ERICOPOLY

"Management reiterated its expectation to deliver 80,000 to 90,000 vehicles during the year. " So sounds like they'll hit 100,000 vehicle production run-rate by end of 2016. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-q1-2016-earnings-193243906.html#

The current system is just retarded -- I had an MRI on my elbow and I get all this junk mail from the insurance company about explanation of benefits, and explaining what they pay and what I have to pay. I have conversations with a doctor about which surgeon my insurance may or may not cover, etc... etc... Regardless of politics, who likes dealing with all this crap? Don't you want to enjoy life instead of living this way? It's a fucking nightmare of bullshit paperwork.

Isn't it true that only the smoking of tobacco is harmful? I think if you are vaporizing the unflavored product, you don't have health risks (nicotine itself is not a carcinogen). Today, it's personal choice if you choose to also suck in all of the carcinogens via smoking when you try to get your addictive nicotine.

We all know Sanjeev is in training to do the jobs of the MRI techs.

How about a rocket that can drop a bomb on your enemy and then return to base?

Aren't you a libertarian? If so, this is a pretty interesting perspective, that an increase in taxes is desirable to make things more fair. I don't want to increase taxes, but reduce (actually abolish them or make them voluntary). If you have a tax system deductions of any kind are inherently unfair (policy makers trying to help certain groups of people they prefer). Deductions highlight the limitations of a specific tax system. The more deduction options (and the more different taxes) the crapier the systrm. They could get rid of the deductions and instead make income from mortgages tax-exempt, similar to muni bonds. That would reduce the market interest rate and thus perhaps maintain affordability of mortgage credit. Would that be unfair? Or would it be fair because everybody could participate in tax-free savings options. Wealth tax should not exist. So dividend, capital gains, interest tax and mortgage tax should all not exist. These are the worst taxes. Continuing with income taxes. Slightly less bad but still should be abolished. Everything government does should be possible from consumption taxes alone (VAT). If that is too little it's a clear signal government has become way too large. The moment you eliminate dividend taxes, there will be zero S corporations and a lot of new C corporations. But I imagine that would all have to be amended or we'd see the total elimination of the employee as we know it (a whole lot of independent contractors as C corps).

Aren't you a libertarian? If so, this is a pretty interesting perspective, that an increase in taxes is desirable to make things more fair. I don't want to increase taxes, but reduce (actually abolish them or make them voluntary). If you have a tax system deductions of any kind are inherently unfair (policy makers trying to help certain groups of people they prefer). Deductions highlight the limitations of a specific tax system. The more deduction options (and the more different taxes) the crapier the systrm. They could get rid of the deductions and instead make income from mortgages tax-exempt, similar to muni bonds. That would reduce the market interest rate and thus perhaps maintain affordability of mortgage credit. Would that be unfair? Or would it be fair because everybody could participate in tax-free savings options.

That's right. Real estate prices would be higher if the government didn't tax the investors who buy the mortgage loans. Interest rates are higher to compensate for expected taxes.

I wonder when the feature creep will occur... it won't be long before the debate rages on whether cars will be required to brake in school zones, to brake for red lights... to brake for the speed limit! At least on highways where pedestrians aren't an issue, do speed limits even make sense for autonomous vehicles? Reaction times for the autonomous driving systems are much quicker than for human beings. Under the banner of energy conservation they make sense. And noise reduction for the communities alongside the roadway -- tire noise.

Why would it overweight some holdings so much?

Sometimes the interest gets deducted twice. A realtor could rent an office and yet still deduct it from his income. The owner of the office building might be deducting mortgage interest. So is it deducted twice? It's always okay for a business (like the realtor in this case) to deduct these kinds of things a second time. So the mere fact of it being a second swipe isn't really the issue. Just seems to be that if you are paying for your primary residence, you get no deduction for that. Whether you own it or rent it, no deduction. (the price you pay for the home can't be deducted). The law does allow for deducting the financing of your principle residence if you own it -- could probably do the same for people who need to borrow money to make rent (deduct the interest). This wouldn't solve a real problem, but it may shut up a few people who think it's unfair that homeowners can deduct the cost of financing their primary home.

I would offer it as a populist gimmick if I were in the Presidential race, fully knowing that it could do no damage and would cost the Treasury nothing... because nobody will loan you money to make rent.

I've even heard people talk about taxing the imputed rent earned for living in your own home (even though you already paid that rent when you bought the house). Next somebody will suggest that we tax the imputed rent for driving your own car.

I heard it recently stated that rent should be deductible if homeowners get a mortgage interest deduction. My take: No. Reasoning: I just paid cash for a home with after-tax dollars. The price I paid is effectively the discounted present value of all future rent. So if you allow a deduction for rent, then to be fair you'll have to let me carry forward an annual deduction in perpetuity for the present value of the rent that I had paid upfront. I'm sure the thought of that would cool anyone's heels. To get apples to apples with the mortgage interest deduction, I would agree to a law that lets you deduct the interest you incur if you borrow the money that you pay your rent with.

Non-hardship loans against your 401(k) must be repaid within 5 years if you stay with your employer. But if you leave the company before the 5 years are up, the loan must be repaid within 2 months of your departure. After 2 months, any outstanding loan balance (minus any nondeductible contributions) is treated as taxable income. In addition, if you're under the age of 59½, you'll also have to pay an additional 10% early withdrawal penalty on the outstanding loan balance. Ouch! https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/1899463-what-happens-if-i-have-a-401-k-loan-but-later-lose-or-quit-my-job

Why not, instead, focus on dividend payers? Or both at the same time? Those are the two ways to return excess cash. It's probably less likely for a company to issue debt in order to pay a dividend -- so perhaps it"s truly "excess" cash. Is there any evidence that cannibals outperform dividend payers?

I suppose if the stock is expensive then what management does from there (buy stock or not) is only a secondary concern. The primary concern is that one shouldn't even own the stock in the first place. So management's actions on this subject aren't really an issue IMO if you are selling holdings as they get "too expensive". The debt level, if too high, is also a reason to sell the stock (no matter what the debt is used for). That solves that issue. Too high is too high.

Defensive holdings (huge amounts of cash to return) should (in theory) outperform the market when purchased towards the end of bull markets so long as you get out of them when the market is at the bottom of a following bear cycle. It's the sketchy companies that do the worst heading into a recession -- and then the sketchy ones that have survived the ordeal then lead the way out of the recession.

I can sort of understand why there are Tesla bears. Basically, it's because there are so many long established car companies and put together, they comprise the entire auto industry. The bears are conditioned to this level of industry ambition and execution. It becomes fairly reasonable for them to assume that if the best car companies can't achieve X, then how could a newcomer upstart possibly achieve it? The difference here is that Tesla has a much higher level of ambition and execution. Much higher than the rest of the industry. So the question could be turned around... how can the existing industry leaders survive long term under this newly higher level of ambition and execution? How are they going to reinvent their cultures?

I wonder when the feature creep will occur... it won't be long before the debate rages on whether cars will be required to brake in school zones, to brake for red lights... to brake for the speed limit!

They put limits on what expenses you can deduct when you are a homeowner. So you can deduct interest up to the first million of mortgage principle, but the rest of the interest must be paid after-tax. They put limits (AMT) on your property taxes. They make you pay for repairs out of pocket, and they give you nothing for depreciation. You can't deduct for the pool guy, or the gardener, or the irrigation bill. However that completely changes when you move out of the house and sign it over to a tenant. So the house immediately becomes much more affordable, as far fewer taxes are paid. Soon we will qualify as "real estate professionals" and therefore the expenses that we can carry against our other income will not be restricted.

It takes a lot of energy to send a rocket up into space... so my leverage and concentration was necessary. It takes very little energy to keep it in orbit.

Really, what worries me is his public speaking -- I worry that if you do too much of that, teaching your "wisdom" to others, then you can adopt a sort of new identity, and one that may not be conducive to the type of meditative undisturbed thought that is required of investing. You become sort of celebrated. Anyways, I think the best way for him to avoid that is to decline invitations to situations where you have the adoring fans hanging on every word. The stock tip in the wallet is something that I would nix if I could do so. Just try to be more disappearing. I favor Sanjeev in that regard, because he doesn't do that kind of thing and his results are great. I think it probably helps him make decisions without the brains other hazards getting in the way. Not that we're talking about him, but I simply was floored when I once heard Guy Spier being interviewed and he started talking about his amazingly high intelligence. It's just against my religion to ever utter something like that. Anyways, that's only somewhat related because they're buddies. Well, Sanjeev's record is far less outstanding than your own. Why not keep doing it yourself? :) Well, if you use leverage and concentration and the stock moves favorably, you can do much better than Warren Buffett.

It's been more than 5 years since the Roth conversions, so we have some penalty-free and tax-free money to withdraw first. We could go the 72T route later.

Really, what worries me is his public speaking -- I worry that if you do too much of that, teaching your "wisdom" to others, then you can adopt a sort of new identity, and one that may not be conducive to the type of meditative undisturbed thought that is required of investing. You become sort of celebrated. Anyways, I think the best way for him to avoid that is to decline invitations to situations where you have the adoring fans hanging on every word. The stock tip in the wallet is something that I would nix if I could do so. Just try to be more disappearing. I favor Sanjeev in that regard, because he doesn't do that kind of thing and his results are great. I think it probably helps him make decisions without the brains other hazards getting in the way. Not that we're talking about him, but I simply was floored when I once heard Guy Spier being interviewed and he started talking about his amazingly high intelligence. It's just against my religion to ever utter something like that. Anyways, that's only somewhat related because they're buddies.