Last year I invested a lot of time into building my own sports broadcasting software allowing you to mix audio and video inputs in real time: https://broadstack.dev/
I also run the Rust meetup here in Amsterdam and really enjoy presenting and growing the community.
I am from Ireland and from talking to friends and family most people are pretty happy with it. We give them a pass on taxes and they employ thousands of high end engineers here. We then collect large income tax revenues from these workers and subsidise the rest of the country.
You joke, but some types of taxes are objectively worse than others. An ideal tax would have to generate sufficient revenue, be non-distortionary, inexpensive, and fair.
We can argue about what's "fair" all day, but "inexpensive" is more objective: some taxes hamper more economic activity than others. A $1 tax on a stock trade will reduce exactly $1 of economic activity. It's so expensive, it's basically pointless. A land value tax, on the other land, is almost free. (And in some cases, negative!)
Most taxes fall somewhere between these two extremes, but corporate income taxes are one of the most expensive, which is why economists aren't big fans of them.
Yes, skim off trillions of potential tax revenues of other countries to earn a billion or two as a single country. Effectively a Prisoner's dilemma on an international scale.
Countries like Ireland and the Netherlands are nothing more than tax avoidance puppets of a few big companies. And the sad thing is that their governments think it's good what they do while it's a downwards spiral instead.
I believe a lot of people are missing the point here that you can choose whether or not to the take the pill. Many women I know choose not to take it because of health side effects. The issue of side effects with vaccines is a lot of people feel like they are being coerced through talk of vaccine passports and other measures.
Tech industry in general is suffering the same fate. If your views run counter to what’s trending and work in tech you’re putting your job at risk if you communicate them.
I'm perhaps a little sensitive to this and may have overstated things. The comment in particular I was thinking of has indeed been down voted now.
I do see it in maybe a less overt way in a lot of comments on HN. There are comments in this discussion blaming a lack of social programs in the US for the problem. Things like that. There's nothing wrong with believing that, but the counter arguments don't get much visibility around here.
The bigger issue here is that this man was able to convince "industry veterans" to give him massive amounts of money. You can see through him in a heart beat because you're technically savvy. Clearly the people running these automakers are not.
It doesn't surprise me in the slightest why he was able to convince deep pocketed "industry veterans" to fund him, and actually understanding the social dynamics at play is important for understanding society at large (and can be very helpful when it comes to making money).
There is a metric shit ton of pressure on these legacy automakers to compete with Tesla. Sure, you may think Tesla is a relatively small slice now, but the leaders at these companies are extremely scared of falling behind technologically to the point where they are uncompetitive. I'm quite sure a lot of people at GM were skeptical, but I bet a lot of them also did the subconscious calculation "What's worse for my career, losing out on a deal with an innovator like Nikola and falling even further behind, or going with Nikola, in which case if it fails we're not much worse off then we were originally?" Against this backdrop it's easy to see how a scammer can take advantage of this dynamic and even play legacy players off each other, e.g. "Well, you could choose not to invest in us, but then think how much further behind Tesla you'll be. And you know we're talking to Ford, too."
Seriously just watch any of the guys rants on YouTube, you don't have to be technically savvy to see through his bullshit. Watch any of his interviews on YouTube. I like this one with Jim Cramer trying to nail him down on his pre-sales number on the Badger and laughing at him later
Amazingly tall pile of crap that guy is spewing. In the video he's touting their lack of product / development focus as a virtue and claiming that they can work on four or five projects (vehicles) more efficiently than one, despite having no viable vehicles. Maybe we should consider his premise: Nikola can fail to build four or five vehicles as well as they can fail to build one.
There might not be many options for investors that want exposure to the EV market but missed the boat on Tesla. I'm sure plenty thought it could be the Lyft to Tesla's Uber.
It will really only fail when the money dries up. As long as they can keep raising money, they can keep the fantasy alive long enough to lure in other investors.
I can't tell if you're serious or trolling. Ford sold close to a million F-150s alone in 2019 (the best-selling vehicle in America), with the F-series line doing $42 billion in revenue on its own. The domestic auto industry is very much a real business with real revenue and real profitability.
Tundra is manufactured in the US and doesn't sell anywhere near as many. Other manufacturers are free to open production facilities in the US to avoid the tariff as well. Not sure what your point is...
And I assume you're referring to the automotive bailouts in 2008 when companies in many industries were falling apart and received bailouts or TARP funds? It was a rather unprecedented situation at the time, not really reflective of overall business viability.
Domestic OEMs have plenty of issues (poor innovation, arguably poor relative quality, unions, etc.) to criticize. Operating margins, which tend to be on par with foreign OEMs, aren't really one of them. And it really depends on what you're comparing it to to make a determination about how profitable the sector is. Pretty much nothing is as profitable as SaaS, but 4-5% is nothing to laugh at.
Running a business with high leverage is a totally valid way to make money. That said, Ford is doing very poorly. Their stock has lost like 60% since 2011. If you lose 60% during the greatest bull market the world has ever seen, well, maybe you should go out of business.
Which everyone should be made aware of, because it's worth asking how did it get that way, and how do we prevent other industries from suffering this fate.
It's been modern economic theory that has encouraged this stripping of US industry...unfortunately it's a lauded theory.
Remote: Yes
Willing to relocate: Yes
Technologies: Kotlin, Java, Rust, Typescript in that order
Résumé: https://jamsiedaly.com/
Email: jamsiedaly@gmail.com
Last year I invested a lot of time into building my own sports broadcasting software allowing you to mix audio and video inputs in real time: https://broadstack.dev/ I also run the Rust meetup here in Amsterdam and really enjoy presenting and growing the community.