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evilweasel posted:a stock buyback is just basically a dividend, but that isn't taxable in that year for the recipients of the dividend, and structured in a way that it makes your stock options more valuble. it's silly to think of them as different when you're taking a high-level look, what matters for that high-level look is the allocation of profits between dividends and future investment (and the answer about what ratio you want there largely depends on the marginal utility of additional investment in that industry vs. other industries) and you don't really care about if that dividend was a traditional dividend or a stock buyback But don't stock buybacks also effectively distort the market through giving the company a way to direct increase its own share price? I mean, you could make the argument that many investors would be aware of the buyback, but it still seems like an issue.
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Dec 3, 2018 19:58
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Ytlaya posted:But don't stock buybacks also effectively distort the market through giving the company a way to direct increase its own share price? I mean, you could make the argument that many investors would be aware of the buyback, but it still seems like an issue. No more than a company known for issuing large dividends on a consistent basis distorts the market for its own shares.
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Dec 3, 2018 20:15
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Ytlaya posted:But don't stock buybacks also effectively distort the market through giving the company a way to direct increase its own share price? I mean, you could make the argument that many investors would be aware of the buyback, but it still seems like an issue. theoretically that doesn't matter because a share price is sort of a meaningless number in isolation: what matters is the share price per 1% of the company. with a share buyback, the price goes up, but the number of shares outstanding goes down, and what is effectively happening is that people who want to stay invested in the company use their theoretical dividend to purchase the shares of the people who want to cash out. a similar thing with actual dividends happens, where your dividends in a mutual fund or an index fund are usually automatically reinvested in the stock, so your percentage ownership increases instead of you receiving cash. in practice, you are somewhat correct because many investors aren't carefully tracking the number of outstanding shares (this is, in part, why companies loved paying people with stock options - because for a while they had no cost on the balance sheet). more specifically, executive stock options probably aren't structured in a way to care about anything other than the absolute price, so you could absolutely have executives using carefully timed stock buybacks to put their options "in the money". you could probably, however, do a similar thing by declaring a dividend and then not issuing it until you exercised your stock options.
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Dec 3, 2018 20:18
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evilweasel posted:a stock buyback is just basically a dividend, but that isn't taxable in that year for the recipients of the dividend, and structured in a way that it makes your stock options more valuble. it's silly to think of them as different when you're taking a high-level look, what matters for that high-level look is the allocation of profits between dividends and future investment (and the answer about what ratio you want there largely depends on the marginal utility of additional investment in that industry vs. other industries) and you don't really care about if that dividend was a traditional dividend or a stock buyback It's different in that paying out ongoing profits as a dividend focuses on maintaining those profits over the long term, while buying back stock focuses on draining out the bank accounts of the company to the near exclusion of all else right now. A company that is doing well will naturally have a strong share price anyway. I just don't see how $18 billion couldn't be better spent on researching/developing a new product line that both makes money and funds healthy dividends (while retaining jobs, market share, sales and so on) rather than just blowing it on a one time gimmick who's benefit could easily be lost. Maybe it's the industry I work in (areospace manufacturing), but it's expensive to develop new products and things like missing a schedule or having one of our products crash is a great way to gently caress over the stock price.
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Dec 3, 2018 20:29
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Solkanar512 posted:It's different in that paying out ongoing profits as a dividend focuses on maintaining those profits over the long term, while buying back stock focuses on draining out the bank accounts of the company to the near exclusion of all else right now. e stock price. a dividend does not need to be consistent, companies can and do declare one-time dividends to get "excess" cash back to shareholders (or, if it's a closely held company, usually just because the controlling shareholder needs some cash) Solkanar512 posted:I just don't see how $18 billion couldn't be better spent on researching/developing a new product line that both makes money and funds healthy dividends (while retaining jobs, market share, sales and so on) rather than just blowing it on a one time gimmick who's benefit could easily be lost. Maybe it's the industry I work in (areospace manufacturing), but it's expensive to develop new products and things like missing a schedule or having one of our products crash is a great way to gently caress over the stock price. That's why it depends on the industry. If you're a mature industry where additional investment won't earn great returns, dividends make much more sense than reinvestment. Think a company that owns a gold mine: they have their costs of extracting gold from the mine and some amount of maintenance, etc. But they've only got the one gold mine, retaining profits won't earn you more gold, so you should just dividend it out and your shareholders can invest it in another company that might have a decent return. But if you're a growing startup, your return on reinvestment should be much much higher, and it will rarely (if ever) make sense to declare a dividend (and if you're in a situation where it makes sense, it's either you've become a mature company or you should just liquidate the whole company). that said: the tax cut "stock buybacks" were just a way to most efficiently transfer the loot from the US treasury to the intended recipients and it is useful mostly because it exposes how nonsensical the idea the tax cut would drive economic growth was. evilweasel fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Dec 3, 2018 |
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Dec 3, 2018 20:31
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update on Tesla's fix to solve their doors not opening on the model 3 in cold weather (which is to never let the windows fully close after exiting the car) https://twitter.com/OsmanParvez/status/1069664493553180672?s=19
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Dec 3, 2018 20:57
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lmao water not getting into the car like that was a problem solved, I don't know, in the nineteen loving thirties
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Dec 3, 2018 21:07
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Pochoclo posted:lmao water not getting into the car like that was a problem solved, I don't know, in the nineteen loving thirties yeah, but Tesla's solution for that meant that doors were getting stuck close because the mechanism to lower the windows was getting (quite literally) frozen in place if the cars were in cold climates
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Dec 3, 2018 21:28
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so now Tesla Model 3 windows dont seal shut because they need to get the door open bazinga
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Dec 3, 2018 21:29
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Tesla's impeccable automobile engineering has yet to stop making me think of the Kids In The Hall skit, The Pitiful Mechanic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lphrw69lcQ
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Dec 3, 2018 21:32
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evilweasel posted:iirc the single biggest factor in hilarious increases in CEO pay was just making CEO pay public According to Piketty's book, the biggest factor was reducing the top level marginal tax rate from literally 90% to something like 40% or whatever it is today. Iirc this happened in every country and then CEO pay went up massively in every country.
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Dec 3, 2018 21:45
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exploded mummy posted:yeah, but Tesla's solution for that meant that doors were getting stuck close because the mechanism to lower the windows was getting (quite literally) frozen in place if the cars were in cold climates It's amazing how Tesla keeps loving up these basic things literally every other car manufacturer figured out years ago.
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Dec 3, 2018 22:33
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exploded mummy posted:update on Tesla's fix to solve their doors not opening on the model 3 in cold weather (which is to never let the windows fully close after exiting the car) Once again, the real news here is that multiple classes of issues that would result in massive, bank-breaking recalls by other car manufacturers may sometimes be addressed by Tesla via OTA updates.
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Dec 3, 2018 22:43
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enraged_camel posted:Once again, the real news here is that multiple classes of issues that would result in massive, bank-breaking recalls by other car manufacturers may sometimes be addressed by Tesla via OTA updates. this is not a good thing
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Dec 3, 2018 22:47
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This seems pretty Tech Nightmarish https://twitter.com/legaladvice_txt/status/1069687816731459586
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Dec 3, 2018 22:49
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evilweasel posted:a stock buyback is just basically a dividend, but that isn't taxable in that year for the recipients of the dividend, and structured in a way that it makes your stock options more valuble. it's silly to think of them as different when you're taking a high-level look, what matters for that high-level look is the allocation of profits between dividends and future investment (and the answer about what ratio you want there largely depends on the marginal utility of additional investment in that industry vs. other industries) and you don't really care about if that dividend was a traditional dividend or a stock buyback It’s stuff like this that makes finance so baffling to me: what does it matter if its taxed or not, stocks are not money. You only get the money if you sell them and then it’s taxed. What does it matter to have 15 billion pretend dollars if you can’t buy anything with them?
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Dec 3, 2018 23:00
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AceOfFlames posted:It’s stuff like this that makes finance so baffling to me: what does it matter if its taxed or not, stocks are not money. You only get the money if you sell them and then it’s taxed. What does it matter to have 15 billion pretend dollars if you can’t buy anything with them? I don't know man, why don't you go ask all the people who freak over Jeff Bezos "getting millions an hour" based on absurd extrapolations of stock price rises to hourly pay?
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Dec 3, 2018 23:07
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Schubalts posted:It's amazing how Tesla keeps loving up these basic things literally every other car manufacturer figured out years ago. It's an electric car. It needs to have the minimum weight that has everything to make it street legal while also having to carry 1000 pounds of batteries. They had to get the car to have one of the lowest drag coefficient of any car on the market just to get a driving range that is like 60% other cars. I doubt anyone picked to have the windows go up into the frame of the car and have to pull down when you pull the door handle, but I'm sure doing that shaves some tiny percent off aerodynamic drag and got the car 3 more miles of range or something.
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Dec 3, 2018 23:22
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AceOfFlames posted:It’s stuff like this that makes finance so baffling to me: what does it matter if its taxed or not, stocks are not money. You only get the money if you sell them and then it’s taxed. What does it matter to have 15 billion pretend dollars if you can’t buy anything with them? That's note true, in many cases you pay tax upon exercising stock options--even if you don't sell the stock. This is even true for companies which haven't had an IPO yet, which results in the hilarious situation of people working for startups with insane valuations having to pay huge amounts of tax on money that isn't real, should they decide to exercise their options (which they often have to within x months if they for example leave the company).
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Dec 3, 2018 23:23
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AceOfFlames posted:It’s stuff like this that makes finance so baffling to me: what does it matter if its taxed or not, stocks are not money. You only get the money if you sell them and then it’s taxed. What does it matter to have 15 billion pretend dollars if you can’t buy anything with them? if you own stocks, you can select when you pay the taxes, and choosing when to pay taxes can be extremely helpful. this goes double when you consider the time value of money: $100 today is worth more than $100 next year, so paying $100 next year is better than paying $100 today. i would also need to check if the tax rate on dividends was higher than the long-term capital gains tax. as to why you own stocks instead of cash: because on average $15 billion pretend dollars in the stock market this year will be approximately $16.05 billion dollars next year Morbus posted:That's note true, in many cases you pay tax upon exercising stock options--even if you don't sell the stock. This is even true for companies which haven't had an IPO yet, which results in the hilarious situation of people working for startups with insane valuations having to pay huge amounts of tax on money that isn't real, should they decide to exercise their options (which they often have to within x months if they for example leave the company). you're missing the issue. if my $100k in stock becomes worth $150k because the stock rose (due to the stock buyback) i owe no taxes this year. if my $100k in stock remains worth $100k in stock, and i get $50k in dividends, i owe taxes on the $50k this year. yes, i have to pay taxes eventually, but being able to indefinitely postpone paying taxes is valuable. evilweasel fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Dec 3, 2018 |
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Dec 3, 2018 23:25
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exploded mummy posted:this is not a good thing That's your personal opinion.
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Dec 3, 2018 23:38
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enraged_camel posted:Once again, the real news here is that multiple classes of issues that would result in massive, bank-breaking recalls by other car manufacturers may sometimes be addressed by Tesla via OTA updates. the word "addressed" is doing a lot of work in this sentence "other cars deal with cars exploding when tapped on the rear bumper by massive, bank-breaking recalls. tesla addresses those concerns via OTA update where you must affirmatively waive all liability for car explosion in order to start up the car!"
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Dec 3, 2018 23:42
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evilweasel posted:the word "addressed" is doing a lot of work in this sentence Come on, don't be glib. All in all, Tesla's OTA update system is a real innovation.
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Dec 3, 2018 23:43
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enraged_camel posted:Come on, don't be glib. All in all, Tesla's OTA update system is a real innovation. it's not an innovation. it's something that is stupidly easy to implement and has existed in lots of other applications for ages. i don't actually even know if Tesla is the only car with an OTA update system because other cars don't have massive bank-breaking issues like "we forgot that cold temperatures exist" or "we forgot to test our brakes" where the existence of an OTA update system becomes something we know about. do you know if chevy volts have/had an OTA system? i don't, because chevy doesn't make such terrible cars that you frequently need one. you also ignore, of course, the tremendous security concerns in a car where such core functions of the car can be remotely updated, which is a big deal when your qa process ranges from "nonexistent" to "exists, but believes its function is to introduce new bugs"
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Dec 3, 2018 23:46
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enraged_camel posted:That's your personal opinion. No. You capture hardware defects in the design phase. You do not let them to propagate into production. If you have to solve an issue post release, you solve the loving issue properly. You do not do what Tesla does and pretend that you've made a software fix for a problem that software is incapable of fixing. They designed a really lovely defective door. This never should have made it into the final design without external temperature considerations. You can not fix this in software. This has to be fixed as part of a recall. They have made their problem worse, because now people are going to start suffering from effects of water in the cabin of the car for extended periods of time. Because the windows no longer close and precipitation will get in. If these cars are under warranty, they substituted a recall for their own loving mistake with one of two outcomes: a) they start having to eat the repair costs for the ruined interiors or b) they get sued into eating the repair costs because it was their mandatoty software update and they own the liability, not the owner. Pretending "hey their hardware design sucks and their software fixes are now having completely foreseen consequences because we're cheap assholes" is a good thing is completely loving stupid. evilweasel posted:it's not an innovation. it's something that is stupidly easy to implement and has existed in lots of other applications for ages. it is not a system that should be attached to something that can kill person if it malfunctions OJ MIST 2 THE DICK fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Dec 4, 2018 |
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Dec 3, 2018 23:56
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Anyone want to talk about tumblr suddenly making a sudden announcement that it's banning all pornography of all sorts and will ban any account posting 'female presenting nipples"
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Dec 4, 2018 00:01
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This is just something I'm remembering from reading The Smartest Guys in the Room, but: don't companies also like stock buybacks because they reduce the number of outstanding shares, increasing the earnings per share? That was supposed to be one of the numbers all the analysts focused on, so Enron bought a ton of their own stock to inflate it even though earnings hasn't increased.
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Dec 4, 2018 00:02
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Anyone want to talk about tumblr suddenly making a sudden announcement that it's banning all pornography of all sorts and will ban any account posting 'female presenting nipples" they're using an algorithm to flag posts. it's going about as well as you would expect.
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Dec 4, 2018 00:02
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Stexils posted:they're using an algorithm to flag posts. it's going about as well as you would expect. I'm going to expect it has an r value of 0.
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Dec 4, 2018 00:04
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It's amazing to see the typical Musksuckers claim that Tesla actively breaking their cars further with over the air updates is proof that it's good.
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Dec 4, 2018 00:18
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evilweasel posted:it's not an innovation. it's something that is stupidly easy to implement and has existed in lots of other applications for ages. Really? There are cars that can get their hardware configurations changed and optimized remotely via software updates? quote:i don't actually even know if Tesla is the only car with an OTA update system because other cars don't have massive bank-breaking issues like "we forgot that cold temperatures exist" Um, of course they do? Or have you not heard about the issue with Hondas where [urlhttp://fortune.com/2018/08/29/takata-airbags-recall-exploding-extreme-heat/]the airbag can potentially launch shards of metal towards the driver when it goes off?[/url] From the article: quote:“Tens of millions of vehicles with Takata air bags are under recall,” an NHTSA site devoted to the recalls says. “Long-term exposure to high heat and humidity can cause these air bags to explode when deployed. Such explosions have caused injuries and deaths.” Would you say that Honda "forgot that high heat and humidity exist"?  Moving on... quote:or "we forgot to test our brakes"[/i] where the existence of an OTA update system becomes something we know about. do you know if chevy volts have/had an OTA system? i don't, because chevy doesn't make such terrible cars that you frequently need one. Tesla regularly dominates safety ratings. They are one of the safest — if not the safest — cars on the market. They do have manufacturing issues to overcome still, but you're grossly overstating the seriousness of the problems. quote:you also ignore, of course, the tremendous security concerns in a car where such core functions of the car can be remotely updated, which is a big deal when your qa process ranges from "nonexistent" to "exists, but believes its function is to introduce new bugs" Valid concerns. However, I'm not aware of any cases where an OTA update resulted in accidents. Without knowing the process by which they are developed and rolled out, it is premature to conclude that the mechanism poses a danger.
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Dec 4, 2018 00:29
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exploded mummy posted:No. As I said in my post above, other manufacturers regularly issue recalls for all kinds of hardware defects, ranging from trivial to potentially fatal. The difference with Tesla is that it has a mechanism to fix lots of potential problems remotely via software updates.
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Dec 4, 2018 00:31
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:It's an electric car. It needs to have the minimum weight that has everything to make it street legal while also having to carry 1000 pounds of batteries. They had to get the car to have one of the lowest drag coefficient of any car on the market just to get a driving range that is like 60% other cars. I doubt anyone picked to have the windows go up into the frame of the car and have to pull down when you pull the door handle, but I'm sure doing that shaves some tiny percent off aerodynamic drag and got the car 3 more miles of range or something. Again, other electric car manufacturers figured out how to make functioning, street legal cars, with similar mileage, without window controls freezing in winter. Deciding to make the windows not roll up all of the way on their own in response to this, when there is going to be ice and snow on the cars, is a cherry on top. Also, someone at Tesla would absolutely purposefully go for weird-rear end windows. Remember how the drat doors could be unopenable while the car burst into flame, because they were designed to be entirely electrically controlled?
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Dec 4, 2018 00:39
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enraged_camel posted:Really? There are cars that can get their hardware configurations changed and optimized remotely via software updates? Did you seriously try to pass off a supplier's manufacturing defects as a design defects jfc Also fun fact. Tesla used these recalled airbags too. enraged_camel posted:As I said in my post above, other manufacturers regularly issue recalls for all kinds of hardware defects, ranging from trivial to potentially fatal. You have no idea what you're talking about. OJ MIST 2 THE DICK fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Dec 4, 2018 |
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Dec 4, 2018 00:59
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enraged_camel posted:Really? There are cars that can get their hardware configurations changed and optimized remotely via software updates? there are no cars anywhere, including tesla, that can get their hardware configurations changed by software updates. if tesla could do this they wouldn't need software preventing the windows from closing all the way to try to ameliorate a hardware defect other manufacturers don't need to "optimize" how their brakes work months after shipping the car because they worked right the first time enraged_camel posted:Um, of course they do? Or have you not heard about the issue with Hondas where [urlhttp://fortune.com/2018/08/29/takata-airbags-recall-exploding-extreme-heat/]the airbag can potentially launch shards of metal towards the driver when it goes off?[/url] lol literally the only way to fix this via ota update would be the exact "waive all liability to turn on your car" ota update i joked about, do you understand the distinction between hardware and software
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Dec 4, 2018 01:13
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Schubalts posted:Again, other electric car manufacturers figured out how to make functioning, street legal cars, with similar mileage, without window controls freezing in winter. How much do you follow the twitter of any other electric car? Or any car period? If you order a chevy bolt in ash grey the car becomes undrivable because the angle of the windshield means the interior reflection makes too much glare, the volume selection for audio alerts is a range from 25 to 37, the magnets in the regenerative brakes pull the bearings out of the brakes sometimes, they had to do a recall to patch the cars to shut down after 150 minutes because they are so quite people just accidently forgot to ever turn them off and there was a battery recall because they were bursting into flame. If you wanna find hilariously bad design stories about pretty much any car you can go looking and find them. especially weird custom designed cars like electric cars.
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Dec 4, 2018 01:15
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:How much do you follow the twitter of any other electric car? What kind of monstrous person follows the marketing account for a car? Besides you, apparently.
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Dec 4, 2018 01:24
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evilweasel posted:there are no cars anywhere, including tesla, that can get their hardware configurations changed by software updates. if tesla could do this they wouldn't need software preventing the windows from closing all the way to try to ameliorate a hardware defect Again you are being willfully obtuse. Come on, you are better than this. Tesla’s brakes were always excellent. Like I said, they have top notch safety ratings. They then figured out a way to further improve brake performance via an OTA update. So they did. There was another update that elevated the car a few inches to decrease risk of batteries being punctured by road debris. That is an example of a hardware configuration being changed via a software update. The software controls the hardware settings, just like in many factories.
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Dec 4, 2018 01:32
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Morbus posted:I mean I'm not arguing with the point you're trying to make but that is a lovely lovely graph that does the "why, if I fiddle with the y-axis I can make any two lines going in the same direction look right on top of each other!" bullshit. Correlation isn't causation, but since Unions were largely responsible for the existence of a middle class, it stands to reason that their destruction would result in the reduction in the same. And we could look at the situation in nations with strong unionism and draw conclusions from that as well.
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Dec 4, 2018 01:58
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enraged_camel posted:Again you are being willfully obtuse. Come on, you are better than this. "Tesla has software updates!!!1" *masturbates furiously while ignoring glaring hardware issues*
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Dec 4, 2018 02:13
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