It's still more than I should have to pay for the domain. $10-20 a year is what going rate is for registration. Why should I have to pay extra because someone went through the dictionary?
And if you have to hire a consultant to move the domain, you really are in the wrong business.:P
I offered to cover a squatter's registration costs, $10/month hosting costs since he purchased the domain, and a 10% premium for the domain. This worked out to $120-ish.
He laughed at me and said he got that much profit a year out of letting the domain just sit and serve ads.
So we went and bought.band,.info, and.net instead for less than $120.
I think you misunderstood. Bail out the pension fund to make sure that the workers get what was promised but not funded properly and use the rest of the bailout money to get someone else on their feet.
Likely the request to cut pensions was to make the payouts match what is in the pension fund so catch-up money could be used to keep GM afloat with less loans.
No, I'm saying that the true cost of any action is equal to what you had to give up in order to take that action. If I decide to spend $10 on some ice cream, the true cost of that ice cream is all the other stuff I could have bought with the $10. And, if I get more benefit from the ice cream, than I would from any other option, I made the rational economic choice. It's a concept called opportunity cost [wikipedia.org]; it underlies most economic thought.
It also says in everything I can find that it's a decision-making tool, not an accounting tool. So the analogy that it's the same as writing a check for the opportunity cost's dollar amount is misleading at best.
If this kind of loan were truly "costless", why shouldn't the government just give them out to everyone? Why shouldn't they simply refinance everyone's mortgage (and credit card debt, and student loans, and corporate bonds) at a very low interest rate? If these loans don't have a cost, it's the rational thing to do.
Is that truly the issue at hand, though? The Government wants to see R&D in a certain direction, and set aside funds towards that aim. A fiscally viable company applied for a loan from those funds. If they wanted to see credit cards and student loans paid off sooner, and banks were unable or unwilling to make loans at the lower interest rate, then I'm sure they would do the same.
I said that the government could loan the money out at market interest rates. In reality, they'd probably never do that.
Hence it is no longer an opportunity cost, as loaning at market rates is not the next-best decision. Just not loaning the money or loaning it to a different market or using it for a grant would be.
You're right. They don't have less money. But, what they do have one less option for what to do with that money. Before they make the loan, they have to option to loan it to Tesla at 4%, or to do something else with the money. But, as soon as they pick one or the other option, they lose the ability to have the other too. They're mutually exclusive. If they do something else with the money, the cost is the loan to Tesla (and that loan's associated dollar value). If they give the loan to Tesla, the cost is whatever else they would have done with the money. That's opportunity cost.
Again, from what I've read, opportunity cost != cost. They are not interchangeable terms. You're discussing theoretical economics here and mincing terms in the process, complete with misleading analogies.
Also, this money was set aside for a loan of this type before Tesla applied for it. So Tesla really is not in the Opportunity Cost equation at all.
You're still saying that less than optimal profit is a cost. Yes, you are saying that they should seek to maximize profit.
A cost is a literal expenditure. To quote the OED:
cost (n): an amount that has to be paid or spent to buy or obtain something.
The difference in interest is not a cost. The government does not suddenly have less money than they did before.
The big difference here is you are viewing cost as a theoretical object that defines something less than optimal. The english language and logic (and my Logic professor) disagree.
There's a big difference between a loss and a sub-optimal profit. One is a loss. The other is only a loss in theory.
Wow, no wonder our economic system is so screwed up. Profit isn't good enough, it has to be the highest return possible or somebody somewhere screwed up. Nevermind secondary benefits such as increased tax revenue from income and sales, or reduced trade deficit.
Except this money was set aside for the government to make the loans to alternative-powered vehicle companies before Tesla went to the government.
As someone else here has mentioned, it's like a student asking for Stafford Loans, but without the bankruptcy exclusion. The program was already in place, Tesla is just looking to take advantage of it.
If Tesla took out a loan from the private market at $100, they pay the private market $110, get $6 from the government, and the bank has $10 they didn't before, Tesla has $6 they wouldn't have otherwise, and the government has -$6.
If Tesla takes out a loan from the government, they pay $104, still having the $6 they wouldn't have otherwise, and the Government now has $4. (That, if one is cynical, they can now give along with an additional $6 to a Bank that loaned $300 to someone that makes $1 per year and failed to repay.)
Is any major bank currently in a position to loan $200Million to anybody?
Even if they were, let's say you owned Tesla. You could go out, get $200 Mil loan from a bank at say 9%. Or, you could go and get a 3% loan from a program already in-place with the government.
Never mind that the next car after the Model S is supposed to be a $30K compact called the BlueStar that will be affordable by just about any middle-class family.
But the Government needs income, Tesla needs money and is willing to pay interest.
Why should Tesla not be allowed to give the Government money tomorrow in exchange for money today? The banks do it all the time, but they screwed themselves over and don't have money to lend...
I know for a fact (being the grandson of a pensioner) that Goodrich has enough money in their pension fund that none of their current pensioners have a single worry were Goodrich/Michelin go bankrupt. It's already set aside. In fact, they sent out a letter to the pensioners saying that they put aside TOO MUCH and were being required by the IRS to take some back. (Capital-to-pensioner ratio was too high.)
Why did GM not put the money aside into an interest-bearing escrow account all along? It is tax-deductible, and we all know how much corporations like deductions. That should've been set aside long ago as a portion of each paycheck everyone's parents and grandparents earned.
I don't think that we should feel obligated to buy a GM car now because they didn't manage their pension money properly yesterday. It would be cheaper just to top off the pension fund and provide some new start-ups with low-interest loans to get themselves on their feet and managing their money more wisely.
So someone sent a message in Klingon, encrypted ROT256, and it just happened to resemble "You're Fired"... See, now languages are causing collisions in our encryption algorithms!
Slashdot Mirror
Er... not close to 2... Just under 1.
It's been a few years and I'm too lazy to go back and look. :P
Er... that's right. They were wanting to make a TLD .band at one point and for some reason I forgot that never went through.
I don't remember what the third TLD I got was now... (It was minor and never got any hits so I let it lapse.)
It's still more than I should have to pay for the domain. $10-20 a year is what going rate is for registration. Why should I have to pay extra because someone went through the dictionary?
And if you have to hire a consultant to move the domain, you really are in the wrong business. :P
He had actually been sitting on this domain for close to 2 years.
I've worked retail, and for retail 20% gross profit is considered good. 10% net profit before taxes is great.
I offered to cover a squatter's registration costs, $10/month hosting costs since he purchased the domain, and a 10% premium for the domain. This worked out to $120-ish.
He laughed at me and said he got that much profit a year out of letting the domain just sit and serve ads.
So we went and bought .band, .info, and .net instead for less than $120.
Or it will finally be the first game to take advantage of the HD-DVD add-on! ;P
....
Ew.
I think you misunderstood. Bail out the pension fund to make sure that the workers get what was promised but not funded properly and use the rest of the bailout money to get someone else on their feet.
Likely the request to cut pensions was to make the payouts match what is in the pension fund so catch-up money could be used to keep GM afloat with less loans.
No, I'm saying that the true cost of any action is equal to what you had to give up in order to take that action. If I decide to spend $10 on some ice cream, the true cost of that ice cream is all the other stuff I could have bought with the $10. And, if I get more benefit from the ice cream, than I would from any other option, I made the rational economic choice. It's a concept called opportunity cost [wikipedia.org]; it underlies most economic thought.
It also says in everything I can find that it's a decision-making tool, not an accounting tool. So the analogy that it's the same as writing a check for the opportunity cost's dollar amount is misleading at best.
If this kind of loan were truly "costless", why shouldn't the government just give them out to everyone? Why shouldn't they simply refinance everyone's mortgage (and credit card debt, and student loans, and corporate bonds) at a very low interest rate? If these loans don't have a cost, it's the rational thing to do.
Is that truly the issue at hand, though? The Government wants to see R&D in a certain direction, and set aside funds towards that aim. A fiscally viable company applied for a loan from those funds. If they wanted to see credit cards and student loans paid off sooner, and banks were unable or unwilling to make loans at the lower interest rate, then I'm sure they would do the same.
I said that the government could loan the money out at market interest rates. In reality, they'd probably never do that.
Hence it is no longer an opportunity cost, as loaning at market rates is not the next-best decision. Just not loaning the money or loaning it to a different market or using it for a grant would be.
You're right. They don't have less money. But, what they do have one less option for what to do with that money. Before they make the loan, they have to option to loan it to Tesla at 4%, or to do something else with the money. But, as soon as they pick one or the other option, they lose the ability to have the other too. They're mutually exclusive. If they do something else with the money, the cost is the loan to Tesla (and that loan's associated dollar value). If they give the loan to Tesla, the cost is whatever else they would have done with the money. That's opportunity cost.
Again, from what I've read, opportunity cost != cost. They are not interchangeable terms. You're discussing theoretical economics here and mincing terms in the process, complete with misleading analogies.
Also, this money was set aside for a loan of this type before Tesla applied for it. So Tesla really is not in the Opportunity Cost equation at all.
Er, sorry... that's the OAD, not the OED. Not sure if there's a difference or not.
You're still saying that less than optimal profit is a cost. Yes, you are saying that they should seek to maximize profit.
A cost is a literal expenditure. To quote the OED:
cost (n): an amount that has to be paid or spent to buy or obtain something.
The difference in interest is not a cost. The government does not suddenly have less money than they did before.
The big difference here is you are viewing cost as a theoretical object that defines something less than optimal. The english language and logic (and my Logic professor) disagree.
There's a big difference between a loss and a sub-optimal profit. One is a loss. The other is only a loss in theory.
Wow, no wonder our economic system is so screwed up. Profit isn't good enough, it has to be the highest return possible or somebody somewhere screwed up. Nevermind secondary benefits such as increased tax revenue from income and sales, or reduced trade deficit.
Except this money was set aside for the government to make the loans to alternative-powered vehicle companies before Tesla went to the government.
As someone else here has mentioned, it's like a student asking for Stafford Loans, but without the bankruptcy exclusion. The program was already in place, Tesla is just looking to take advantage of it.
Ah... Sorry, then. :P
Except for one difference.
If Tesla took out a loan from the private market at $100, they pay the private market $110, get $6 from the government, and the bank has $10 they didn't before, Tesla has $6 they wouldn't have otherwise, and the government has -$6.
If Tesla takes out a loan from the government, they pay $104, still having the $6 they wouldn't have otherwise, and the Government now has $4. (That, if one is cynical, they can now give along with an additional $6 to a Bank that loaned $300 to someone that makes $1 per year and failed to repay.)
Is any major bank currently in a position to loan $200Million to anybody?
Even if they were, let's say you owned Tesla. You could go out, get $200 Mil loan from a bank at say 9%. Or, you could go and get a 3% loan from a program already in-place with the government.
Which makes more sense?
I've seen a few reports saying the third car is going to be $30K.
Never mind that the next car after the Model S is supposed to be a $30K compact called the BlueStar that will be affordable by just about any middle-class family.
You mean the Tata Nano that will likely end up costing $5-7K by the time it is capable of meeting US emissions and safety minimums?
This is why the VW Beetle is a $20k car in the US now. The original Beetle would be less than half that, but it would never pass safety regs.
Lincoln Navigator: $52k
Lincoln Town Car: $46k
Cadillac DTS or STS: $47k
Cadillac CTS-V: $60k
Cadillac STS-V: $84k
Cadillac XLR: $87k
Corvette: $50-120k
Lexus LS: $63k
So yes, $50k is a hell of a lot of money to pay for a car, but it's not unprecedented.
And benefiting from, as the interest from that loan goes back into the government coffers.
But the Government needs income, Tesla needs money and is willing to pay interest.
Why should Tesla not be allowed to give the Government money tomorrow in exchange for money today? The banks do it all the time, but they screwed themselves over and don't have money to lend...
Buy and bailout GM just to protect the pensioner?
I know for a fact (being the grandson of a pensioner) that Goodrich has enough money in their pension fund that none of their current pensioners have a single worry were Goodrich/Michelin go bankrupt. It's already set aside. In fact, they sent out a letter to the pensioners saying that they put aside TOO MUCH and were being required by the IRS to take some back. (Capital-to-pensioner ratio was too high.)
Why did GM not put the money aside into an interest-bearing escrow account all along? It is tax-deductible, and we all know how much corporations like deductions. That should've been set aside long ago as a portion of each paycheck everyone's parents and grandparents earned.
I don't think that we should feel obligated to buy a GM car now because they didn't manage their pension money properly yesterday. It would be cheaper just to top off the pension fund and provide some new start-ups with low-interest loans to get themselves on their feet and managing their money more wisely.
Wait, what part of "Loan, with repayment and interest" are people not understanding here?
Honestly. I'm not really sure why everyone thinks of this as a handout. So why do you?
So that would decrypt to:
Csy'vi jmvih.
So someone sent a message in Klingon, encrypted ROT256, and it just happened to resemble "You're Fired"... See, now languages are causing collisions in our encryption algorithms!