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SpaceX bond worth 10% less than issue price – heading for junk bond status

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Re: SpaceX bond worth 10% less than issue price – heading for junk bond status

#601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so USAID made up almost 2% of all the US' federal discretionary spending! So, tiny; a fraction of what we spend on much less useful things like the Iran war or huge gifts to ICE. 30 years of that level of USAID funding would only get us to a single one of those trillions in debt. > The vacuum their exit has created is being rapidly filled by a wide mix of other interests. Yeah, we don't really want China vacuuming…

Yes the Iran war is also a waste of money. Money being wasted in one place is hardly an argument to do it in another place. And the whole point of discretionary spending is that it's money that could have been spent on society instead of e.g. setting up fake social media sites to try to cause chaos in another country. And because of regularly bloated spending I think we often lose track of what it really means. $34 b…

> And the whole point of discretionary spending is that it's money that could have been spent on society instead of e.g. setting up fake social media sites to try to cause chaos in another country.

You think that's where most of USAID money is going?

> $34 billion is $100 from every man, woman, and child in the US.

Substantially less than unrest and unchecked disease in entire continents would cost us.

> Imagine if all of this money was spent domestically.

We'd probably blow it on some full-body MRIs.

> China's pharma companies are establishing production factories within Africa for the local production of trade-level quantities of pharmaceuticals meaning they'll be able to provide not only for their own needs, but have enough production to turn drugs into exports.

Yeah, they got that one from us. https://www.usp.org/news/usaid-launches-five-million-dollar-...

It's how China got big in the first place, even; we shipped our manufacturing there!

> It's not like African nations don't realize what we're doing, while we then go and try to lecture them about the Chinese debt trap. What a shock that they're not listening.

Certainly. But that's just trading one hegemon for another.

Re: SpaceX bond worth 10% less than issue price – heading for junk bond status

#602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More and more, "abuse of power" and "company success" seem to be intertwined. Meta would be an excellent example of that.

I just realized that dictatorship is in a way the same thing. Look at Singapore. It is super successful because of "right" dictatorship. Libya was somewhat a good example with their insane water infrastructure and social programs.

The thing is, you don't really need to have dictatorship to get those things.

You could just, I don't know, fund infrastructure and social programs without developing cults of personality around leaders or letting them torture opponents to death.

Re: SpaceX bond worth 10% less than issue price – heading for junk bond status

#603
post #81

Good thing there's a strong corporate governance model at SpaceX where the c-suite is fully accountable to an independent board of directors, who could use their majority voting power to remove that c-suite at will. Could you imagine the abuse of power that could happen if one person held over 50% of the voting power at such a company?

Interestingly enough, strong corporate governance and independent directors do not produce better returns. This is a central point in Eric Rees's book Incorruptible. https://leeds-faculty.colorado.edu/bhagat/bb-022300.pdf

I'll need to read that, but if my anecdotal experience is any indication, there aren't that many "independent" boards of directors. Ultimately you do find some sort of connection between board members and the c-suite of many companies. In some cases (Meta) the CEO is the chairman. Marc Andreesen is also on Meta's board despite being an early investor and mentor to Zuckerberg. Seems like an explicit conflict of interest, no?

Re: SpaceX bond worth 10% less than issue price – heading for junk bond status

#604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's just a generic dismissal, a way of putting someone in a box without actually engaging with anything they say. which lumps it in with 90% of all internet arguments really. "Your argument must be invalid because you're the type of person whose arguments are invalid."

Go back to AOL.

that's my kids. i'm from usenet.

Re: SpaceX bond worth 10% less than issue price – heading for junk bond status

#605
post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the rules are there are hard limits unless a multi-trillion dollar company IPOs with a significant absolute float, in which case tracking the "market" obviously includes said company.

Which multi trillion dollar company are we talking about here?

yeah I'm lookin at a company whose stock is flagging and who are headed into junk bond territory

Re: SpaceX bond worth 10% less than issue price – heading for junk bond status

#606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, the inclusion rules are basically "these are the hard limits that specify which stocks are eligible, unless someone really big and lucrative comes along, in which case it's whatever and we'll just adjust the rules to make them eligible"?

Turns out all the rules of our society are "hard limits unless someone with a lot of money disagrees at which point they become negotiable".

the essence of capitalism, and why accumulation of capital is so important that it lends its name to the philosophy.

not sure why people aren't getting this

Re: SpaceX bond worth 10% less than issue price – heading for junk bond status

#607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, the inclusion rules are basically "these are the hard limits that specify which stocks are eligible, unless someone really big and lucrative comes along, in which case it's whatever and we'll just adjust the rules to make them eligible"?

"Everyone has a price." - Pablo Escobar

"no crying in the casino" - DJT

Re: SpaceX bond worth 10% less than issue price – heading for junk bond status

#608
post #39
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are super shares like Zuckerberg's and Musk a new thing? Genuinely curious if they're a recent invention or something that's quietly happened for a while because it seems like a large inversion of the deal of going public, lose some control of the company in exchange for a large amount of cash but these nonvoting/supervoting share splits seem to completely upend what I understood to be part of the deal for access to…

The New York Times Company operates under a dual-class stock structure where the Ochs-Sulzberger family holds roughly 95% of Class B shares. This family control allows them to elect 70% of the company's Board of Directors. Copied from google's response to "new york times governance" Google's AI also says that the NYT has had that structure since 1957. Ford has something similar from the 1930s. (Dodge did too until it…

A news org I see a valid reason for keeping two classes of stock I guess. It feels slimy elsewhere without that some editorial independence justification.

Re: SpaceX bond worth 10% less than issue price – heading for junk bond status

#609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes the Iran war is also a waste of money. Money being wasted in one place is hardly an argument to do it in another place. And the whole point of discretionary spending is that it's money that could have been spent on society instead of e.g. setting up fake social media sites to try to cause chaos in another country. And because of regularly bloated spending I think we often lose track of what it really means. $34 b…

> And the whole point of discretionary spending is that it's money that could have been spent on society instead of e.g. setting up fake social media sites to try to cause chaos in another country. You think that's where most of USAID money is going? > $34 billion is $100 from every man, woman, and child in the US. Substantially less than unrest and unchecked disease in entire continents would cost us. > Imagine if a…

I think literally nobody knows where much, if not most, of USAID's money was going. It was a highly opaque organization that was regularly weaponized. Contrary to what most people think, Congress doesn't just automatically gain classified clearance. They are given information only a need-to-know basis and even then often only in briefing format. So you remember when USAID was being shut down and there was an all-hands-on-deck burning and shredding day getting rid of as much classified information as possible? [1] Great way to show they nothing to hide.

Your link reads like LLM slop and the very few specific details it offers ($ amount) is contradicted by the page it linked to. It also isn't related to Africa which is what we were talking about, and in any case you're obviously not going to kickstart manufacturing for $5 million ($2.5 million in the linked announcement). It also postdates China's actions by decades. The first Chinese factory in Africa opened up in 1998. [2]

China isn't a hegemon, does not seem to be pursuing hegemony, and I don't think that will change. They've had centuries of being the most powerful nation/empire in existence, but always remained within their own region, working more as a merchant than a conqueror. The US obsession with ruling the world is really kind of weird and nonsensical, because it's not only obviously an unobtainable goal in modern times, but it's not even in our own best interest.

[1] - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjw2yywy3x7o

[2] - https://english.news.cn/africa/20220426/0d1f16a7b9d84af9a91c...

Re: SpaceX bond worth 10% less than issue price – heading for junk bond status

#610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the whole point of discretionary spending is that it's money that could have been spent on society instead of e.g. setting up fake social media sites to try to cause chaos in another country. You think that's where most of USAID money is going? > $34 billion is $100 from every man, woman, and child in the US. Substantially less than unrest and unchecked disease in entire continents would cost us. > Imagine if a…

I think literally nobody knows where much, if not most, of USAID's money was going. It was a highly opaque organization that was regularly weaponized. Contrary to what most people think, Congress doesn't just automatically gain classified clearance. They are given information only a need-to-know basis and even then often only in briefing format. So you remember when USAID was being shut down and there was an all-hand…

> I think literally nobody knows where much, if not most, of USAID's money was going.

Oh, bullshit. https://www.usaspending.gov/agency/agency-for-international-... / https://foreignassistance.gov/

You can even drill down into the individual contracts: https://www.highergov.com/grant/72061321CA00003/

> So you remember when USAID was being shut down and there was an all-hands-on-deck burning and shredding day getting rid of as much classified information as possible? Great way to show they nothing to hide.

Great way for Trump to prevent the agency from being able to rebuild effectively when courts order it open or Dems take over, you mean? This was an explicit tactic of the Trump administration; to make it hard to undo things.

> It also postdates China's actions by decades.

It's a single recent example of the tactic you assert the US wasn't doing. It's hardly the first such project USAID ever did.

> China isn't a hegemon, does not seem to be pursuing hegemony, and I don't think that will change.

Oh, yeah, they're just putting military bases in Africa and building islands for funsies.

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