Eh, a quick Google search said that Tesla wasn’t profitable for 17 years and survived due to government subsidies and investor funding. After that they’ve been making ~$15 billion per year and sold around 1.3 million cars worldwide per year.

In contrast Toyota sold 10.3 million vehicles and made $61 billion in profit.

As with their 17 years of unprofitable business they are currently more proportionally profitable, but a big portion of that is Musk fanboys and limited supply. If they actually started selling more cars they probably wouldn’t be as proportionally profitable.

Additionally, Tesla is supposedly becoming less profitable due to several factors including not making a new model in 10 years, reports that they fraudulently marketed features (being sneaky with how range is calculated so that the true range is way less than advertised), and Elon’s antics hurting sales. Elon’s antics are a big deal, some people who wanted Teslas before don’t want them anymore because they don’t want to be associated with him (like flying a Gadsden Flag in the mid 2000s vs now).

Elon’s antics don’t stop there, he’s also hurt the investor’s opinion as well. A big reason Tesla’s stock was so high is because people were buying them and not selling them. This caused their price to stay super high, but when Elon bought Twitter he sold a ton of stock. The price was at an all time high over $400 per share, his selling cratered it to ~$115, and is currently around $165. Investors don’t like it when the owner of a company single handedly tanks their investment so the owner can make a bad investment, even more so when the writing on the wall says he’ll sell even more of the stock to fund the bad investment.

The example is the Telluride though? That’s the whole point. Of course any sane person would pick a cheaper car. For that matter why would you ever buy a brand new car?

I definitely agree, but I went with the option which would have the lowest monthly payment. On the other end local rates have a 36 month loan at 6.75%, but that’s $1,800 per month.

I just Googled and the 2024 Telluride has an MSRP of ~$55,000 in my area, used 2023 models are about ~$45,000.

Looking at an auto loan calculator, that’s between $700 and $900 per month with a 96 month 9% auto loan.

Point is, if you can afford the car you’re probably not worrying about the subscription except on principle. If you can afford the car and have principle concerns you’d probably buy a different car.

They’re condos, there is no land. The houses are cute, I’ll give you that, but these are glorified apartments. You own the inside walls of the unit you buy, that’s pretty much it.

That’s the second room that you can lease out, 50 Sqft for $1200 per month.

I took some time in thinking about your response, I want you to know that. That said, “There’s lots of places in the US where cops are paid significantly above median wages for the region as their base pay,” doesn’t mean much in the context of my original statement. My original statement said very much the same in fact. Cops, on paper, get paid above average and have tons of opportunity for overtime. What your response misses is the danger associated and the expectation of overtime.

It’s one thing when you can have unlimited overtime and another when you are expected to take unlimited overtime. There is also a disconnect when that overtime comes with an expectation of being shot and killed. With those expectations it’s no surprise that police are the largest portion of a city government. If you have a group of people that you expect to work long hours, work extra overtime, meet the municipality’s needs, and potentially die in their duty, then they should command a large portion of the budget.

If you don’t want to pay people to do these things then you can’t be upset that they don’t do those things. You get the cops that you pay for. I’ll be the first to say Fuck the Police, but I’ll also be the first to say we get the Police we pay for.

Care to elaborate? I won’t argue that funding for the department isn’t a problem, but at least in my own anecdotal relation of an individual experience that seems to be the problem.

You’re right though, being a police officer comes with an expectation that doesn’t match your pay. If you’re on the subway, there is a police officer in uniform standing nearby, and a guy attacks you, the expectation is that the cop would save you. However, in 2011 Maksin Gelman had a stabbing spree in NYC that culminated in an attack on Joseph Lozito. The attack occurred on a subway, with Lozito being stabbed in the head and face while police watched from the conductor’s booth. It wasn’t until Lozito had wrestled his assailant to the ground and detained him that the police helped him.

Lozito sued the NYPD for not helping him and the judge decided that it wasn’t the police’s duty to save his life. On the day of the assault the police didn’t even perform first aid on Lozito, it was another subway goer that save his life.

EDIT: I’ll be the first one to say fuck the police, but if you want actually good police then the first step is to pay them to match what you expect of them or else you’ll end up with a bunch of gun toting assholes who won’t do shit.

Of the responses I have gotten I feel like you have the closest response to the truth. Having good cops comes down to trust. If we had a police force of non-opportunistic saints who will go through anything to do the right thing then we might have something which meets the public’s expectation of the police. Short of that they are people who put their own lives and well being above that of the public. Police aren’t out there to save you, they aren’t really out there to stop crimes. They are out there to charge people with committing crimes. I feel like some understanding should be out there for the public though, police aren’t there to save you, they are there to charge people for having committed a crime. Ideally they will stop a crime as it is occurring or by their presence prevent a crime from occurring, but if you think the Police are there to save you then you’re wrong.

That’s the average scenario. That’s the Uvalde cop looking on as a school shooting occurs. The idea of a cop running into a school shooting is the “BEST” scenario.

Unfortunately the norm for police is far less than that, because the pay doesn’t incentivize better people to want to be police. It comes down to those the factors: pay, work life balance, and danger. Pick 2 of 3, low danger, high wages, or good work life balance.

There is a difference in danger, Construction tends to be one of the most dangerous jobs there is, but getting injured in a construction accident is fundamentally different from getting shot as a cop. Other jobs might be more “dangerous,” but the nature of the danger is pretty important.

Yeah, but that comes back to the same point where pay incentivizes bad cops. It’s not quite that clear cut, but it’s not far from the truth. I don’t begrudge someone working a second job, and assuming we’re talking about good cops not getting kickbacks, police shouldn’t have to work two jobs to make ends meet.

I see why you thought that’s what I meant, but immediately following that I list several other potential solutions to overall bad policing. You can certainly defund the police, aka stop outfitting them with weapons of war, but it will not solve the fundamental problem of hiring bad candidates to make bad cops.

This may not apply everywhere in the US, but my understanding is that most cops aren’t paid terribly well. Perhaps it’s ok if compared to a standard job, but when you account for the danger, required over time, and work schedule it becomes very not worth it.

A buddy of mine is a true believer type, he signed up to be a cop, went through a year of training and another year paired with another cop. PreCovid starting pay was $40k, 12 hr work schedule and every 28 days it flipped (so 28 days day shift followed by 28 days of night shift). One day he gets a call and his boss had switched him to a different district with 3x the commute without any communication. Finally a buddy of his caught a bullet in the head (and lived) from some guy who was on drugs and stole a car. He said he thought about it and for the money it wasn’t worth the emotional cost.

Strangely the problem with underfunding cops is who the fuck wants to be a cop? Yeah, after 25 years and multiple promotions you might make an ok or even good salary, but being a new cop is absolutely shit. In a system where the pay isn’t good, the hours are shit, and the risk to your life is high, who wants to be a cop?

The answer is either self sacrificing good guys or people who get a power trip on carrying a gun and using it. Add to it that this system is perpetuated by the type of people who pursue the job you end up with a whole department full of the type who hire these types.

So while you can defund the police, you can send them through training, you can institute new policy, but if you don’t attract a better quality of person then you’re gonna have the same problem over and over again.

Theoretically you could make the hours better (but that will require hiring more police to cover the same amount), you could reduce the danger (similar to London banning guns so beat cops don’t carry them either), or you can pay them more.

I wish people would talk about this, but Elon really isn’t that smart and he certainly isn’t a genius. I learned a long time ago that smart is relative and really shouldn’t be foisted onto people. Elon has a BA in Physics from a school known for business degrees. He also got a BS in Business, but UPenn and Wharton are known more for how hard it is to get in than how hard the classes are.

The website CollegeVine says UPenn is known as the “Social Ivy” and “UPenn’s admissions is highly-selective, but students applying to the UPenn College of Arts & Science (CAS) will find it less academically competitive than schools like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford (although exceptional academics are still a must).”

By the way, he started college in 1990, transfered to UPenn in 1992, and states he graduated in 1995, but UPenn refutes that saying he graduated in 1997. This is a school where 96% of those who are accepted graduate within 150% of the degree time (4 year degree within 6 years) (https://www.collegetuitioncompare.com/edu/215062/university-of-pennsylvania/graduation/).

Musk of course says he completed the courses in 1995, but there was some sort of mixup with an English and History credit that delayed the degree by 2 years.