actual governors of this society

Because they determine where capital flows they are the ones who you have to pay homage to in order to get property so that you can then become a Lord

Re: New York, California pension leaders oppose 'extreme' SpaceX control structure

#98

Post by WarmWash »

outside1234 wrote: post #79
WarmWash wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much everyone already has an index based retirement fund.

The reason we have social security like it is is twofold: 1) current retirees are paid directly from our contributions. There is no pot of money to be invested and 2) we want to be able to guarantee a defined benefit that is not below a certain number. You can't do that with the market.

Between the pyramid scheme nature of social security, the high inflation potential of the USD, and the ability for politicians to leverage social security for short term approval boosts

You definitely can't do it with the government either...

Re: New York, California pension leaders oppose 'extreme' SpaceX control structure

#99

Post by ben_w »

jmuguy wrote: post #89
Ajedi32 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a bit out of the loop, but has SpaceX not been profitable for the last 4 quarters? I understand they're investing a lot into R&D for Starship but I was under the impression they've been making a killing on Starlink.

Starlink itself is profitable but the insane valuation they're trying to get for the IPO is based on an assumed continued massive growth of users - and even then I don't think Starlink by itself makes SpaceX a trillion dollar company.

If Musk personally wasn't completely toxic worldwide, and if there wasn't all the other new space companies noticing the Egg of Columbus* that is cheap rockets and the potential for comm sat constellations that launch prices enable, I could believe 100e6 people would buy a $50/month service. A common rating for valuation is profit over 20 years, that revenue (not profit, IDK the margin) would be $1.2T.

* Egg of Columbus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_of_Columbus

Many seem to also be doing this with androids around the time he started talking about them, hence how we can buy them and put them to work even though Optimus still hasn't launched yet.

Re: New York, California pension leaders oppose 'extreme' SpaceX control structure

#100

Post by pjc50 »

kjksf wrote: post #48
khriss wrote: post #21

> Elon has control and optimizes for cool shit and going to Mars This trope needs to die. SpaceX has no plans to go to Mars. Elon meanwhile regularly says forward looking stuff to attempt to justify the lofty valuations of his companies. Let's just say there is a ... mixed track record on these proclamations (Full self driving, Hyperloop anyone?)

Musk just tied his compensation to having 1 million people on Mars. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat... Do explain to me his evil plan of becoming rich by lying about going to Mars and yet agreeing to only get paid when he does go to Mars.

We currently have 0 people on the moon.

The Antarctica population peaks at about 5,000, which is a paradise compared to Mars, with drinkable water and breathable air. It even has naturally occurring food! You can get there with a mere boat!

One million people on Mars within our lifetimes is a total fantasy. Like the Nigerian Prince emails, its main purpose is to identify marks.

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