Must be nice to make that much money to make your overall tax rate 25%.. Kudos!.... My tax rate struggles to reach about 13% overall, at least for Income Taxes at the Federal and State levels (I DO love living in Texas.)
Well, that's not how the politicians who write the rules sell these things you know. Class Envy is how the progressive taxes are sold...
When one specific party comes out and says "We want to cut taxes" it NEVER fails that the other trots out their spokesmen/women to say "They are giving a tax break to the RICH!"
IN actuality, when one looks at the distribution of WHO pays taxes and how much they pay, it's CLEAR that the "rich" (usually defined as those making more than $250K/year) pay more taxes than the percentage of the total income earned by everybody each year. They do pay their share and then some and give up more of their income to taxes than the rest of us.
So you admit that Wealth is NOT a constant, it can change over time and that MONEY is NOT the same thing as wealth as the value of money changes over time (i.e. your inflation reference). Great, then think about it like this...
What can you have tomorrow, how much can I improve my wealth over time? Isn't that *really* the issue here? How do I get more wealth? Is it possible for me or you to have as much as Bill Gates in the future? Sure it is *possible*....(although it may be unlikely we'd both be as lucky as Bill Gates.)
This is not a zero sum game.... You can create wealth, new wealth, regardless of what Bill Gates holds. And THAT is my point. One doesn't need to take wealth from someone else to get rich (though that sometimes happens) you can create wealth too. That's what Bill Gates did, he created a huge rich company that produces a product everybody is willing to buy. He's created wealth, lots of it, he didn't steal it or take it from someone else.
You can have more wealth for yourself and not have to take it from others if you work to create it, if you do what Bill did.
Think about the game of monopoly. There are a lot of things about this game which are pretty good examples of real life. The Wealth a player has during the game changes and the total wealth in play goes up over time. The bank never runs out of money so as the game progresses, wealth keeps going up (as each player passes go). Each player own part of this wealth. This is *like* how real wealth is created, there is NO LIMIT to how much wealth can be created in the future, not because each of us pass go and get our $200 for living, but because wealth CAN and DOES go up over time when hard working folks are out making new wealth with new ideas and resources, creating new markets for new products.
Wealth is absolutely a fixed size pie. Scarcity of resources is the fundamental problem that economics tries to solve.
Wealth is not a fixed sized pie over time. It changes size.
Think about it, do we have the same amount of wealth in the world now that was available in the 1700's? How about in the USA since 1776? Of course not. I dare say that it is obvious that the standard of living has greatly improved since this country's founding. Wealth has increased, we individually live better, have more food to eat, houses to live in, have more stuff than our funders even though we went from 2.5 million to 325 Million people.
Economics may try to describe how an economy works, but it can only provide generalizations which attempt to simplify the effects of many small transactions on economic activity as a whole. They make some simplifying assumptions at times (that's pretty much what economics is to start with) but I'm sure if you talked to a economics expert they wouldn't agree that the total Wealth available never changes.
I disagree.. I think the "wealthy" ARE actually the job creators when you look at who's paying income taxes.
If you consider someone "wealthy" if they make in excess of $250K/year in income (a commonly drawn line) then the majority of those tax payers are simply small business owners who are not yet big enough to make it worth the trouble to not file as individuals. These people represent a LOT of the growth in employment because there are a lot of them. They are the small "Mom and Pop" businesses which hire a great number of people in this country.
I think many folks misunderstand the financial realities in this country and fall for the class envy/warfare rhetoric which is driven by politics and not reality. Yea, let's "soak the rich" they don't deserve to be that wealthy! We fall for the zero sum game lie too, where because they have more wealth, somebody else has less. Wealth is not a fixed sized pie. I don't have less because Bill Gates has so much more. Remember, a rising tide (or ocean) lifts all boats...
I think history disagrees.
For example, GE made a profit of 14B last year and has not paid any taxes to the US for the last 7 years and they are not the only ones.
And WHY is that? Hmm? Is GE breaking the law? I don't think they are. Then I suggest you bludgeon the law and those who refuse to change it, not GE.
Personally, I believe that the issue is the USA's tax rates are too high on these companies so they are being encouraged to do business overseas instead of in their home country to shelter themselves from the tax rates in the USA.
Do you honestly believe if the USA's tax rates would be lower that they would pay US taxes? They do what they do because they can, plain and simple.
Yes, they would pay what is legally required, or the IRS goes after them.
So are you trying to claim the tax law is unfair or that enforcement of existing tax law is not happening?
If you think the tax laws are unfair, then I suggest you lobby to get the unfairness removed... If you think the IRS isn't enforcing the laws right, then I suggest you lobby your representatives to beef up the IRS's enforcement operations and/or prosecute those who interfere with this activity....
What do you mean "sitting on cash"? You do realize that they are not just putting pallets of money in the CEO's office to stuff the couches with so he can "sit on" it, but they are keeping it on deposit someplace earning interest, right?
Cash sitting in a US Bank is better for the US than cash sitting in off shore banks. At least the bank can loan parts of the money out to US customers... So it's still better being here. Now if they spend this money on things like factories and such, it's even more of a benefit to the USA, but I'm happy to have it on deposit in a bank if that's all they do with it..
LOL.. Where I agree in principle.. I have to point out that there are those who believe these "evil rich mega corporations" should be taxed on repatriation of this money (bringing it back to the USA) and that they are "hiding" this money out of the 'tax man's" reach to avoid paying taxes they rightfully should.
Personally, I believe that the issue is the USA's tax rates are too high on these companies so they are being encouraged to do business overseas instead of in their home country to shelter themselves from the tax rates in the USA. I further believe that the USA should not be doing this, but encouraging business to happen within it's borders with lower tax rates and make bringing all this cash back into the USA more advantageous for them to encourage local economic growth.
Problem is that at the speeds the Hyper loop is supposed to go, the existing right of way with all the twists and turns is has won't work very well. Musk needs as straight of a shot as he can manage to make the high speeds comfortable for the passengers. As it stands now, it would be one heck of a roller coaster ride to do that trip in 29 min using the existing right of way.
Verbal approval from which government official for exactly what?
It could be from the local dog catcher who agreed that he'd do his level best to convince all the animals under his control to help dig the holes?
By the way... VERBAL approval means almost nothing... Heck, WRITTEN approval from the government is about worthless too... This only means that Musk had a conversation with somebody who said something Musk is interpreting to mean they agreed to something about this project. It could be as simple as "Yea, Mr. Musk, that sure sounds like an interesting idea. I hope we can give you approval to do that..."
But Musk does care for a number of reasons... As a very large stockholder, his net worth is dependent on Tesla's price, should the stockholders get upset with the stock valuation, he could get fired as CEO or otherwise have to surrender control of the company and all the perks
I ran a basic web server for awhile at home a few years ago just for amusement on a Linux box running apache. It served up ONE static page that said something like "this is the only page on this server" and that was it. I got "attacked" thousands of times a week by the script kiddies running the IIS exploit attempt scripts, port scans and all sorts of things that I found a little bit amusing.
Surely, during an election, ANY computer on the net associated with anything to do with voting would be a primary target of all the hackers out there trying to make a name for themselves....Oh Look at me! I broke in and disrupted the election!
That statement makes no sense. He's saying his cash flow will be negative because they will be investing in new products. However, new products are not an indicator for success. Sales is!
Think about it this way... He's playing the "old saw" that goes like this:
It takes money to make money.
Netflix is spending it's cash on producing new unique products it can use to sell it's service. Netflix will have exclusive rights to products which are in high demand if they spend their cash well and produce things folks want to watch. This takes cash up front and will pay back Netflix out over years of increased subscriber base.
Still, I have to admit that Amazon Prime has more stuff I want to watch than Netflix for a better cost...
90%? So you charge your EV during the day? Or, are you dependent on the fossil fueled grid at night and for the rest of your 10%?
Thanks for the huge amount of pollution you caused with the production of those solar panels and batteries in that EV you drive. You DO understand that the photovoltaic Solar cells you likely have used nearly as much electricity to make as they can likely produce in their useful life. You also understand that they are chuck full of really nasty stuff that doesn't just go away when you have to scrap them, a environmentally messy and energy sucking process if you do it right.
Oil companies DON'T free load... They sell their products and YOU are the one using them, you are actually the one producing the pollution, they are just providing the product you buy. Also, if you want the oil companies to pay something more, guess who is going to pay that cost? You, the consumer.
So stop with the misdirection and slight of hand about who's paying or not paying for your alleged pollution. I don't thin you have really thought though everything YOU are doing or the implications of your proposed "solution" to your real/imagined problem.
Yea... You do realize that this is how they handle the loss of value of their oil well as you pump out the oil and sell it right? You also realize that this is NOT unique to the Oil Industry either? (And I don't know what I'm talking about... Shesh..)
This is the same thing a manufacturer does when they build stuff using parts in inventory. The value of their inventory is decreased because they used it, thus they can claim this as part of the cost of building their widgets and selling them. Of course the rules for Oil production are slightly more complex, but this is not a unique thing for the Oil Industry. In fact, the lumber and mining industry share almost the identical set of rules.
So this is NOT a subsidy but merely a set of rules about how the Oil industry must calculate the amount they claim for expenses and costs. A set of rules that do NOT benefit the Oil Industry inordinately or unfairly. A set of rules which are shared in principle with other unrelated industries.
In case you haven't noticed, they haven't turned much of a profit yet and they are desperate to keep the stock price up to PE ratios that will make your nose bleed. They are just trying to forestall the inevitable stampede of sellers should it become apparent this whole idea isn't working out from the profit and loss perspective....Therefore, they and Tesla are hyping the stock (pump and dump kind of thing), which is what Musk is up to here. He's just trying to keep his fortune in Tesla Stock (that he couldn't sell if he wanted too) as high as he can, hoping beyond hope that eventually it turns a profit worthy of the stock price.
That's exactly the problem. Fossil fuels are not paying for the damage they do to health and the environment. They get to spew pollution and everybody else has to subsidize the damage.
Fossil fuels shouldn't be allowed to free ride on everyone else.
So am I to assume that YOU don't have electricity in your house and don't depend on anything that uses it? After all, MOST of your daily supply of electrical power comes from fossil fuels. I also assume you Don't ride in a fossil fueled vehicle to work or buy goods (including food) transported by Truck, Train, or Aircraft? Don't have ANYTHING that's plastic rayon, or nylon in your home or in your wardrobe. No washer, dishwasher, clothes dryer, hair dryer, heating or cooling, no electric or kerosene lights, paraffin wax candles (only natural sources of wax, or whale oil for you to use as light sources)?
Oh, and you better just forget about buying almost ANY food out there, because we'd not have much food at all if it wasn't for Petrochemicals and the things like synthetic fertilizers they allow us to make.
And if you think Fossil Fuels are this big of a problem, I ask you to think about what happens if we just stop using them... Are you going to be the one picking which half of the world's population gets to die and which get's to suffer from malnutrition for their lives? Because THAT's where we are going to go if we do what I assume you are suggesting...
I disagree that the "tax credits" you are talking about are subsidies to the Oil Industry and are all that huge. These "Tax Credits" pale in comparison to such industries such as agriculture and the growing, fermenting corn for motor fuel. And WHY do we do these other things? To make food and fuel cheaper perhaps?
But again, we are not cutting the Oil Industry checks out of the government's checking account... In fact, the Oil Industry pays a boat load more than the "tax credits" in actual taxes, so they are a net plus to the nation's tax receipts... Then, if you look at motor fuel sales, boy howdy do the Oil Industry PAY there. What is the Federal Highway tax per gallon these days anyway? Who's paying that, if not the Oil Industry?
One square mile of batteries Is all that's needed to store the energy for the entire US?
Color me skeptical.
(fine print: it's a 200 story building)
Skeptical... That's a good color on you.... I'm going to try it.
Batteries are woefully inefficient for storing energy on an industrial scale. They are also creators of huge environmental messes both when manufactured initially and when you deal with the worn out ones you need to get rid of.. Don't get me started on photovoltaic solar cell manufacturing because that's even worse... Consider the ecological disaster that would happen if a big pile of batteries accidently caught fire, as we all know they are want to do (Note 7, here's looking at you..)
Musk needs to sell batteries to pay for his new factory that builds batteries, and it's clear that with gas prices under $3/gal that the electric car market is not going to let him do that. So, he went from cars to "home" storage solutions (remember that?) where you buy a pile of solar panels, charge your batteries all day and keep the lights going all night and but that apparently isn't taking off. From there it's been this attempt at industrial scale battery storage of electrical power.
Looks like a guy getting desperate to sell batteries to me..
Slashdot Mirror
Must be nice to make that much money to make your overall tax rate 25%.. Kudos!.... My tax rate struggles to reach about 13% overall, at least for Income Taxes at the Federal and State levels (I DO love living in Texas.)
Well, that's not how the politicians who write the rules sell these things you know. Class Envy is how the progressive taxes are sold...
When one specific party comes out and says "We want to cut taxes" it NEVER fails that the other trots out their spokesmen/women to say "They are giving a tax break to the RICH!"
IN actuality, when one looks at the distribution of WHO pays taxes and how much they pay, it's CLEAR that the "rich" (usually defined as those making more than $250K/year) pay more taxes than the percentage of the total income earned by everybody each year. They do pay their share and then some and give up more of their income to taxes than the rest of us.
So you admit that Wealth is NOT a constant, it can change over time and that MONEY is NOT the same thing as wealth as the value of money changes over time (i.e. your inflation reference). Great, then think about it like this...
What can you have tomorrow, how much can I improve my wealth over time? Isn't that *really* the issue here? How do I get more wealth? Is it possible for me or you to have as much as Bill Gates in the future? Sure it is *possible*....(although it may be unlikely we'd both be as lucky as Bill Gates.)
This is not a zero sum game.... You can create wealth, new wealth, regardless of what Bill Gates holds. And THAT is my point. One doesn't need to take wealth from someone else to get rich (though that sometimes happens) you can create wealth too. That's what Bill Gates did, he created a huge rich company that produces a product everybody is willing to buy. He's created wealth, lots of it, he didn't steal it or take it from someone else.
You can have more wealth for yourself and not have to take it from others if you work to create it, if you do what Bill did.
Think about the game of monopoly. There are a lot of things about this game which are pretty good examples of real life. The Wealth a player has during the game changes and the total wealth in play goes up over time. The bank never runs out of money so as the game progresses, wealth keeps going up (as each player passes go). Each player own part of this wealth. This is *like* how real wealth is created, there is NO LIMIT to how much wealth can be created in the future, not because each of us pass go and get our $200 for living, but because wealth CAN and DOES go up over time when hard working folks are out making new wealth with new ideas and resources, creating new markets for new products.
Wealth is absolutely a fixed size pie. Scarcity of resources is the fundamental problem that economics tries to solve.
Wealth is not a fixed sized pie over time. It changes size.
Think about it, do we have the same amount of wealth in the world now that was available in the 1700's? How about in the USA since 1776? Of course not. I dare say that it is obvious that the standard of living has greatly improved since this country's founding. Wealth has increased, we individually live better, have more food to eat, houses to live in, have more stuff than our funders even though we went from 2.5 million to 325 Million people.
Economics may try to describe how an economy works, but it can only provide generalizations which attempt to simplify the effects of many small transactions on economic activity as a whole. They make some simplifying assumptions at times (that's pretty much what economics is to start with) but I'm sure if you talked to a economics expert they wouldn't agree that the total Wealth available never changes.
I disagree.. I think the "wealthy" ARE actually the job creators when you look at who's paying income taxes.
If you consider someone "wealthy" if they make in excess of $250K/year in income (a commonly drawn line) then the majority of those tax payers are simply small business owners who are not yet big enough to make it worth the trouble to not file as individuals. These people represent a LOT of the growth in employment because there are a lot of them. They are the small "Mom and Pop" businesses which hire a great number of people in this country.
I think many folks misunderstand the financial realities in this country and fall for the class envy/warfare rhetoric which is driven by politics and not reality. Yea, let's "soak the rich" they don't deserve to be that wealthy! We fall for the zero sum game lie too, where because they have more wealth, somebody else has less. Wealth is not a fixed sized pie. I don't have less because Bill Gates has so much more. Remember, a rising tide (or ocean) lifts all boats...
I think history disagrees. For example, GE made a profit of 14B last year and has not paid any taxes to the US for the last 7 years and they are not the only ones.
And WHY is that? Hmm? Is GE breaking the law? I don't think they are. Then I suggest you bludgeon the law and those who refuse to change it, not GE.
Personally, I believe that the issue is the USA's tax rates are too high on these companies so they are being encouraged to do business overseas instead of in their home country to shelter themselves from the tax rates in the USA.
Do you honestly believe if the USA's tax rates would be lower that they would pay US taxes? They do what they do because they can, plain and simple.
Yes, they would pay what is legally required, or the IRS goes after them.
So are you trying to claim the tax law is unfair or that enforcement of existing tax law is not happening?
If you think the tax laws are unfair, then I suggest you lobby to get the unfairness removed... If you think the IRS isn't enforcing the laws right, then I suggest you lobby your representatives to beef up the IRS's enforcement operations and/or prosecute those who interfere with this activity....
What do you mean "sitting on cash"? You do realize that they are not just putting pallets of money in the CEO's office to stuff the couches with so he can "sit on" it, but they are keeping it on deposit someplace earning interest, right?
Cash sitting in a US Bank is better for the US than cash sitting in off shore banks. At least the bank can loan parts of the money out to US customers... So it's still better being here. Now if they spend this money on things like factories and such, it's even more of a benefit to the USA, but I'm happy to have it on deposit in a bank if that's all they do with it..
LOL.. Where I agree in principle.. I have to point out that there are those who believe these "evil rich mega corporations" should be taxed on repatriation of this money (bringing it back to the USA) and that they are "hiding" this money out of the 'tax man's" reach to avoid paying taxes they rightfully should.
Personally, I believe that the issue is the USA's tax rates are too high on these companies so they are being encouraged to do business overseas instead of in their home country to shelter themselves from the tax rates in the USA. I further believe that the USA should not be doing this, but encouraging business to happen within it's borders with lower tax rates and make bringing all this cash back into the USA more advantageous for them to encourage local economic growth.
What do YOU think?
Problem is that at the speeds the Hyper loop is supposed to go, the existing right of way with all the twists and turns is has won't work very well. Musk needs as straight of a shot as he can manage to make the high speeds comfortable for the passengers. As it stands now, it would be one heck of a roller coaster ride to do that trip in 29 min using the existing right of way.
Verbal approval from which government official for exactly what?
It could be from the local dog catcher who agreed that he'd do his level best to convince all the animals under his control to help dig the holes?
By the way... VERBAL approval means almost nothing... Heck, WRITTEN approval from the government is about worthless too... This only means that Musk had a conversation with somebody who said something Musk is interpreting to mean they agreed to something about this project. It could be as simple as "Yea, Mr. Musk, that sure sounds like an interesting idea. I hope we can give you approval to do that..."
LOL.. EXACTLY what he's doing... Nothing like a government check to keep you rolling in the money.
Oh, I don't know... Could be true as long as you totally zero out the "R&D", "Labor" and "Fuel costs" lines in the spread sheet.
But Musk does care for a number of reasons... As a very large stockholder, his net worth is dependent on Tesla's price, should the stockholders get upset with the stock valuation, he could get fired as CEO or otherwise have to surrender control of the company and all the perks
More like man inhales story...
I ran a basic web server for awhile at home a few years ago just for amusement on a Linux box running apache. It served up ONE static page that said something like "this is the only page on this server" and that was it. I got "attacked" thousands of times a week by the script kiddies running the IIS exploit attempt scripts, port scans and all sorts of things that I found a little bit amusing.
Surely, during an election, ANY computer on the net associated with anything to do with voting would be a primary target of all the hackers out there trying to make a name for themselves....Oh Look at me! I broke in and disrupted the election!
The fact is, this is not unusual..
See my next message... :)
That statement makes no sense. He's saying his cash flow will be negative because they will be investing in new products. However, new products are not an indicator for success. Sales is!
Think about it this way... He's playing the "old saw" that goes like this:
It takes money to make money.
Netflix is spending it's cash on producing new unique products it can use to sell it's service. Netflix will have exclusive rights to products which are in high demand if they spend their cash well and produce things folks want to watch. This takes cash up front and will pay back Netflix out over years of increased subscriber base.
Still, I have to admit that Amazon Prime has more stuff I want to watch than Netflix for a better cost...
OH? On the first Google page there is this:
http://news.nationalgeographic...
Are you SURE about your assertion still? This is National Geographic here, not exactly a right wing climate change denying organization...
Citation?
90%? So you charge your EV during the day? Or, are you dependent on the fossil fueled grid at night and for the rest of your 10%?
Thanks for the huge amount of pollution you caused with the production of those solar panels and batteries in that EV you drive. You DO understand that the photovoltaic Solar cells you likely have used nearly as much electricity to make as they can likely produce in their useful life. You also understand that they are chuck full of really nasty stuff that doesn't just go away when you have to scrap them, a environmentally messy and energy sucking process if you do it right.
Oil companies DON'T free load... They sell their products and YOU are the one using them, you are actually the one producing the pollution, they are just providing the product you buy. Also, if you want the oil companies to pay something more, guess who is going to pay that cost? You, the consumer.
So stop with the misdirection and slight of hand about who's paying or not paying for your alleged pollution. I don't thin you have really thought though everything YOU are doing or the implications of your proposed "solution" to your real/imagined problem.
Yea... You do realize that this is how they handle the loss of value of their oil well as you pump out the oil and sell it right? You also realize that this is NOT unique to the Oil Industry either? (And I don't know what I'm talking about... Shesh..)
This is the same thing a manufacturer does when they build stuff using parts in inventory. The value of their inventory is decreased because they used it, thus they can claim this as part of the cost of building their widgets and selling them. Of course the rules for Oil production are slightly more complex, but this is not a unique thing for the Oil Industry. In fact, the lumber and mining industry share almost the identical set of rules.
So this is NOT a subsidy but merely a set of rules about how the Oil industry must calculate the amount they claim for expenses and costs. A set of rules that do NOT benefit the Oil Industry inordinately or unfairly. A set of rules which are shared in principle with other unrelated industries.
LOL.. That's from Tesla Power's PR campaign.
In case you haven't noticed, they haven't turned much of a profit yet and they are desperate to keep the stock price up to PE ratios that will make your nose bleed. They are just trying to forestall the inevitable stampede of sellers should it become apparent this whole idea isn't working out from the profit and loss perspective....Therefore, they and Tesla are hyping the stock (pump and dump kind of thing), which is what Musk is up to here. He's just trying to keep his fortune in Tesla Stock (that he couldn't sell if he wanted too) as high as he can, hoping beyond hope that eventually it turns a profit worthy of the stock price.
That's exactly the problem. Fossil fuels are not paying for the damage they do to health and the environment. They get to spew pollution and everybody else has to subsidize the damage. Fossil fuels shouldn't be allowed to free ride on everyone else.
So am I to assume that YOU don't have electricity in your house and don't depend on anything that uses it? After all, MOST of your daily supply of electrical power comes from fossil fuels. I also assume you Don't ride in a fossil fueled vehicle to work or buy goods (including food) transported by Truck, Train, or Aircraft? Don't have ANYTHING that's plastic rayon, or nylon in your home or in your wardrobe. No washer, dishwasher, clothes dryer, hair dryer, heating or cooling, no electric or kerosene lights, paraffin wax candles (only natural sources of wax, or whale oil for you to use as light sources)?
Oh, and you better just forget about buying almost ANY food out there, because we'd not have much food at all if it wasn't for Petrochemicals and the things like synthetic fertilizers they allow us to make.
And if you think Fossil Fuels are this big of a problem, I ask you to think about what happens if we just stop using them... Are you going to be the one picking which half of the world's population gets to die and which get's to suffer from malnutrition for their lives? Because THAT's where we are going to go if we do what I assume you are suggesting...
I disagree that the "tax credits" you are talking about are subsidies to the Oil Industry and are all that huge. These "Tax Credits" pale in comparison to such industries such as agriculture and the growing, fermenting corn for motor fuel. And WHY do we do these other things? To make food and fuel cheaper perhaps?
But again, we are not cutting the Oil Industry checks out of the government's checking account... In fact, the Oil Industry pays a boat load more than the "tax credits" in actual taxes, so they are a net plus to the nation's tax receipts... Then, if you look at motor fuel sales, boy howdy do the Oil Industry PAY there. What is the Federal Highway tax per gallon these days anyway? Who's paying that, if not the Oil Industry?
One square mile of batteries Is all that's needed to store the energy for the entire US? Color me skeptical. (fine print: it's a 200 story building)
Skeptical... That's a good color on you.... I'm going to try it.
Batteries are woefully inefficient for storing energy on an industrial scale. They are also creators of huge environmental messes both when manufactured initially and when you deal with the worn out ones you need to get rid of.. Don't get me started on photovoltaic solar cell manufacturing because that's even worse... Consider the ecological disaster that would happen if a big pile of batteries accidently caught fire, as we all know they are want to do (Note 7, here's looking at you..)
Musk needs to sell batteries to pay for his new factory that builds batteries, and it's clear that with gas prices under $3/gal that the electric car market is not going to let him do that. So, he went from cars to "home" storage solutions (remember that?) where you buy a pile of solar panels, charge your batteries all day and keep the lights going all night and but that apparently isn't taking off. From there it's been this attempt at industrial scale battery storage of electrical power.
Looks like a guy getting desperate to sell batteries to me..