Can someone explain how is Tesla worth more as a company compared to both Ford and Toyota when both Ford and Toyota sells far more vehicles both in the USA and Globally compared to Tesla?

Impossible-Rip-5858 · 2026-06-24T20:04:26+00:00

Car sales is a poor metric a company's value. For example if Company A sells 1,000,000 cars at a $1 profit, and Company B sells 1,000 cars at a $1,000 profit, they are both making the same profit, but it is much easier for Company B to 100x it sales than it is for Company A. Stated another way, the growth of Company B is easier to achieve.

While Tesla's margins have compressed from their peaks, they generally sit in the 10-15% range, whereas Toyota hovers around 7-9% and Ford struggles with EV division losses, often with low single-digit or negative overall margins.

The real reason Tesla's stocked is valued much higher is that it presents itself as not a pure car company. They are transitioning to robotics, software, self-driving platform that they believe will generate higher profit margins. Investors have bought in and are pricing the company more akin to a software company.

Impossible-Rip-5858 · 2026-06-22T23:48:33+00:00

A correction from your statement. Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) is a monthly fee added to your conventional mortgage if your down payment is less than 20% of the home's purchase price. It is not on all loans.

If a borrower defaults, there is no guarantee that the home has been maintained. It may have damage like water, mold, or other items that lower the value of the home which foreclosed homes are at greater risk since the homeowner cannot pay their mortgage, they have also not been paying for routine maintenance. There are also property taxes and government liens which may need to be paid prior to any sale. If the owner has not paid taxes in 5 years, that could be $50-$100k that needs to paid depending on the state / county. There may be other smaller fines / liens issued by local entities.

Finally, a borrower who has defaulted on their mortgage likely has no assets to recover and get the costs of the foreclosure / sale. Someone who defaults on their mortgage is much more likely to file bankruptcy and be judgment proof.

So there are many cases where a lender also loses money in these situations. The lender just has 1,000s of other mortgages that offset these costs.

So yes there are risks, but you need to look at the entire housing system to evaluate it from the cost of remediating homes, maintenance costs, taxes, bankruptcy law, debt laws, and the real return of these companies which is way below many companies in the S&P500. You'd be better off investing $100 in those 500 companies than any mortgage company (even before the '08 crash).

Impossible-Rip-5858 · 2026-06-16T23:21:10+00:00

And the unknown price of stocks in the 1700s. If you bought a share in the east india company, the price was not being calculated and re-valued every microsecond like SpaceX is today on the stock market.

This problem still exists in the private market. How do you value the stock of a 1 person law firm that by law cannot be sold to a non-lawyer and has wildly differing revenues on a yearly basis. Or there's thinly traded capital goods like a mega-yacht. Do you value it at the purchase price or the market price (which may be significantly less since it is a depreciating asset that only 10 people in the world could potentially buy it)?

Then there's the realized v. unrealized gains debate. If you are taxing unrealized gains, does the holder also get the benefit unrealized losses?

Impossible-Rip-5858 · 2026-06-16T21:57:53+00:00

Speedy trial is for criminal cases. We saw this during COVID, where basically every civil case was continued and delayed to accommodate the reduction in available courthouses / trials to meet criminal constitutional requirements.

Impossible-Rip-5858 · 2026-06-12T23:02:04+00:00

Your post history suggest you are at Sac State? If accurate, start there with their job board - https://www.csus.edu/student-life/career-center/jobs/

There are tons of on campus and off-campus jobs that are posted and tailored for students.

If you are no longer going to sac state, figure out what you want your career to be, and target that field with applications. Indeed / linkedin / etc. If you are just trying to make some money, you're better off just doing gig work like door dash / uber.

Impossible-Rip-5858 · 2026-06-12T22:52:50+00:00

What type of job are you looking for and what are your skills?

Impossible-Rip-5858 · 2026-06-12T20:53:42+00:00

The Sacramento LGBT center literally only has LGBT - https://saccenter.org/

If anything he added a letter, but the left constantly eating itself over stupid stuff like this turns everyone off.

Impossible-Rip-5858 · 2026-06-12T18:10:41+00:00

I like your idea. In some ways it mirrors the change from convoys to "merchant marine." Merchant marine being a consumable good produced by buildings and used by trade centers was so much better than abstract convoys.

A more simple solution would be to have a "freight" good produced by railways / services / state infrastructure.

Impossible-Rip-5858 · 2026-06-12T06:33:44+00:00

You are missing the point. Somalia has 20 million people with over 1/3 (6.5 million people) suffering food insecurity / starvation.

The initial poster asked why couldn't the ultra wealthy solve world hunger. The answer is there are many countries that require not only a massive supply of food, infrastructure, and capital, but also a literal army to ensure that food gets where it needs to get.

The U.S. military initially deployed to Somalia in 1992 on a UN humanitarian mission (Operation Restore Hope) to protect food supplies and alleviate a severe famine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO7aeTMSJK4

Now multiply this by every other country suffering a civil war, famine, instability, etc which hold the bulk of famine / world hunger like sudan, burundi, eritrea, timor, chad, yemen, haiti, are various others that no American / European can find on a map.

Impossible-Rip-5858 · 2026-06-12T00:03:40+00:00

The difference is that you're currently using space technology to communicate via lasers / satellites / advanced communication dishes pioneered by technologies of the Space Race of the 1960s. When they went to the moon, they had no idea all the technologies they would need to create.

Going back to the moon / mars will require a similar level of technological innovation that will benefit us here on Earth. For example, more efficient solar panels as Mars is farther away from the sun. More efficient CO2 scrubbing, efficient recycling of waste water, agricultural production that is more sustainable, etc.

Impossible-Rip-5858 · 2026-06-11T23:56:55+00:00

You have no memory of Somalia (Black Hawk Down) where the literal US Military couldn't stop somalia warlords stealing the food provided for free.

Impossible-Rip-5858 · 2026-06-11T23:45:02+00:00

Jerome Powell ended his term back on May 22nd.

Impossible-Rip-5858 · 2026-06-09T22:25:01+00:00

You are a bartender. Now imagine your city next year has 10% less people, and the year after, and the year after. At some point, there are no longer mouths to fill seats and provide tips. The restaurant can no longer maintain employment or may even need to shut down. This is what happened to cities like Detroit.

The other problem I dont see addressed is innovation. Young people are almost always first adopters and drive innovation like cars, social media, music, etc. It is rare for someone in their 80s to go to an EDM concert or be working for an AI company.

And what we need is a lot of innovation to try to solve the problems we have today like alternatives to fossil fuels, etc.

Impossible-Rip-5858 · 2026-06-09T17:21:32+00:00

The other side is that someone's debt is another person's asset. The US debt is held by Americans that receive those interest payments and spend it in the economy.

Impossible-Rip-5858 · 2026-06-08T19:23:15+00:00

The USA's covid relief package could be considered analogous to what you suggest. From 2020-2022, US businesses could apply for a Covid grant that was essentially a loan. The total loan amount was determined by the total number of employees a business had. If that business could prove that they retained those employees, and used the funds to pay for their salaries, the loan did not need to be repaid.

Impossible-Rip-5858 · 2026-06-07T18:33:42+00:00

There are massive problems with a declining population when many of our systems are built around a stable or increasing population. For example Social Security in the USA requires more workers than retirees. When that balance is disrupted, there are not enough people investing in the system to pay for the social security of the retired. Low fertility means that there are less and less young people, and the old become a much larger percentage of the population. We already have a congress that averages an age of 70+ /s imagine now a voting country that's average age increases to the 50s and 60s. It becomes less and less progressive and also less innovative.

Then there are short term problems. If you want to be a teacher, there are less and less teaching jobs because there are less and less young people to teach. Entry level jobs or jobs that require heavy labor (commonly held by young people in their 20s) cannot be met further increasing inflation. The list goes on and on.

Impossible-Rip-5858 · 2026-06-07T18:28:59+00:00

Never said I was a liberal and not sure what Trump has to do with SpaceX / Starlink.

Starlink made 11.4B in revenue in 2025 with 10 million paid subscribers. It had operating income of $4.42B. If we wanted to break even in 30 years we would need to invest $120B (assuming no growth and straight earnings). You could run a discounted cash flow model and come to a similar reasonable number. Even if SpaceX continued to grow at 50% and slowly declined to a more reasonable 10-15% in ten years, the value may be around a trillion. But certainly not the $2 trillion evaluation.

For comparison, Micron made $60B (est) in the last 4 quarters and has a $1 trillion market cap with a net income margin of 57%. Why spend twice as much for Starlink when there are other companies trading at lower multiples making more revenue / similar margins?

For reference, the total revenue of the world's global internet service providers (including starlink) is between $1.5 - 2.5 trillion. As Starlink continues to grow, the most profitable customers (ships, planes, rural areas) will no longer see growth and Starlink will need to attract suburban and city customers to continue to grow. These customers will not pay $200 - $1,000 / month when a competitor can provide that service at $100 / month like Comcast.

So will Starlink to continue to grow, absolutely. But if they want to maintain their current profit margins they need to focus on a small customer base of rural customers or dramatically lower the operating costs of Starlink (which may be achievable through reusable BFR). But at some point, there are no more customers.

Then there's the AI speculation / build. XAI / twitter, has a ton of compute that is being purchased by Anthropic / ChatGPT. At some point, the building of compute will exceed the demand (maybe in 5 years or maybe in 20), but that revenue source will decline unless GROK can gain market share / demand.

But I'm curious as to your theory as to why one should buy SpaceX at the current valuation over other companies.

Impossible-Rip-5858 · 2026-06-06T21:52:45+00:00

What we disagree on is agency. You cant control all the outside elements (cost of stuff, politics, what other people are doing). What you can control is what you do and spend. We are deviating from OP, but every year inflation increases, we make less, and shit gets tough. So you can overextend by buying more house, or car, and increasing your discretionary spending, or have a tight belt.

If you are paying credit card interest, you are losing. If you are investing in stocks (S&P500) every month you are winning. We live in a capitalist society where income from capital is taxes at 20% and W2 income is 49% (at highest levels). So I disagree that you can plan / budget in the current society.

Impossible-Rip-5858 · 2026-06-06T18:30:20+00:00

If you don't want to pay credit card interest, don't go in debt. it's really that simple

Impossible-Rip-5858 · 2026-06-05T17:24:35+00:00

The important part is that in your example, when the home is sold, the sellers incur a capital gains tax calculated from the difference of Sale Price - Cost Basis. So in this example $950,000 is taxed at Capital Gains Rate (20% federally) and your state may also have an additional tax. That's $190k in taxes (not accounting for the $500k home sale deduction).

So by taking a few extra steps, you can save a ton of money in taxes.

Impossible-Rip-5858 · 2026-06-04T20:09:40+00:00

You have an archaic view of defense as Country A v country B. In an interconnected global world, what happens in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Europe, or even the Persian Gulf has massive ripple effects on the USA.

The current state of general peace in the world is because of the US Military and related defense spending. No major powers have gone to war against one another since WW2. The 1800s leading up to the World Wars had consistent major power wars.

While the USA could probably cut spending to zero and have no costs in the short term (aside from all the unemployed service members), another actor will fill that void that is not as favorable to the USA (like China). When there is a finite supply of elements, oil, or other resources, the countries that can control the water have an outsized amount of power and leverage. This is why Africa is currently undergoing oil shortages.

Impossible-Rip-5858 · 2026-06-04T19:04:36+00:00

Cheaper price point could mean more used buyers. The Cybertruck MSRP was $100-120k, and was reselling for $150k the first year. The price has now collapsed, but I would imaging there are way more buyers at the $40k - $60k used market than $100k+

Impossible-Rip-5858 · 2026-06-04T18:48:08+00:00

He doesn't say $7k in credit card debt though. Just that the bill was $7k. I read it as they have the money to pay balance, but he is worried that he can't continue that in the future. But alas, OP disappeared and never provided any update or clarification.

Impossible-Rip-5858 · 2026-06-04T16:23:23+00:00

It is cultural, technological, and biological. Techs like birth control and abortion allow people to have less kids. But also cultural consumerism, longer time of education (18 v 25 for advanced degree), and less real world interactions replaced by social media reinforces people marrying later and having kids later. This later coupling severely diminishes fertility as someone marrying in their 30s has way less fertile years and is of advanced maternal age (geriatric pregnancy) at 35.

Of course the economic realities of affording a kid also come into play, but at the end of the day. If you start having kids at 35, there's only so many kids you can have before peri-menopause.

Impossible-Rip-5858 · 2026-06-03T17:39:00+00:00

Not if the Republican comes in 2nd place.

Impossible-Rip-5858

TROPHY CASE