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From this article:

It said Amazon was able to pay so little tax because its finances were structured in a way that avoided liability. The institute highlighted Amazon's efforts to maximize tax credits and tax breaks for executive stock options as two examples of this.

"Amazon pays all the taxes we are required to pay in the US and every country where we operate, including paying $2.6 billion in corporate tax and reporting $3.4 billion in tax expense over the last three years," Amazon said in a statement issued Thursday.

"Corporate tax is based on profits, not revenues, and our profits remain modest given retail is a highly competitive, low-margin business and our continued heavy investment."

Wal-Mart isn't on higher ground, they're just not able to take as much advantage of the tax law (or not as good at it) as Amazon. In case you haven't heard, Trump isn't a big fan of Bezos and/or Amazon and wouldn't have gone out of his way to benefit them in the new Republican tax bill last year... so Amazon is only paying the taxes they're required to -- and they're not alone. As noted in this article:

Big businesses are faring better than ever under the Trump era tax law, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). ... about 60 Fortune 500 companies avoided paying all federal income tax in 2018 (with their total average effective tax rate being roughly -5%).

That’s more than three times the number of companies that avoided paying corporate taxes on average from 2008 to 2015. During that period, 18 companies managed to pay 0% or less (with their total average effective tax rate over 8 years being roughly -4%).

Even Trump boasts about paying very little federal taxes because he "takes advantage of the tax laws."

"Yet from another view, we would see that the event horizon is not a flat disk with a big hole in the middle (where an enormous black hole lies). 'It's a donut sort of thing—but not a frisbee,' said Lai.

"Still, we are viewing this black hole—and the event horizon around it—from an ideal angle. It's a bit like hovering above Earth and looking down onto the North Pole, said Bentz. This allows us to glimpse the ring around the rotating black hole, which scientists suspect is a great big sphere, like Earth.

"It's an invisible sphere surrounded by a donut of hot gas, if you will."

https://news.yahoo.com/apos-actually-going-cryptic-black-213745553.html

Interesting as I asked for this in a previous comment and it works as expected however governments I know make a lot of money from speeding tickets. https://au.finance.yahoo.com/n... so I do not expect them to make it permanent any time soon at least until they can wean themselves off the revenue cameras

Fraud, making misrepresentations to federal authorities. https://news.yahoo.com/boeing-justice-department-crash-202330994.html

Yeah, Wells Fargo needs your help to advance the Empire! Enlist here today: https://finance.yahoo.com/news...

The Asiana crash was notable for passengers exiting the plane with their carryon luggage.

It was never much of conspiracy theory and plausibility was never a goal. I mean, seriously, since when does "100 grams of a nerve agent deadlier than VX gas" sound even remotely plausible?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/100...

The theories that have been put forward about this "poisoning" are beyond grotesque. Only one thing is more grotesque, and it is the full acceptance of this rubbish by the general populace.

The only things anyone at Alphabet/Google/YouTube cares about is money.

Until these things start going down, nothing of substance will change.

The only things anyone at Alphabet/Google/YouTube cares about is money.

Until these things start going down, nothing of substance will change.

The issue was political correctness. Frankly it don't care if they are female, black or identify as an Apache attach helicopter. I very pointedly did not object to the fact that she is female. My issue is that people allowed the PC narrative to trump established best practices.

Theranos is a story I've been following for years. As you can see the concerns with their business practices go back years. Rational review never would have allowed Theranos to survive as it did.

https://www.darkintelligencegr...
http://fortune.com/2015/10/27/...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
http://fortune.com/2015/10/27/...
https://finance.yahoo.com/news...

You do understand the the Air Force has a large group of people who launch and use spy satellites, right?

You mean the same Air Force that has a broom closet with a Stargate Command sign at NORAD to keep the tourists happy?

This isn't some futuristic Space Marines thing

I expect the Navy to be resonponsible for Space Marines and navel warships in space.

The state is already running PG&E. Fixing prices on energy, denying the building of profitable power plants, extreme regulation of labor, supply and demand. Now they're bankrupt while across the country energy companies are some of the most profitable businesses.

Nope. "PG&E said its 2017 net profit was up 18 percent from a year earlier at $1.65 billion, but its 2017 revenue of $17.14 billion was down 3 percent over the same period." The simple truth is that if they weren't starting fires, PGE would be immensely profitable. But they didn't do what they were required to do, and now they're being held accountable. And they had the money to do it, but they instead gave the top executives big raises, and paid a substantial profit to shareholders (mostly blackrock, vanguard, and state street.)

The simplest explanation for the numbers is that they have more than enough money to do this maintenance, but they are choosing not to.

These devices may not be able to take pictures but they still measure speed. And the results are damning:

They detect a 30 % increase [fr] of rides above the speed limit. The lessons of all this are clear:

• Speed cameras work. It is not only a revenue source. It enforces the speed limit
• 30% more french drivers are breaking the law and putting others life in danger

The data are open to interpretation. The lesson to me is that the speed limit is too low, if so many people want to go over it.

These devices may not be able to take pictures but they still measure speed. And the results are damning:

They detect a 30 % increase [fr] of rides above the speed limit. The lessons of all this are clear:

• Speed cameras work. It is not only a revenue source. It enforces the speed limit
• 30% more french drivers are breaking the law and putting others life in danger

whatever you say my dude enjoy eating your pets commie

1. Collusion is not a crime except in an anti-trust case financial case. Not an issue here

2. There is ZERO proof there was any cooperation between the Trump campaign and the Russians (we won't talk about the proven connection between Hillary and Russia).

3. The FEC is on record with stating that hush money is not an election violation, and said so in the issues around John Edwards' 2008 campaign.

So Verizon/Oath announce on Dec 3rd that Tumblr, one of the companies under the banner of Oath, will ban anything "pornographic". By the end of that day their stock has dropped $2 a share. Verizon has 4.13 billion shares outstanding. That's a value loss of $8.26 billion. A week later they cut the value of Oath by $4.6 billion.

Seems like they might actually be underselling(?) the loss?

bottom is zero in this graph

Tesla stock, 5 years. (The bottom of the graph is not zero.)

That would be investors. Consumers are protected by laws and regulations. VCs are free for the fleecing.

AMZN more than quadrupled since 2013, when the promise discussed in TFA was made. Investors buying the stocks back then based on this promise have no grounds for complaining today. But I doubt, there were many such, because the stock at a peak at the end of 2013, when the announcement was made, and dived in the Q1 2014.

This is quite profitable. 21st Century Fox's share price has gone from ~$24 to ~$47 a share today -- which beating both major index funds by quite a bit. Let's face it: a boring, peaceful government which takes care of its citizens makes for terrible TV -- who watches C-SPAN? Hiring a reality TV host has really helped with ratings and of course, and the media companies who have benefited have a financial interest in keeping it that way.

Just more "Slashdot's typical terrible coverage".

The criticism of the WSJ article was that it recycled old information and presented it as new. The fact that there had been a DOJ investigation was not news; Tesla confirmed a Bloomberg story on it in September. The request for documents from Tesla happened over a month ago. WSJ made this big front-page "DOJ is closing in!" article based on the fact that... the FBI sought documents and testimony from some former employees. It caused the stock price to plunge, but by the end of the day it had almost fully recovered (and surged past that the next day) as investors realized that they were just recycling a story. Then after the 10-Q repeated the news that broke in, I'll repeat, September (that the DOJ had requested, and been given, documents related to the production ramp), a number of outlets ran prominently with the exact "Tesla confirms DOJ investigation!" article, as if this was actual, new news. They're milking the heck out of this.

FYI: the DOJ case was launched simultaneously with a civil case on the exact same issue. Tesla already won the civil case. Obviously. Seriously: if missing projections while publicly describing what's going on as "production hell" is actionable, then virtually every company in the United States would be bankrupt.

The roll-up of the CIA’s networks reignited debates within the U.S. intelligence community about the merits of high-tech versus low-tech methods of communicating with sources. Within some corners of the intelligence world, “there was a widely held belief that technology was the solution to all communications problems,” according to one of the former officials. Proponents of older methods — such as chalk marks, burst communications, brush passes and one-time pads — were seen as “troglodytes,” said this official. - https://www.yahoo.com/news/cias-communications-suffered-catastrophic-compromise-started-iran-090018710.html

This strikes me as a fundamental point. The further away you get from an understanding of first principles, the easier for common mode failures to occur -- and I think it ties as well into a failure of imagination about those failure modes as a direct result of lack of familiarity with them. It's easy to say "low tech is a solved problem, so let's focus on all the sexy high-tech stuff"; but low-tech pattern recognition can bite you just as easily, if not moreso.

Right now, the housing market is in deep trouble. In fact, in most places, housing prices are going down and houses are staying on the market longer. People are staying in their houses longer, and there are still 2.2 million people who are underwater on their mortgages and can't get out. We're seeing housing as one of the sectors that's dragging the entire economy down, and keeping economic growth below the rate of inflation. And that was before the stock market stagnated (it's down for 2018). When you hear campaign claims that we are in a "strong economy", don't believe it.

These are some articles from the past few days, including from a source with a strong conservative bias:

https://www.washingtonexaminer...

https://finance.yahoo.com/news...

https://www.marketwatch.com/st...

Has there ever been a company which has had to endure as much media sponsored market manipulation as Tesla?
Two days ago the news headline was:
"Tesla reports surprise profit, stock surges. Tesla reported its third-ever profit in its eight years as a public company. This exceeded average analyst expectations of losses of 15 cents per share on revenue of $6.32 billion."
Today more speculative drama chipping away at its integrity and success.

Did that "stock surge" burn someone? Did someone think "oh dear, I was wrong, I should have gotten in earlier" or are the shorties still dreaming they can topple it?

8 Myths About Pesticides That Monsanto Wants You to Believe (Nov. 4, 2015)
Quote: As of 2008, Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, DuPont, BASF and others had filed 532 patents for 'climate-related genes,' touting the imminent arrival of a new generation of seeds engineered to withstand heat and drought."

Answer to question on Yahoo: "Organophosphates KILL everything. Good bugs as well as bad. Most growers of any crops are now using something called. I.P.M., integrated pest management."

To my knowledge, "food grade" means that, when used appropriately, the plastic does not leach chemicals into the food.

Another aspect of food grade plastic is matching the appropriate type of plastic to the food in question. Foods that are highly acidic or that contain alcohol or fats can leach plastic additives from the packaging or container into the food. As a result, you should only use plastic containers that are FDA approved for the particular type of food the plastic will come into contact with.

This suggests that stomach acid could cause certain food-grade plastics to leach chemicals into your stomach and possibly into your bloodstream. If you have information to the contrary, it would be good to know!

There's the "hidden tribes" study:
https://static1.squarespace.co...

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You can also say things about the relative sizes of the wings but that's not an argument worth having. The clear observation that is beyond reproach is that the overwhelming majority are disaffected, disconnected, tired of the politics, tired of the stupid hyperbolic 24 hour hysteria, and just want to ignore it.

There is a lot of proxy data for this...

Another is younger women that identify as feminists:
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyl...

And "half" is generous for the feminists because what "feminist" means is often a misrepresentation. You'll get feminists that will ask "do you believe in equal rights" and basically everyone will agree with that. And then you'll get hysterical #MeToo stuff that most women don't want anything to do with.

Progressives make up a very small and loud minority that have confused people ironically by exploiting privileged access to media, educational, and governmental institutions to megaphone their ideas, silence opposition, shut down debate, and by fiat make whatever they want law.

And the thing is that they can get away with that mostly because lots of people are not paying a lot of attention. You have this sleeping giant of lots and lots of disinterested people. And so long as the progressives maintain a stranglehold on these powerful institutions whilst not waking the giant... they can win political fights and institutional fights even if outnumbered.

However, if they believe their own propoganda... then they'll over play their hand. They'll piss off the sleepers. They'll wake the giant. And their political alliance is far too small and fragile to survive that.

As it stands, many within the DNC are already trying to marginalize the progressives because they see this coming. Those elements within the DNC are not fairing well however. They're losing control. We can see examples of this every day. You wanted data... I gave you two sets of data and don't be surprised if I can back every last bit up.

The progressives made the error of getting religious about their politics. This gave them a political zealotry in certain conflicts that allowed them to overwhelm their opposition with ferocity. But it comes at a price... and that is that you can't turn it off. You can't control it. It is the mad berserker rage leaves many progressives spiraling into purity tests to attack their own whenever they don't have a clear external enemy.

We've seen many such movements recently self destruct when they didn't have a few target of the day to burn.

And the funniest bit is that they don't see that Trump is literally provoking them on purpose to bait the madness... because it isn't in the interest of the progressives to move "now".

They can't do anything right now. They're out of power nationally and now should be a time of quiet rebuilding and preparation.

Instead they're spazing out at tweets.

I don't think the progressives are aware that all their political opponents are watching how to control them and manipulate them. This isn't going to stop.

This is the new normal. Until the progressives develop an immunity to this kind of "trolling" and "baiting"... it won't stop. And whether they can even resist that is questionable. The very nature of their ideology makes it unlikely they can refuse provocation even when it is very very stupid to rise to it.

Facebook is listing.

It's stocks liquefying.
https://finance.yahoo.com/char...

Passengers jumping ship in disgust.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fac...

Only Yiannis Avranas (Captain of the Oceanus) can save our souls now.

They are private corporations if they don't want you using their private system then that is just too bad.

Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Private corporations? What do you mean by that? If they are private, why do they have their stocks in public exchange (Verizon stocks, AT&T stocks, etc.)?

They are private corporations if they don't want you using their private system then that is just too bad.

Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Private corporations? What do you mean by that? If they are private, why do they have their stocks in public exchange (Verizon stocks, AT&T stocks, etc.)?

https://finance.yahoo.com/char...

I have no idea how your comment ties into the article. And it doesn't even tie into minimum wage increases. Every employer understands the follow-on effect. If a brand-new, less productive person is going to make a certain wage, those who are more productive and have been around longer demand higher pay. When minimum wage goes up, you have to increase the pay not just of those making less than minimum wage. It's one of the standard arguments against this. And again, this is in Amazon's statement. "Amazon said those who are already making $15 an hour will see an increase in pay but did not specify how much." https://finance.yahoo.com/news...

Further, anyone taking such a class with half a brain should be able to realize that the U.S. must be pretty good if you can stand up and declare that it's all shit without the government coming down on you.

You were saying?

So what financial report shows them making money? Per last quarter's reporting Tesla lost $17,600 per car they made (loss divided by the number of cars delivered). What do you have that says otherwise? Real, hard numbers. Put them up, link them, define them. Because the Tesla filings say you are wrong.

OK, please show the financial report to back up your numbers. Because the financials filed with the SEC say they lose money. Or is this yet another case of Tesla fraud? The reality is - based on Tesla's own numbers - they lost $17,600 per car sold in Q2 2018, and they lost money before accounting for things like R&D or interest (let alone principal) on debt.

So - put up or shut up. What numbers are you using - real numbers, official financial statement numbers - that say they're making $10,000 profit on each car? I'm not remaining willfully ignorant - I'm looking at the numbers, I've asked you for your backing before, and all you ever give is vitriol and silence. Put up or shut up.

All we've done is created developmentally delayed individuals who are only starting to grow into adults when they go to college and get the hell away from their overprotective parents.

If you trap kids inside all day, it shouldn't be any surprise that they turn to screens to give them something to do. Allow kids the opportunity to play outside and I suspect that many of them will naturally use screens a lot less frequently.

I doubt it's entirely the parents' fault. I imagine parents are keeping their kids indoors in order to keep them away from Child Overprotective Services.

• "5 Things Everyone Did Growing Up (That Now Get You Arrested)" by Chan Teik Onn
• "5 Things Your Parents Did (They'd Be Arrested For Today)" by C. Coville
• "Neighbor calls cops, child services on Texas mom for letting son play outside" by Philip Caulfield
• "Mom Lets 4-Year-Old Play Outside, Faces Jail"
• "When 'Stranger Danger' is actually the police and CPS" by Katherine Martinko

Funny, Tesla's published GAAP financials say you are wrong. Their gross profit may be positive, but include the REQUIRED SG&A expenses needed to make that revenue (SG&A being Sales, General and Administrative - functions you CANNOT live without if you want to, you know, actually sell, deliver, and coordinate manufacturing) and they lost money.

Now add in interest only - not even principal payments - and you're at a bigger loss. And this is interest needed to see the production even happen - not including R&D or any of the other "ancillary" operations. Gross margin minus SG&A minus interest payments and you're at $300 million lost.

And of course, if you look at their OWN FINANCIALS, you will see that last quarter they lost $717 million overall. How do you have a positive profit margin if you lose money? You're either ignorant or lying - but because I've told you this several times - I'll choose lying.

Go ahead, show the financial report (not carefully selected items out of the REQUIRED SEC postings) that show they make a profit. You can't. Sorry!

Hey, when you sell cars below cost (essentially giving them away), you can move a lot of cars! Now, add in the $17,600 that Tesla loses on each vehicle ($717 million loss last quarter to ship 40,740 cars) and the $7500 the Government gives you to buy one, and you end up with the mythical $35K and up car actually costing $60K.

I guess if you want shareholders/investors/rubes and the taxpayer/fellow-citizens to pay nearly half the cost of your car, then go for it! But Tesla has only a few quarters left before they have to start charging more, and their Government subsidies go away, and the car starts costing consumers $60,000 or more. We'll see what happens to deliveries then, as the real car manufacturers start rolling into the market in volume.

This from someone that Is an Anonymous Coward. Hypocrite, bigot.

But he is not wrong. The moral and idealogical leader is implementing policies that at one time were considered the exact opposite of conservatism, like tarriffs, which are a tax, then using tax monies to reward a specific group, then suggesting he become president for life. Then suggesting that Americans should not be allowed to protest.

Then my favorite, one that crypto conservatives have accused Demoncrats of doing . Print money https://finance.yahoo.com/news... . What the outrageous fuck?

Standing by and doing nothing while their new leader does things they always claimed they were dead set against, is the exact same thing as approval. Te worst that can be said is that they approve of dismantling America. The best thing that can be said is they are the lowest form of spineless coward, and I would suggest that the new GOP symbol be a portrait of Benedict Arnold. Or if they want one more recent, and to the same group the US is now triyng to emulate, thus more likely to be a Republican Hero, a portrait of Robert Hanssen.

It is, by default, anti-competitive behavior and suspect in a free market.

Mergers aren't anti-competitive by default.

• If one or both of the merging companies would otherwise have gone bankrupt, then it's not anti-competitive. The merger just redistributes the company's assets before bankruptcy, instead of after (assets are sold off). In other words, the merger accomplishes the same thing as a bankruptcy, except with less disruption to the market, creditors, stockholders, employees, and customers.
• If neither company is in danger of bankruptcy long-term, then yeah it's anti-competitive.

Sprint / T-Mobile merging is kinda 50/50. People have been saying Sprint is on the verge of bankruptcy for close to a decade. And T-Mobile's owner (Deutsche Telekom) has been trying to sell it on and off for close to a decade because of its poor financial performance. That would support a merger. But Sprint posted its first profit in years, and T-Mobile's profit (net income) has grown substantially in the last two years. Suggesting the two companies are recovering enough to make a merger unnecessary.

It is, by default, anti-competitive behavior and suspect in a free market.

Mergers aren't anti-competitive by default.

• If one or both of the merging companies would otherwise have gone bankrupt, then it's not anti-competitive. The merger just redistributes the company's assets before bankruptcy, instead of after (assets are sold off). In other words, the merger accomplishes the same thing as a bankruptcy, except with less disruption to the market, creditors, stockholders, employees, and customers.
• If neither company is in danger of bankruptcy long-term, then yeah it's anti-competitive.

Sprint / T-Mobile merging is kinda 50/50. People have been saying Sprint is on the verge of bankruptcy for close to a decade. And T-Mobile's owner (Deutsche Telekom) has been trying to sell it on and off for close to a decade because of its poor financial performance. That would support a merger. But Sprint posted its first profit in years, and T-Mobile's profit (net income) has grown substantially in the last two years. Suggesting the two companies are recovering enough to make a merger unnecessary.

"After reviewing the campaign's financials for four years, the FEC determined last month that money Edwards' aides collected from wealthy donors Rachel "Bunny" Mellon and Fred Baron were "not campaign contribution[s]," Lora Haggard, Edwards' 2008 chief financial officer, said today." [John Edwards' Hush Money Was Not Illegal, FEC Told Campaign

Tell that to John Edwards. Remember him, darling of he Democrats in the 2000's?

"John Edwards' Hush Money Was Not Illegal, FEC Told Campaign"

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/john...

Actually, short term capital gains and unqualified dividends are taxed at ordinary income rates. Long term capital gains (stocks held longer than 1 year) and qualified dividends (stocks held for more than 60 days in a 121 day window around the dividend distribution) are taxed at preferential rates, as low as 0% depending on your income bracket but at 15% for a good portion of the population.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news...

Has the short interest in Tesla decreased? If so, then shorts have cashed out, having a much better position than a week ago. But I'm not under the impression that the shorts have been exiting. It seems that there is a large contingent that really expects Tesla to outright fail, and they want to ride the stock down to zero.

There is a contingent that deeply wants to see Tesla fail because they view it as part of the environmental movement, and they see the whole movement as a leftist attack on free enterprise and their way of life. A company like Tesla being successful is counter to their worldview, and they desperately want to see electric cars fail. I have no evidence to prove that there's a connection to the Tesla shorts, but I suspect there is. I suppose that's part of the reason I so desperately want to see the shorts get bankrupted.

It's nothing that conspiratorial. Tesla has a bigger market cap than GM. I mean Tesla has a cooler brand, and they're currently dominating the EV market, but GM builds almost 100x as many cars, has about 15x the revenue (not sure how that math works), and has an operating income almost as large as Tesla's total revenue.

Sure Tesla has some serious potential around self driving cars and EV, but so does GM.

The idea that Tesla is worth more is just plain dumb. People are pricing it like an Apple or a Google, but car companies don't get those giant semi-monopolies that generate outrageous profits the way tech companies do. Tesla becoming as big as GM is their potential, but there's a good chance they won't reach that potential.

I don't trade stocks, but I can understand why people would short Tesla, it can't really go any higher and you have to think as some point it's going to go down.

Has the short interest in Tesla decreased? If so, then shorts have cashed out, having a much better position than a week ago. But I'm not under the impression that the shorts have been exiting. It seems that there is a large contingent that really expects Tesla to outright fail, and they want to ride the stock down to zero.

There is a contingent that deeply wants to see Tesla fail because they view it as part of the environmental movement, and they see the whole movement as a leftist attack on free enterprise and their way of life. A company like Tesla being successful is counter to their worldview, and they desperately want to see electric cars fail. I have no evidence to prove that there's a connection to the Tesla shorts, but I suspect there is. I suppose that's part of the reason I so desperately want to see the shorts get bankrupted.

It's nothing that conspiratorial. Tesla has a bigger market cap than GM. I mean Tesla has a cooler brand, and they're currently dominating the EV market, but GM builds almost 100x as many cars, has about 15x the revenue (not sure how that math works), and has an operating income almost as large as Tesla's total revenue.

Sure Tesla has some serious potential around self driving cars and EV, but so does GM.

The idea that Tesla is worth more is just plain dumb. People are pricing it like an Apple or a Google, but car companies don't get those giant semi-monopolies that generate outrageous profits the way tech companies do. Tesla becoming as big as GM is their potential, but there's a good chance they won't reach that potential.

I don't trade stocks, but I can understand why people would short Tesla, it can't really go any higher and you have to think as some point it's going to go down.

No, they make $10,000 on each Model 3 they sell, and they will make around $6,000 on each $35,000 Model 3 they sell, according to analysis by Munro and Associates

Ahh, so an "analysis" is better than actual published, SEC/GAAP/company approved financials which show a loss of over $17,000 per vehicle? Really? They LOSE OVER SEVENTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS on every car they sell. That's the hard FACT. Provable numbers. Not some unknown-bought-by-whom analysis by someone else. Actual proven, traceable, hard numbers.

$717,000,000 lost in Q2 2018. They shipped 40,740 vehicles, meaning ($17,000,000 / 40740) $17,600 loss per vehicle. That's the fact.

Blockchain exists for ~10 years and still there are no mainstream use cases where it replaced the incumbent tech, other than illegal activity. There is a fundamental reason for that.

BCh offers a single unique feature: distributed trusted transaction (DTT). DTT competes with a centralized transaction == transaction with a trusted third party (T3P). DTT is by definition distributed and as such is *always* more expensive than a T3P all other things being equal: reaching consensus with multiple parties is harder than with a single party. In order for DTT to be competitive with the old tech T3P, the distributed nature of DTT must offer some advantage for people to be willing to pay the required premium. So far the only use case where people or willing to pay this premium is circumvention of regulation, when the trusted third party does not exist. This brings us to this list of use cases:

1. Circumvention of regulation.
This is the only meaningful use of DTT.
China has capital flow controls which effectively bar companies and individuals from moving money out of China. To get around these regulations people buy video cards and electricity in China for CNY, mine cryptocoins, sell them in the States for USD. That's the largest market right now, much bigger than buying drugs on the likes of Silk Road. This use case also includes ICOs and other pump and dump schemes.

2. Selling picks and shovels.
Derivative of (1). If 1 goes away, 2 will go away too.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quot...

3. Marketing & FMO
Add blockchain to the company name and see your valuation pop.
"We must work on blockchain because it's the future".
All kinds of blockchain projects in banks, etc which are going mainstream "any time now". All of them can be done easier/cheaper/more reliably with a T3P, no exceptions.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ORCL/key-statistics?p=ORCL Look for Trailing P/E; Forward P/E is just a guess. P/S is also about 4X what it should be for a slow-growth company; profit margin is poor and ROE is mediocre.