> shes just trying to step back and analyze... And it is a much more useful an interesting perspective on the world than turning every single discussion into team sports politics.
When is the last time you read a serious financial analysis that divided up 150 years of world history in such a way? Or tried to relate it to investment?
> The fact that the parent is one of the more upvoted comments I've ever written seems to indicate that I'm not alone.
Does that mean you're correct?
> A final point is that her publicly listed example portfolio performance seems to indicate the she has an exceptionally solid grasp on reality.
I read through her website, and it's pretty much the same thing you'll get on other pitch sites ultimately selling a newsletter. It's not bad advice in general, but wealth managers and other investors don't post example portfolios. They post their track record with real money.
So far it's a lot of words and graphs with a tenuous grip on reality in a few places:
> There are, however, some groups in lower income brackets that do poorly in inflationary environments. If someone doesn’t have a lot of money and lives on a fixed income in retirement, they have a lot of vulnerability to inflation. Those sorts of folks should consider owning inflation hedges to protect their lifestyle, if they expect that high levels of inflation have a reasonable probability of occurring.
If you think someone in a low tax bracket on fixed income has the spare money to invest in anything, you're not understanding the words "low income" or "fixed."
> Capital had political control from the late 1800s through the 1920s. Labor had political control from the 1930s through the 1970s. Capital again had political control from the 1980s through the 2010s. I’m not sure what’s next but signs are increasingly pointing towards labor regaining some influence, and it’s a topic I continue to monitor.
Everyone is well aware that any promise of company loyalty isn't worth the time it takes to say it. To attract in-demand employees, you have to make every week count for them so if there is an acquisition or yet another useless management shuffle, they can walk away without regretting the time they invested. The easiest way to achieve this is to offer some amount of equity and/or the exact weekly schedule and vacation time they are looking for.
The most excited I have seen engineers get is when I tell them my primary goal is to keep them out of meetings, away from process rabbit holes, and focused on programming and documentation. We have one weekly 30 minute meeting limited to the product team, and ad-hoc stand-ups if we are picking a long term path that affects the whole team. The acronym KPI is never mentioned. Our only measure of success is deployed features.
The toughest part here is usually dealing with management who think you can't get anything done in 25-30 hours, or that having "face time" is worth sucking 10 hours out of someone's life every week with a commute. Or even worse, they have mandatory "all hands" meetings or "team building exercises" as if their employees are children. (To anyone offended by that, try building a team of adults through hard work instead of the equivalent of circle time.) They cannot comprehend that a focused 5-6 hours a day is much more productive than trying to enforce 8x40x50 and pretending that every hour is similarly productive.
> people have been organizing into large work entities since time immemorial
Mercantilism didn't appear until the 17th Century.
> Yet people act like working for someone else is some new construct that exists to oppress everyone and most of the common mans ills are because of capitalists. This to me is quite silly.
Criticism of capitalism is as old as capitalism itself. Organizing a hierarchy that replicates monarchy/aristocracy carries the same problems -- mostly incompetence hidden by birthright and social status.
Markets work and have existed since time immemorial. The problem is that modern capitalism is so corrupt that is has destroyed the market. All products are more or less terrible, because the executives running the company never use the products they produce, or have any real idea what their workers do on a daily basis. This reality was even recognized by Adam Smith:
"The trade of a joint-stock company is always managed by a court of directors. This court, indeed, is frequently subject, in many respects, to the control of a general court of proprietors. But the greater part of these proprietors seldom pretend to understand any thing of the business of the company... The directors of such companies, however, being the managers rather of other people’s money than of their own, it cannot well be expected that they should watch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which the partners in a private copartnery frequently watch over their own. Like the stewards of a rich man, they are apt to consider attention to small matters as not for their master’s honour, and very easily give themselves a dispensation from having it. Negligence and profusion, therefore, must always prevail, more or less, in the management of the affairs of such a company. It is upon this account, that joint-stock companies for foreign trade have seldom been able to maintain the competition against private adventurers. They have, accordingly, very seldom succeeded without an exclusive privilege; and frequently have not succeeded with one. Without an exclusive privilege, they have commonly mismanaged the trade. With an exclusive privilege, they have both mismanaged and confined it."
> Most everything else that is worth having in life takes discipline, work, and self growth. Yes some people will get more of those good things, some for less effort, so what though? As long as they are not breaking laws to do so I am fine with it. If someone breaks the law then punish them.
The privatized natural gas company in your town hires a lobbyist to eliminate safety regulations. The gas seeps in your home and explodes when your partner goes to light the stove. You survived the explosion, but the hospital bills emptied your bank account. Your insurance doesn't cover negligence by a third party. No law was broken.
You are now bankrupt, homeless, alone, and unable to work. How is discipline, hard work, and self growth going to help you?
There are plenty of technologies that are working in a limited scope for driver assist, and functioning reliably if not perfectly. Tesla's death rate (measured in vehicle years) is three times that of their competition in the luxury segment.
Step 1 is to not sell something called Full Self-Driving/Autopilot when it can't do either of those things. Step 2 is to develop a reliable system (per NTSB advice) to make sure the driver is paying attention. Step 3 is to make sure it's only active in the domain where it can be trusted. Step 0 is to not do anything else until your collision avoidance works as well as your competitors.
Consider these differences:
"Subaru EyeSight Driver Assist Technology" -- with disclaimer about not being optimal in all conditions
"GM SuperCruise hands-free driving-assistance" -- with a similar disclaimer
"Tesla Full Self-Driving" -- and their disclaimer is "Full Self-Driving is in early limited access Beta and must be used with additional caution. It may do the wrong thing at the worst time, so you must always keep your hands on the wheel and pay extra attention to the road. Do not become complacent."
The marketing bait and switch is pretty common, but this is "Thanks for the $10,000 USD for Full Self Driving. It doesn't work. Don't trust it. In fact, pay extra attention while it's on."
I have never seen the tech community so excited about paying to be alpha testers for technology that is literally killing its users.
If autopilot allows itself to be activated in an area where it doesn't work, who is accountable for that? If it depends on collision avoidance that performs far worse than other solutions, who is accountable for that? When Tesla sells a $10k package that calls itself autopilot and then people die when they have it turned on, who is accountable for that?
> So while these bureaucratic opinions are fascinating, like many such committee driven conclusions they should be taken with a grain of salt. Tesla has thought things through pretty well.
Every other driver assist technology limits its own scope to prevent over-reliance. That's because those companies (Subaru/Toyota/GM/Ford/Volvo/BMW/VW) are working with regulators across the world to develop and adhere to standards. If Tesla's solution was better, you'd have some numbers to back it up instead of a bizarre assertion that industry experts are suddenly clueless when they are part of a regulatory body.
Tesla has created an unreliable semi-autonomous system and made it available before it's ready against the advice of the NTSB and other regulators. That is irresponsible and people who would have otherwise been paying attention have died because they, like you, assumed that "Tesla has thought things through pretty well."
Much like an IT department that fights tooth and nail against a third party security audit, it should be obvious why Tesla is so dedicated to pretending that there isn't a problem. They don't want to admit autopilot isn't ready, and will likely never be dependable until they have proximity sensors in addition to cameras like every other solution does. They'd rather blame the drivers for relying on the technology they just paid for. It's a ridiculous defense that will ultimately fall apart.
> Remember that BMW and Audi combined had 9 driver fatalities in nearly 900,000 vehicle years? Clearly, 11 Tesla driver fatalities in 265,000 vehicle years is not a good start. But even those numbers likely understate the danger of driving a Tesla...
> Even without making any adjustment whatsoever for missing fatality data, Tesla drivers are much more likely to die than their peers driving other luxury cars. Eleven deaths in 265,290 vehicle-years is a stunningly high driver fatality rate of 41.46. That’s quadruple the rate of Audi and BMW, and more than triple the rate of all luxury cars combined.
The issue is whether design decisions by Tesla are leading to fatalities. They are, if you compare them to the luxury segment they are in. Advertising an autopilot feature which does not work, and moving standard controls to a distracting, inconsistent touch screen interface is leading to more crashes and more deaths.
Tip of the hat: don't discredit information because you don't like it.
Why are you getting into the definition of fallacious? Read the NTSB report.
> The Tesla Autopilot system did not provide an effective means of monitoring the driver’s level of engagement with the driving task, and the timing of alerts and warnings was insufficient to elicit the driver’s response to prevent the crash or mitigate its severity. Requirements are needed for driver monitoring systems for advanced driver assistance systems that provide partial driving automation (SAE Level 2 systems), and Tesla needs to develop applications that more effectively sense the driver’s level of engagement and that alert drivers who are not engaged...
> Despite the system’s known limitations, Tesla does not restrict where Autopilot can be used. Tesla should incorporate system safeguards that limit the use of partial driving automation systems (Autopilot) to those conditions for which they were designed...
> The Tesla’s collision avoidance assist systems were not designed to, and did not, detect the crash attenuator. Because this object was not detected, (a) Autopilot accelerated the SUV to a higher speed, which the driver had previously set by using adaptive cruise control, (b) the forward collision warning did not provide an alert, and (c) the automatic emergency braking did not activate. For partial driving automation systems to be safely deployed in a high-speed operating environment, collision avoidance systems must be able to effectively detect potential hazards and warn of potential hazards to drivers
Autopilot 1) failed to detect a distracted driver and engage them, 2) is not limited by Tesla to areas where it actually works, and 3) depends on collision avoidance which does not work. Tesla is claiming they will solve these problems without LiDAR. Volvo, Waymo, GM, VW, and many more claim that even semi-autonomous driving isn't possible without it. We'll see how many more people have to die before Tesla changes their mind.
> On Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, Tesla didn’t install normal windshield wiper settings through a steering wheel stalk.
> Instead, the automaker is detecting the rain through its Autopilot cameras and automatically adjusting the speed based on the strength of the rainfall.
> If the driver wants to adjust the speed, they need to do it through the center touchscreen.
> The driver in Germany was adjusting those settings when he lost control of the vehicle and crashed.
There are at least 3 known cases where autopilot failed and someone died. (Also note that no one has died from the failure of Waymo or SuperCruise driver assist tech.) Here are a few articles in the past few days on the same subject.
> The investigation identified the following safety issues:
> - Driver Distraction.
> - Risk Mitigation Pertaining to Monitoring Driver Engagement.
> - Risk Assessment Pertaining to Operational Design Domain.
> - Limitations of Collision Avoidance Systems.
> - Insufficient Federal Oversight of Partial Driving Automation Systems.
> - Need for Event Data Recording Requirements for Driving Automation Systems.
As far as I know, Tesla has not even responded to this report. A good place to start heading towards that better world is for Tesla to demonstrate some accountability.
As I said in another reply, Tesla is the only company advertising automated driving and other features that don't work in edge cases which is bad news for staying alive, even if you aren't the person driving a Tesla. They are also actively removing standard physical controls that have been around for decades, and through design, they are training people to rely on a touchscreen device that is not consistent or reliable.
Sure there are people who also hit cruise control on a 96 Accord and expect it to drive itself, but Honda never told them that would work. These are the kind of realities Tesla should responsibly deal with as a mass market manufacturer, but they don't want to take the PR hit to accept accountability and potentially have to refund millions of dollars for a feature that doesn't work as advertised. They'd rather blame the drivers for as long as they can get away with it.
In every safety system, there is a point where human intervention can override automated activity. In almost every car these systems have standard tactile controls so you can override through muscle memory in an emergency without taking your eyes off the road. (If you haven't noticed, even the icons used on stalks and buttons are standardized across the industry as a matter of safety). In a Tesla, overriding the auto sense wiper feature is available through an interaction with the touch screen at the precise moment when a driver should not be distracted (ie, when they are having trouble seeing through the windshield). As far as I know, they are the only auto manufacturer that doesn't stick with standard stalks for things that affect visibility (wipers/headlights/turn signals, etc).
This is why I don't think a Tesla is a feature complete car -- it simply lacks the common set of safety features found in every other modern vehicle.
Tesla resists efforts to prevent distracted driving, and also resists the consistent call from regulators properly set expectations for the capabilities of its autopilot feature. People are dying as a result. You'll notice that you won't find the same articles about GM's SuperCruise feature, because they don't oversell the feature and have more safety measures in place to make sure drivers aren't distracted.
Waymo's CEO even claims that Tesla isn't a competitor. There is an obvious conflict here, but he's not the only one saying that 1) Tesla will never have a fully autonomous driving system and 2) their existing autopilot feature is falsely advertised and dangerous.
So the person responsible for keeping their family alive doesn't look away from the road trying to perform a very common task. A car is designed around the idea that maintaining the driver's attention on the road is the primary function. I am not sure what is driving the design of Teslas for the newer models.
I like Teslas in general, but their decision to remove things like buttons and stalks from their vehicles is both dangerous and stupid, and people have already died because of it.
A non-touchscreen way to operate windshield wipers. VW makes a car with an electric drivetrain, Tesla makes an electric drivetrain with a place to put people and things.
> Tesla also uses a different battery chemistry — aluminum, in addition to the standard nickel and cobalt — than other major automakers. The battery researchers said that choice has led to maximum range because of a higher-capacity battery chemistry, though downsides included a higher fire risk and shorter cycle life, or life span over hundreds of charges.
If you're keeping your car for 20 years, there are at least three or four timing belt/chain replacements and a ton of maintenance if you are putting typical miles on. Plus you're always one bad part away from blowing the engine, and there's no way to stop the inevitable long term decline of engine compression and replacing your transmission/clutch.
Electric vehicles outperform ICE powered vehicles on every metric, including price. Electricity is getting cheaper and cleaner over time, and so are batteries. In 10 years today's $10k battery pack might be twice as potent and half the price. I would stick with VW or other manufacturers, as Tesla is being cheap about battery chemistry for long term performance.
> Nearly half of families have no retirement account savings at all.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/26/upshot/stocks-pandemic-in...
> Families grouped by percentiles of net worth:
> Bottom 50: 50% of Families | 1% of Equities | 0% of Stock
I'm not sure why you think the poor have investment portfolios. They don't.