whodidntante

If you don't think there are issues on both sides, you are not getting out enough. Is it 50/50 ? 60/40, 80/20 ? I do not know, but what I do know is that I trust very little if anything of what is going on.

For this specific issue, I am not surprised about fake polling data. What I am surprised is that the NYT did not vet a newly formed polling company, and then put out articles that have quite possibly influenced an election based on purposely fake data. THAT is their job - to vet these things - their political bias does not bother me as all media is biased, but if all they do is republish whatever they find without due diligence, I might as well use Claude to give me the news.

I do not care about FiftyPlusOne, they might be great, they might be bad, I do not have time to figure that out. However, if a place like the NYT does not add value above the crap noise we see, what is the point ? Ignore everything that you see and hear ?

Ironically, is is the NYT that just "broke" the story about what is going on in Alaska. All I knew about that story, until now, was that the Republicans were threatening to invalidate the election there if they did not win. No surprises there. Actually, yes, there were surprises. Can I trust the NYT on this ? I do not know.

There is a lot of crap being produced to sway the election from all sides of the political spectrum.

A more serious question of how and why an organization such as the NYTimes (and others of similar stature) would so easily and quickly incorporate polling data from a brand new polling company into its election data and articles and be so easily fooled.

And, when this was uncovered, they did not do much more than what seemed the minimal amount to CYA, quietly backing out the data and issuing an editors note that few people would find.

They do not seem that interested in protecting their reputation, or maybe they don't believe their readers care.

I was at a dinner for the .01% the other night, and many of them said the problem is really with the .0001%, if they would just pay a fair tax, everything would be fine.

btw, the dinner with the .01% was 800,000 people, the room was pretty packed.And the food was not as good as you would think, and the service was lousy.

The .0001% is a lot smaller, maybe even 100x smaller, but it is still twice as large as the number of billionaires. A lot of the .0001%, in fact, about half, feel the real problem is with the billionaires.

right, author did not bother to do some simple queries for actual revenue vs actual costs

banks used to lose a lot of money on those toasters, amazing they are still in business

I see combined estimated revenue for Q1/2026 to be $15B to $20B, depending on source. I also see combined estimated spend Q1/2026 at $15 to $20B, depending on source.

Someone or something is having an hallucination that would make an AI jealous

There is a high correlation between wealth and taxable accounts. For those that are not well off to have large taxable accounts and have most of their assets in retirement funds, this should not be an issue.

I agree that the rule changes are bad and ill intentioned, but I am not sure what I can do about it. And, even if it was zero cost for me to move to an ETF without SpaceX, I would not do it. The market does what the market does, that is what I signed up for, it is a lot smarter than I am. It is not worth changing that for an insult to what will be a few percent of my portfolio. Even if SpaceX drops to 1/2 of its IPO, it will be like having a typical down day, and it will recover. I do want a piece of SpaceX, I just wish it would be at a better price.

As far as the appreciated gains go, I agree with you. However, there is a strong correlation between someones wealth and how much they have in taxable. For most people, especially those that are not wealthy, their equity investments are heavily weighted to retirement accounts,so I look at this as more a rich persons proble.

I am not looking at the "pure" numbers, and many investors do not, they look at potential. They look at what the possibilities are. If you believe that space will be a significant part of the economy in 20 years, and that SpaceX will be a large participant, the current numbers do not mean a lot, this is not a large established company in a static industry. In 20 years the market cap of just the US could very well be $200T, if space is only 10% of that, there is $20T of valuation for space, and that is just US.

Google when it ipo'd about 20 years ago had a market cap of $23B. It is now close to $5T. Even if it went over 10x overvalued at $230B when it ipo'd, it would still have been a good investment. That is because the internet became a large part of our economy, and Google is a major player.

If you really want to compare the two, Google had a market cap/revenue of $2B/$2.7B, SpaceX is currently $1.8T/$20B, or about 10x the ratio of Google back then.

Yeah, very pricey. Crazy ? Not sure. Do I like the valuation ? No. Would I buy more SpaceX than what will be in my equity ETF ? No. But I am not unhappy that I will own a piece when it comes out. Do I like the change in rules ? Absolutely not, but that is just the way it is. The market, over time, is, and always be a lot smarter than I am.

Immense power and profits attracts certain behaviors. This has happened throughout history. Finance is a lot more efficient, flexible, and powerful than other mechanisms, and has become the modern choice.

The Audacity of these people

Very good advice. I was at it for 40 years, actually did some MUMPS (for those of you who watched The Audacity), as well as every tech from the old days, even some hardware, and kept current and on the very edge up until the end. I also loved it and thought I would do it forever, I felt so grateful that my hobby and passion as also my career, and very well paying (eventually, back then no one thought it would be a career).

I retired 10 years ago when I had enough (money) and had enough (of the industry). Always lived below my means. I cannot imagine what it was like to be in the industry for the past 10 years.

As far as the nonsense that is pushed top down, it is not so simple. I was at/near the top. I know what was happening, what I was doing, but everyone has a boss, even the boss. The industry is too important, too big, too critical for it not to be run by human nature. So glad I got out when I did.

The "imbalance of power" can only be "fought" by eliminating the concentrations of power. This is not a capitalist vs communist thing,it is, at least, a human thing, as humans need hierarchy, and power ends up being held by the few. The Romans, the Ottomans, the Persians, the Qing, and many, many other empires all have had the same "issues". I am sure this "problem" goes back to antiquity.

As I commented elsewhere, everyone gets affected by a wealth tax, as it will affect how assets are priced and how businesses operate across the board.

For those who have little hope of the wealth tax applied to them (me for example), but as as someone who has investments and need them for retirement, I need to decide if this will affect bond prices or equity prices in a positive or negative way as their attractiveness will change in relative terms, or if publicly accessible funds will get devalued in favor of private investment opportunities and all public assets get devalued. Oh, wait, I am not wealthy, so I do not have the option of private equity, and cannot participate in what would be an attractive investment opportunity when investments shift towards more opaque assets.

For those that have zero assets, I do not think that a shift by the wealthy to private equity is a good thing, unless you want to work for a private equity company. A government job would be your best bet. And a shift to private equity would have a downward pressure on tax collections, so whatever projections for how much a wealth tax would generate, I am suspect.

A lot of people complain about private equity. This scourge was, to a small or large degree depending on your viewpoint, an unintended side effect of SOX compliance, meant to protect investors, and in the end narrowed down the amount of public companies, and created more opportunities/demand for PE. I think it is debatable how much protection investors actually received.

We live in a system, and making a fundamental change to one part of that system has effects on all parts. Raising the amount of taxes under the current system ? That is one thing. Introducing a whole new tax concept, difficult to predict. Especially if this is done by states, which could cause capital movements with their own unexpected consequences.

A wealth tax will affect the distribution of investments. It might make higher risk investments like stocks more attractive as compared to bonds, it might make them less attractive. More likely it might make publicly available instruments less attractive in general, as private investments have more flexibility in how they are evaluated. In any case, there will be winners and losers as the investment landscape shifts, which affects everyone. If equity becomes more attractive, it could force less wealthy people into equity, which means they will take on more risk. If private investments become more attractive, less wealthy people will lose out. It might not affect those with no assets, but that is not certain either. So, everyone will be affected, in some way. Impossible to model due to unintended side effects.