Musk is just continuing to prove what labor activists were screaming for years and what the COVID years revealed with shocking clarity. It's almost like ALL workers are essential, and some ARE more essential than others, but it turns out it's the opposite of what we've been told. Remember when every corporation was on the edge of collapse, and it wasn't because the Senior Associate VPs of XYZ weren't showing up, it was because the facilities staff and the customer service reps and the cashiers and the other consistently belittled and mistreated and exploited workers weren't? Well, most of the species remembers.
Cecelia, What, teachers all stayed home because of their unions! Yeah, you don't know what you are talking about! As one of those teachers you are maligning, I will tell you it wasn't our unions. We had no say. The state shut down so as not to pass COVID on to our students and colleagues or have it passed on to us, then on to our families and friends. That's what people who actually care about one another do. We still taught our students, and it was hard since most of the students in my district had no internet and no equipment to use it if they had it. We had to build our learning network from the bottom for those students and families. Then we are blamed because students aren't receiving scores on standardized tests at the levels rich white kids are getting. Yeah, those rich white kids who could still attend schools because they all lived in single-family, mostly 2-generational houses with people who had mostly decent health care. Many people in my community died including one of my colleagues. We may not have been "front-line workers" in hospitals, police stations, and fire houses, but our work and stress were no less real. It is interesting how quickly people forget what it was really like living through COVID, a PANDAMIC that impacted everyone, though some more than others. It explains a lot of why people will vote for candidates who have done nothing for them. A few ads can help them forget that the crime and inflation they whine so much about were helped along by those candidates' inaction: sensible gun control and corporate price-gouging. Short attention spans and limited memory for events and impacts distort recall of events for a lot of people.
Yeah! Well put! I'm a retired teacher from a high poverty Middle School and the teachers from that school were teaching their students via zoom - and, like you explained, many of the students didn't have the support at home and/or the network connection allowing them to access what they were SUPPOSED to be learning. My grandson who has ADHD - even though his parents are affluent - couldn't learn via zoom and now he's behind - like MILLIONS of other students and the teachers are working long hours trying to figure out how to help them/him and the others in his class to catch up. Plus, he and many of the others are suffering from anxiety - my grandson fears there will be a school shooting at his school which makes it hard to get him to even show up. His school had a confrontation with the Proud Boys when our district (actually state) mandated masks - when the kids finally went back to school. That just made my grandson's fear of a shooting get worse. And, my wife is still teaching - also in a low socioeconomic school - and she was teaching FIRST graders via zoom. The UNION had nothing to do with what was happening - the teachers just did what they could to reach as MANY of their students as possible because that's what MOST of them do, regularly. And, now they're, as I said, in "catch up" mode. Just as my daughter, an RN who worked overtime during the pandemic, so did my wife and the other teachers I know. The part of the right wing idiocy regarding the pandemic which aggravates me most is their attack on teachers and health care workers. A close second was how BILLIONAIRES and CEO's (many of them) tried to tread the pandemic as "just another flu." It was, in fact, the COVID pandemic where I first realized what an ASS Elon Musk is - he violated the California state mandates putting his workers in jeopardy and, as a result of California's mandates, moved his operation to Texas (as much as he could). He reminds me of a spoiled 6th grader who is all about himself. He is destroying Twitter and, as far as I'm concerned, it will be good riddance.
(I believe he's also DAMAGING Tesla and he's pretty much ruined his personal "brand")
Comments like Cecelia's, unfortunately, have been commonplace for the past couple of years. Shows a lack of knowledge regarding both teachers and their union.
David, thanks so much for your comments. It still amazes me how common the ignorance is among conservatives related to so many things. After reading your comments, I think I have my answer to my question as to what conservatives are trying to conserve. I think it is two things: money and a reworked memory of what things were like in the past. Neither of those is worthy of conserving. Children have no idea of how hard teachers and medical folks work, so if they don't increase their knowledge of that over the years and find it easier to pick up the whines of people trying to undermine others, they don't come to a better understanding. I am sorry your grandson is having such a difficult time. I know his situation is not entirely unique. I think keeping children and families on edge related to violence that could be directed toward them is a tactic of the right. If everyone is so stressed out and the line in response is the ridiculous nonsense that a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun, guns become the thing and arming folks, particularly white men can ready them for that "civil war" they think they are hoping for. I am sure I don't know what to do about any of this as long as our "Supreme" Court is tied into their pseudo-Christian beliefs that they are called to create a Catholic nation. They dismiss the part of Christianity that calls for love above everything else. They lie to themselves that they are doing their harm in the name of love. It is the same nonsense that parents tell themselves when they are beating their kids. Than, there's Musk! Child-man with far too much money and leeway.
Hi Ruth, to me, Musk is the epitome of what greed and arrogance does to anyone who gets into the mindset of "I can do anything." That he would invest 44 BILLION dollars into a company which he has no idea how to manage, to me, is a "neon sign" of both human frailties. Greed: He's openly stated he envisions Twitter becoming some kind of social media behemoth which grows his "fortune" even more - and, he'll likely become more determined to make that happen the closer he gets to utter failure. It appears he's willing to turn Twitter into the "cesspool" he told advertisers wouldn't happen - if that's what it takes to avoid complete failure. Arrogance: That he thought he could just come in and "fix" the company overnight with little to NO knowledge of how it worked. And, FIRING half the workforce in his first week, along with ALL the executives and the BOARD was, well, again, arrogance. Not to mention putting his narcissism on full display as he's upended the lives of, now, close to 5000 families. All this while apparently thinking he's done such a great job at Tesla that it will manage itself - like he believes cars can drive themselves. Tesla, so far THIS year, has had 19 recalls. Maybe spending $44 BILLION on his Twitter "toy" may cause him to lose much more than his $44 BILLION. Musk has, no doubt, done much "good," so it's sad to watch him imploding over something as unnecessary as Twitter. Watching what a couple hundred Billion dollars has done to Musk has made me thankful to have "enough" and happy I don't feel the need for more!
David, yours is a good assessment of the challenges huge amounts of money have for people. No one that rich comes off unscathed. Musk has always been far too arrogant for his knowledge and abilities. That is not to say that he in the past has not had some good ideas, but he really doesn't know what to do with those ideas when he gets it started. I think it is because he doesn't really trust anyone else and to be a true leader, one must trust and respect others. Greed is a terrible master, which is why it is one of the 7 deadly sins. It can lead to all the others if out of control and for Musk, I think it is out of control.
Yes ma’am and thank you for speaking out about that awful time and pray we aren’t headed for another bad time. No one ever wants to thank a real teacher. When in fact they rank right up there with Doctors and Nurses. After all those Doctors and Nurses didn’t gain their knowledge by holding a book.
Hello Nancy: For some reason this comment of yours was in my "inbox":
"Then why did you start out criticizing teacher’s unions? Unless you live in “The land of DeSantis and Abbott” I don’t why you would bad mouth their unions."
Sure hope it wasn't directed at me based on anything I wrote. Come from a long line of union organizers and sympathizers before there were even such things as teachers' unions. Workers had to shed a lot of blood before their basic rights to a safe workplace were ever even acknowledged, so please don't ascribe anti-union sentiments to me. Musta been some sorta miscommunication. It happens sometimes.
Indeed, sorry about that! I probably was hot under the collar. From a family of union workers myself, my Dad and older brother were Union IronWorkers. The union out of OKC kept them both working and making decent wages in hard times. Reagan did a number on unions.
Sorry, but so many teachers who ‘stayed home’ were working harder than ever! You are speaking from ignorance on this, let me assure you. What were these ‘essential workers’ actually doing in empty schools and school offices? Time for more ‘education’ here!
Paul, thank you so much for your response related to teachers. As a teacher during the pandemic, I affirm your understanding of just how difficult it was.
I know teachers who worked longer and harder with extreme stress during covid shutdowns. Had to learn the remote tech, and create new curriculums to teach and engage their students remotely. Teachers were heroes during this difficult time.
My sister is a teacher. Trust me I get it. We were ALL stressed out. But we should have thought what would have been best for the students. We made mistakes. But as a society we learned and should move forward. I am glad teachers got to learrn to remote tech. Good for us all to grow and learn.
Gandalf, you know your comment is nonsense and must be from someone who lives in a community that had few cases of COVID and assumed that was the same for everyone. It wasn't. Teaching remotely was hard, but better by far than school children and staff sharing COVID that could be taken home to vulnerable people living in multi-generational homes. This is not a "lost generation." I know the young people will be rightly incensed that people who do their best work looking back can make such ridiculous pronouncements.
Most grandparents would be willing to take a risk for the sake of educating their grandchildren. Most also knew that if they were healthy they would survive covid. Those who were unhealthy should have taken the responsibility of protecting themselves. It was not that difficult.
The entire reaction was typical knee jerk Democrat, in cooperation with the pharmaceutical giants who made billions by "flattening the curve". They knew that by stretching the period of infection new variants would appear.
Pharmaceuticals knew that government would pay them for "free" vaccines to the tune of hundreds of billions in new profit. They knew that the media would not turn on their number one sponsor and support the idea that the virus was created in their own lab. A biolab in the midst of a crowded metropolis takes "trusting the science" a bit too far. We need an international treaty to stop them.
Once upon a time, my former liberal party would be all over the pharmaceutical companies about this.
Sadly, Democrats have become "the man", sponsored by Pfizer, et al.
Oh Gandalf, You are one of the lucky ones who got through COVID with no problems. Well over a million other folks were not so lucky. It wasn't as easy as you claim for people to protect themselves from the virus, particularly those with other health challenges. I am glad there are a few of you out there who can't empathize with what so many Americans had to experience. You must be one of the privileged ones, the ones who will probably relate the history so people won't remember it being as bad as it was. I am glad you have your fantasy and that it works for you. No, I'm not!
Sorry Gandalf, DeSantis is a fool and because COVID didn't touch him directly, he chose to have no clue regarding the damage it was causing, the damage he was causing. When the story of the pandemic is told, DeSantis will not come out looking very good. The word "evil
Paul. I have lots of family members that are teachers. We know exactly what they were doing. It was a stressful time for us all. So don't try and educate me. I am fully aware.
Cecelia, it sure didn't sound as though you understood despite your family members who are teachers. And where did unions come into it? Are your family members among the few teachers who resent unions? Teachers' unions are the only formal bodies that stand between teachers and sometimes out-of-control parents or administrations. They work for better working and learning conditions for everyone involved. They do take the brunt of the anger of rich corporations and others who want complete control over what happens to workers. I say, "long live teachers' unions!" I wish all workers had access to effective unions who can when management permits it, work with them to make jobs, even whole corporations better.
Thank you Fran for the kind words. I taught for 26 years in public schools and value my time with my students and colleagues as some of the best time I have spent in my life. I know that as a visually impaired, eventually blind teacher, I may have never been able to keep my job without my union. People have all kinds of ideas of what blind people can do, and teach is rarely one of those things. I was blessed to be named Educator of the Year in 2020 by the Pennsylvania Association for Gifted Education and know it was my fellow teachers and my amazing students who enabled me to bring that honor to my district. I also had terrific families supporting my students too. My students' parents understood how difficult teaching is and appreciated the efforts made on behalf of their kids. I wish more young people could see what a truly special career teaching is and that the teachers' unions lift some of the stress and burden of the job.
Cecelia: Actually, I'd really like to know what their - your educator family members' -- feelings are/were. I think I understand the distinction you are making. Is it that support staff/maintenance workers had to physically work under dangerous conditions while educators who were covered by their unions could evade such duties? If that's the case, definitely we should get into that discussion.
DNKARR, how is this an issue? The maintenance personnel did work in the buildings at times, but had or were supposed to have safety measures in place. There were no teachers and students to clean up after and so risks for them were low, and a lot of school districts, ones that appreciate their workers, have maintenance workers in unions too.
Ruth I am not arguing with you at all and you're correct that maintenance workers, some not all, also have their unions. But I do think it's an issue if there exists some feeling, misplaced or not, that somehow support staff/maintenance crew were forced to go in while "professionals" higher up the hierarchy were not. Hopefully safety measures were actually in place. Perhaps it depends on the locale; nonetheless, if there are grievances I think they should be addressed.
And by unions following the recommended public health orders, hundreds of thousands of people were spared death or long covid. Because of Trumps refusal to follow what the science told him, it is estimated that at least 600,000 Americans died needlessly. His damaging and slow response continues to put Americans behind the eight ball. This is still a new and evolving disease and as science learns more we will get further recommendations, but many Americans will not follow because of distrust brought about by Trump and conspiracy theories. If you doubt this just google how other countries with low death rates handled the science . We will be generations before recovering from the loss of life and the chronic illness that has resulted..
Linda, you are right about COVID and the really bad responses by folks who believe Trump believes what he told people about COVID and how it wasn't so bad. He got vaccinated as soon as he could but when some people at a rally booed him, he stopped even saying it. It wasn't CEOs who saved any lives outside the corporations working on vaccines and treatments for COVID. Wealth and good health care kept a lot of those folks from suffering the blows poor communities faced. It was states, cities, and other communities that saved lives as well as all of those front-line workers who did what they could to keep people alive. Even CEOs of hospitals weren't so great because of their bad staffing practices and other working conditions in place even before the pandemic hit.
Cecelia, teachers didn't stay home just because of their unions, and we see now how essential they are with the severe drop in the math and reading scores of our children.
Do you really believe that, just because they weren't getting in their cars and driving to a physical building that they weren't working? I've got news for you! Those teachers were tasked with a challenge that would make most mere mortals weep. Handling a classroom of students Remotely? Are you kidding me?
Dear, sweet, clueless, Cecelia,
Teachers are the MOST essential of essential workers! They shape the minds and inform the hearts of future leaders. Good, dedicated teachers are Super Heroes! (I've always wondered where they hide their capes.)
Next pandemic? Hold the Big Mac. Take care of our teachers and our students! Take care of our future!
BJ Crish, thank you so much for your exceptional defense of teachers and plea that folks appreciate what teachers do. I am a recently retired teacher and have watched colleagues leave the profession because of the stress during COVID and previously. Sometimes, no matter how hard teachers work, a few of our students don't get the messages of cooperation and appreciation of the contributions of others, like Musk, Zuckerberg, all the management of Amazon, Trump, Russia's Putin, Marjorie Greene and the Jan. 6th insurrectionists, and a bunch more. The sad thing for me is how many of those we teachers can't reach end up in power somewhere.
VJcrish. I agree with you. Take care of our teachers and they should take care of the students. I have seen too much over the past 50 years with my own children and now my granchildrens to know there are some GREAT teachers and others that stay below the radar working only 9 months out of the year to collect their pensions and medical insurance for retirement. The teacher unions have hurt the education world. Every industry had to figure out how to handle the pandemic. Some industries did much better than others.
Ah Cecelia, yes there are a few teachers who work their, actually more like 10 months, then leave it for a couple of months, but your hatred of teachers' unions is inexplicable. Those unions you despise have made it possible for teachers to even get pensions and any vacation time at all. A couple of years of teaching, I added up the extra hours I worked each week and found I worked my summer months off, during the year. I didn't get paid any more for the extra time, no teacher does, but parents and grandparents never see it because they aren't looking. I get it that conservatives need something/someone to hate and teachers' unions work well for that. I suspect other unions do too. I don't get it because it has been unions that have made work possible for workers over time. Pre unions, workers were expendable and if they died or were injured on the job, oh well, such is life. Sixteen hour days were not unheard of. Union-haters usually don't think about that. When Dickens was writing in mid-19th century England, he was not creating a world of intense poverty and exploitation. It was already there and horrific for huge numbers of workers. We don't have that anymore and it wasn't because of the kindness of business owners. There were a few industries that did better than others during the pandemic, although I have no idea what you were meaning when you said that. Many did abuse their workers and exposed them to COVID, well, because they couldn't see the need for safety measures. Did they come out OK? I am sure the families of those who died from on the job exposure don't think so. My question as usual is, what is it you conservatives are trying to conserve? Then, is what you want to conserve something valuable to people beyond your family, farm, town?
Thank you Robert for this brilliant explanation and bringing into daylight the stupidity of Elon Musk While I am very sorry for the employees and some of the users of Twitter, I won't shed a tear for musky or the greedy banks who so gleefully enabled him. And guess what (ha-ha) they'll be lucky to get 10 cents back on the dollar borrowed. Like trump only oilier, musky is a con man.
"Banks who so gleefully enabled him." A .consortium of seven banks that provided $13 billion in financing. Bank of America Corp., Barclays Plc, BNP Paribas SA, and Morgan Stanley. I'd bet that they required a pledge of Tesla stock as collateral as Twitter had contingent liabilities. .The terms of the loan agreements aren’t public. But they likely include standard covenants providing that missed payments give the banks the right to immediately accelerate the full principal,
Short sellers are another matter.
Robert says: "Twitter is no longer worth the nearly $44 billion Musk paid for it. It’s now probably worth only a fraction of that sum — a fact that should be of no small concern to the bankers who lent Musk $30 billion to purchase Twitter on condition he pay $1 billion a year in interest."
The FTC has been regulating Twitter.
In 2011, after two data breaches that the FTC said stemmed from Twitter's lax security, the FTC barred Twitter from misrepresenting "the extent to which it protects the security, privacy and confidentiality of nonpublic consumer information" for 20 years.
Twitter paid a $150 million fine in May for violating the 2011 consent order. Its updated version established new procedures requiring the company to implement an enhanced privacy protection program as well as beef up info security. The new procedures also require the company to include an exhaustive list of disclosures Twitter must make to the FTC when introducing new products and services — particularly when they affect personal data collected on users.
Tesla has lost 2 years of gains over the Twitter episode, $674 billion in value since November 2021 peak. Elon Musk's net worth has dropped to an estimated $195.6 billion, according to Forbes.
A net winner in all this reportedly is Bill Gates. Musk said he believes Gates has sold short $500 million of Tesla shares.
Daniel, I have been asking the same questions for months. I get it that it will take time and effort to bring charges and such, but with McCarthy as speaker, and Greene, Boebert, Jordan, and their crowd with the loudest mouths, chaos is likely unless Dems step up and act really soon. No one should have to serve with people who attempted to overthrow our government and would have gleefully witnessed their deaths or kidnapping.
There are some real questions about lack of fist pounding from the Democrats from the beginning…the cheating on 2016 election of TFG and onward. If anyone should have been climbing the capital walls, it should have been Democrats.
I guess in legal pledges to follow the rule of law, it's not enough to respect the rule of law and uphold the Constitution. One must be explicit and specific that they will not attack the people's house at the seat of our government. Look what was argued in the reversal of Roe v Wade. Since abortion was not specifically mentioned. A right to one was null and void.
We the People have very bad memories about loyalty oaths...why isn't their Oath of Office to protect the Constitution enough? I'm not saying it is (obviously) just asking why that isn't enough to get rid of the insurrectionist cheerleaders?
Arthur, good question! I agree one's oath of office should be sufficient to forestall insurrection behavior, but perhaps it is the group aspect of it. I am wondering if it would help to require each House member and Senator as well as all federal officials to swear their oath in small groups of 2 or 3 so their individual voice is heard and possibly recorded for their records. That way, they can't even say to themselves later, I raised my hand, but I didn't really say anything, or whatever it is such people tell themselves. We need a mechanism for keeping insurrectionists from ever running for office and removing them from office if already elected. The Constitution states it pretty clearly, but does not indicate who should make it happen. Congress could do that as part of a revised code of ethics for all government agencies, courts, and congressional members and staff. They should need to repeat it every year in Congress and on the courts. Maybe they could repeat it as a group after the first year of a term, then in the small groups at the beginning of each term. Judges and justices, every single year publicly for all of them, covered on national or local media depending on their office. Just some thoughts, but I do believe we need to do something. We should have learned from Civil War days and other times in our history that if people are not held accountable, they don't change their behavior and can serve as an example to others who want to get away with things.
I had to take several-- was subject to repeated security background checks.
Nobody has challenged them. The House has an impartial committee that is supposed to investigate -- but hasn't.
I also don't understand why the media hasn't asked Gym Jordan, Biggs, et al whether they were part of the Green Bay sweep. Several House members asked Trump for a pardon.
IMHO to repeat the big lie should be disqualifying.
Daniel, I agree with you whole-heartedly. Those who are supposed to be investigating and vetting have not been doing their jobs. And, when someone does not show up for a subpoena, they should automatically be held in contempt and given 2 weeks to correct it, then given a set time in jail, then fined. They already have the 5th amendment, so they can sit all day and declare it, but they need to do it for the Committee, and the world. When Trump and Krump refused, nothing was done except to 1 or 2 folks and still no consequences. Perhaps, one of the penalties should be inability to run for office in the future. That seems harsh, but when people have/get wealth, they think they are better than anyone else and do things that are illegal because they think their money lets them do it.
Whoa, very interesting Daniel! Musk has treated his Tesla employees, pardon the expression, like pure shit, deplorably. He's just been emboldened since apparently regulations, regulatory agencies, rule of law for the oligarchic class simply don't exist. No surprise Must can decimate his work force. He's just a long line of oligarchs doing it, Starbucks, Amazon, Meta, etc. And they learned from the best Jack Welch at GE who is the Godfather of outsourcing employees. Oh....and look at GE today.....We need anti-trust laws!
Daniel, an interesting history of Twitter's challenges. I just don't understand why banks would have given Musk so much money for a corporation that was definitely not worth anything close to what Musk claimed he wanted to buy it for. Shouldn't there be some regulation as to what companies and corporations can be bought and sold for based on history, current revenue, and other important criteria? Ugh!
Difny, I find that interesting that Musk would/could make Twitter part of Tesla. What would that get him? He isn't exactly doing all that well with Tesla these days either. That could bring both corporations down.
Musk is Twitter's only shareholder now. The $44 billion he paid all went to the previous shareholders. Many former Twitter executives and employees are now very wealthy thanks to Musk paying way too much for their stock.
Chris, it's always curious to me why chief corporate executives are often considered to also be the chef assets of a company. They are rarely punished for their manipulations and misdeed.
They routinely coerce those below them with little or no power to follow plans that lower ranked managers and workers are only privy to limited explanations of, while at the same time they reap huge bonuses and incentives for sometimes nefarious schemes to make even quicker profits at the expense of the company's reputation, product, welfare of the employees and many times the welfare and wellbeing of their customers.
I am hopeful that this will mean that Trump will not have this platform.
Robert, you are a great American, and I think you need not take the job of Postmaster
general, but please keep on trying to replace DeJoy.
My real concern and the reason I am writing this is to ask you to somehow ensure that those members of Congress who let insurrectionists into the Capitol on Jan 5 not be permitted to serve, whether on not they won re-election. best wishes.
Fervently hoping Smith will recommend indicting orange, & his croanies as well. Wouldn't it be something if they lost the majority when removed from house leadership?!
Having spent most of my vocational life in high tech, I can tell you that almost without exception, these companies have a very hostile relationship with their employees. Exactly as Prof Reich noted, employees are seen as a cost, which means optimizing them equals eliminating as many of them as possible. Furthermore, they are silently rated on a scale from compliant to “difficult”, where the latter applies to employees who disagree with senior management on anything.
The reality is that high tech companies have almost no value and no capacity outside of their employees, and have almost without exception failed to grow up enough to admit and nurture that instead of trying to minimize it.
It isn't just the high tech companies, Bennett. I worked as an internal auditor for a multinational fossil fuel corporation for a number of years and saw the same thing. What's truly disgusting is that these numbskulls who have wreaked havoc amongst the productive employees are then promoted! Grrr!
Spending my career in healthcare for 30 years, I can also attest to the lack of concern or respect for employees by healthcare corporations. We are just a number and even when they try to keep morale up by recognizing “ nurses day” with a rose and candy, they raised nurse patient ratios to dangerous levels and kept pay to a minimum. Often the aids and nurses with a lessor degree were not recognized. On top of it all our health insurance was more expensive then careers of comparable value. I swore I’d never go back after burning out.
I’m in healthcare as well, and it’s imploding. Covid just made it more visible for the average person to see just how f’d up healthcare is.
My profession (respiratory therapist) is hurting bad for people, they are going begging for respiratory therapists in some areas, just like nurses....but we are sick and tired of being treated like crap.
Nurses are getting beat up and even killed by the very people they are trying to care for, the bosses are treating us like crap....no wonder people are leaving healthcare.
Bennett, how depressing that Big Tech sees its workers in such a wasteful manner. I do believe it stems from a history of corporations seeing their workers that way, but also the number of child-men who rule those high-tech corporations. It is tough to deal with toddlers who have power. Any parent can tell you that.
You have identified the problem: child-men in positions of power. CEOs and other C-level people are of course a diverse group, so there are exceptions, but in general, they don't get to those jobs by being great human beings. In particular, in my experience in high tech, CEOs tend to be willfully detached from observable data, actively disinterested in people, and incapable of recognizing how much of their own material success is based on the work of other people and just dumb luck. This distortion is reinforced by the ridiculous income gap between those who do most of the work and those who so frequently misdirect that work. There are articles and I think een whole books discussing the pattern in high tech to "fail up". This is the pattern in which a person has the CEO role in one company after another despite having run each of them into the ground. I have frequently found myself referring to them as especially badly behaved three-year olds.
When a badly behaved three year old runs a company, who do you think gets promoted, the person who tries to interject reality, or the person who says we can stay at Disneyland permanently if the damned employees would only work harder? What do you think the real corporate culture is like, despite the hollow statements they have been taught to make? One guy who stands out as a great voice about good management is Simon Sinek. My claim however is that those people who take his guidance and behave accordingly will not keep their jobs for very long. Even in high tech, where everyone is highly educated and intellectual work is the entire product, lower brain stem functioning and dog-eat-dog-ism dominate.
You can't imagine how relieved I am to be retired now and no longer in that environment.
Bennett, I appreciate your relief on retiring from such a world. I wonder how much better the whole tech industry could have been had fewer toddlers been in charge. My sister who worked in tech for more than 30 years was also glad to retire. She found management at all levels unwilling to change course even when things were not going well. Those who were doing the work were mostly ignored unless they couldn't keep the miracles coming, then they were insulted and had their jobs threatened. Sometimes she would make necessary, but unapproved changes and the management would claim the improvements as something they themselves had orchestrated. This development, though was not as much in evidence in the '80s as by the 2000s. Could it be it took a little while for the wealth to infiltrate to such an extent that it corrupted the whole enterprise? Or, was it that the toddler-run corporations just got too big for the child-men to handle them well?
Exactly so. When I first got into tech it was like being among university colleagues. We were doing things that had never been done before. We were advancing bleeding edge tech for the benefit of mankind. We were inspired. We inspired each other. We worked as a team energized by what we accomplished together. Then, sadly, it turned out that people could make money with what we were doing, and people who cared only about that infiltrated and gradually took over. I have no objection to making money. I like making money. But it's only money, not *everything*. Where it is construed as the only thing that really matters, everything else that actually matters to people (or even the whole planet) is construed as just a drag on the system.
Bennett, that's exactly what my sister said. She liked working to make things better for folks in a collegial atmosphere. She mostly worked in customer interface. She liked helping customers figure out how the tech product or service could best serve them. It changed when the new management learned it would take hours or days to work things out for an individual customer and that was too long. The threats and complaints from management became more and more frequent. Some of her employers were really good and appreciative of the workers, the more recent ones, less so. There was no way to stop the downward slide as she saw it.
That is certainly true for the University of California where Prof Reich is working and where a massive strike for living wages is going on. Except the person with the top dollars who earns 100 times that of the striking poor is Berkeley’s football coach.
Yeah, Hartmut, isn't it sad that the highest paid person on campus, and in my whole state of PA public jobs, is a football coach. Says a lot about our culture!
Yup. This is where the rubber meets the road. Here in Santa Cruz, TA's do most of the teaching but are barely paid. It's their "dues" in order to (eventually) get employment in the field in which they are studying.
Hi Becky! How are things in ol' Santa Cruzin'? That was my home for many years until I moved to the Boston area to be near my kids and granddaughter. I miss the land of Aging Hippies With Money 🤣, but not so much with the long drought. We still have a family retreat home in Soquel but I have no idea when I'll visit again. Give my love to the beach!
It’s been that way for decades. Corporate hierarchies sit in a perch and torture the people who work for them. I think it’s dandy that muskie and the banks that put him up to it are in a nosedive. The idea of one person owning a communication platform that large is not promising for a democracy anyway
em, the challenge, those CEOs don't know what they don't know, and actually don't care. They figure they hired folks who will do whatever is necessary or get thrown out or edged out due to age or salaries they think are too high. That way the corporation loses a lot, but the CEO will never know, and a lot of potential innovation is lost.
Look at all the good Bezos’ ex-wife is doing! Smart lady! And everyone loves her. This difference is, she is actually generous and helpful and does NOT require her ego to be put above all.
McKenzie Scott sounds like a smart, sincere, likable person, but I don't think we should sit silent about the way in which her fortune was amassed. Our problem, as Professor Reich has pointed out, is the gross inequality that all the wealth creates—usually at the expense of workers. Excessive wealth needs to be taxed (we could argue about the amount of the excess, but not the principle, IMO).
While that is true, it is commendable that she donated a property to charity that just sold for 38 million. Philanthropist also do good work, and they should.
While I don't deny that many philanthropists do good, we should keep in mind that it allows them to direct the proceeds of their charity, while if the money entered the government as tax revenue, Congress could direct that money toward what is determined to be the public good. Of course, Republicans like Grover Norquist and some Democrats have disparaged the government to the point where many voters want to deny it any source of funding. And that gives more power to the mega-rich, even those who vote Democratic.
They could do so much good in the world with all their money, if it were used to help some of our worst problems like climate chaos, mass extinction, poverty & homelessness. I just read that it would take only an estimated $10 billion, a sum someone like Musk could easily afford, to solve the problem of homelessness in America. Solve something like that & a billionaire would forever more go into the history books as a sort of savior of the people. Given that most billionaires are narcissists, it's ironic as well as sad that none of them have done that.
I'd feel a whole lot better about greedy mega-millionaire and billionaire CEO's if they had to pay real taxes, on the Eisenhower scale when those who had gigantic sums had to pay their share based on assets and earning.
I've proposed raising taxes to 90% on income exceeding $1 million, 80% on income in excess of $500K (up to $1M), 60% from $200-500K, 40% on $100-200K, 20% on $50-100K, no tax on income below $50 thousand.
The price tag is closer to $20B/ year to put every person currently experiencing homelessness into at least a motel kitchenette. While I believe in taxing the rich as a general principle, a portion of the $80B we just sent to the Ukraine might have been earmarked for here. Homelessness is a function of the high cost of housing. As those costs increase, more and more people lose their housing.
I understand that some don’t see the importance of assisting a country under attack from a fascist that wants to take over the world but consider the outcome if Putin has his way. He already threatened Finland and Sweden. Fascism is a real and present danger. If you don’t think America would be influenced by that you are seriously misinformed.
They've essentially threatened all of Europe as well as the US, & not just with nuclear weapons. One Russian influencer said their goal is to push past the Polish border to Berlin & Lisbon. Another advocated taking back Alaska. Russia will not stop their obsessive expansion of empire until they are forcibly stopped or rule the whole world. They've been that way from the beginning.
So far as I'm aware, there is not currently any Federal program that offers housing to the homeless on a national level. I don't doubt that the problem is huge and quite widespread, but we shouldn't cut off our nose to spit our face, and we have the resources to do both.
Ukraine is in the midst of a hot war brought about by a fascist dictator who has dreams of restoring the old Russian and Soviet empire. He is intent on destroying freedom and more especially, democracy, and in that regard, the heroic actions of Ukraine are our first line of defense against fascist expansion and the demise of democracy there - and here as well.
I think you would agree that those in our country who support Putin's merciless and deadly adventure in Ukraine are also those who think less about the wellbeing of Americans, homeless included, than they do about amassing total dictatorial power by destroying American democracy through insurrection and stopping the franchise for those people who might vote against them.
I’m going to help Ukrainians anywhere I can and anyway I can. They are fighting for freedoms we take for granted every single day! Putin doesn’t give a damn about anything but his own narcissistic ego! Hope the Russian people take care of him in the only way he understands!
I'm sad the to see the demise of academic Twitter: it was a great place to connect with researchers around the world. But my work (Arctic Research organization) is already searching for another space. Maybe Mastsdon?
I bought a Tesla before knowing just how monstrous Musk is. Almost all major corporations and car companies are owned by right wingers. (Think of the fossil fuel relation with most). Most major stores and media are owned by these rt wing monsters so it’s not like we can escape that as much as we’d like to.
I love my Tesla, despise Musk. I have the car and hope to keep it for years but I’m certain more comparable options will be available next round.
We really need a different system from Capitalism…it’s time. But short of that, we need to bring strict regulations back. That’s almost impossible with the make-up of Congress.
It’s not capitalism. It’s unfettered capitalism. But the greedy overlords will not allow any sort of regulation. Taxes are needed for the people of our country. People must be paid a living wage. Stop with the incessant cry for more millions and billions and more inequity. Our value system is incredibly skewed.
Yes, it is Capitalism at issue. It does work much much better with regulations, but that doesn’t mean it’s good. We would probably need a hybrid of what works best. Similar to viewing the documentary by Michael Moore…Where to invade next…not about war.
Trump’s tax cut which lowered corporate tax from 35% to 21% essentially put 2 trillion more into the national debt. We need more responsible people running the country. If everyday people managed their finances the way our gov does we’d all be bankrupt. I realize bankruptcy is Trump’s business model but it shouldn’t be a nations’.
I’m sure you realize that Musk didn’t invent Tesla. He became highest shareholder (using federal subsidies, no doubt), then fashioned an NDA and booted one of the owner/ partners out. His father also owned emerald mines during apartheid in S. Africa where he grew up. Using slave labor may be all he knows. Wasn’t there some issues with racism in his Tesla factories? I think that says it all.
The auto workers union had seven of their leaders indicted for fraud. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for what they might do for their workers. The problem with the electric vehicle market is that the margins are very slim. In spite of GM getting a rousing endorsement from Biden Supporting union workers, they proceeded to move their production of their Bolt to Mexico.
I agree with your comment that big margins do not compare with the economic, health and environmental benefits that electric vehicles provide. However, American manufactures are struggling with their cost of production as follows;
1. GM projects they will begin to breakeven on their electric vehicles in 2025 which means in the meantime every vehicle they sell Is that a loss. In spite of Biden praising GM for leading the electric vehicle revolution and they ceased production 2 quarters ago entirely and recalled every one of their electric vehicles with battery problems. They also moved their production of their mass market Bolt to Mexico. So much for union jobs in America.
2. Ford moved its production of its popular electric Mustang to Mexico and then cancel it all together because it was costing them more to make that they were selling it for.
3. Lucid which is a car that attempts to complete with the Tesla model S plaid Sells for just over $100,000 US but after production of around 50,000 units they have not been able to pull their cost of manufacture down below $450,000 per car. Those of us who study electric vehicles on a regular basis or wondering about their path to sustainable financials.
4. Aptera and Arcimoto, 2 innovative American brands, are still about a year away from producing vehicles.
5. the Nissan leaf has been built in the USA for over a decade. It is a reasonably good looking car with its latest updates along the lines of the GM bolt but it’s never been a really big seller. And I don’t know of their cost of manufacture.
6. meanwhile Tesla which has a higher American made contact of any car built in the USA has captured nearly 70% of the entire electric vehicle market in the USA and due to their incredible engineering and I would claim Elon’s blood sweat and tears has accomplished all this and achieving mid 25% profit margins which is more than any other manufacture.
Most legacy vehicles run in the 7 to 11% profit margin range. Consider also that Ford loses money on every car it sells in America except it’s trucks. My point being here that making electric vehicles in America In a financially stable way is exceptionally difficult. Meanwhile in China the top electric vehicle manufacturers make very compelling electric vehicles that Tesla is still close to number one in terms of dollar value of vehicle sold. China committed early to the production of batteries and electric vehicles and currently has well over 100 significant electric vehicle manufacturers in China.
My point here is that well people might be confused understandably about Elon‘s intentions with Twitter and I certainly sure that confusion, it should be recognized that his contribution towards producing consumer goods in America with American materials and using the American supply chain should not be underestimated. Detailed financial analysis will uncover a rotten financial framework underlying both GM and Ford. GM in particular are essentially only setting themselves up for another government bail out. Wild people trash Tesla for being somehow supported by the government, the exact opposite is true. when GM was granted $3.9 billion to bill it out in 2009, tesla got a $545 million loan that was re-paid in full with interest ahead of time. Tesla receives no benefits not available to the other car manufacturers and in fact since they spend zero dollars on advertising, The average person is left to get their information entirely from existing Tesla customers. When you consider that Tesla sold 1 million cars last year and made more profit than four dead on 13.5 million vehicles, you all understand why Tesla is regarded as a global industrial powerhouse not seen in America for a century or so.
Many of the comments on here would certainly apply to GM and even Chrysler who are the bail out requiring king and queens of the American automobile industry. Tesla in general and specifically Elon himself have been subjected to a firehose of criticism from Elizabeth Warren for not paying taxes in spite of the fact that he is paying all the taxes that her Congress has mandated. While campaigning fiercely against Elon she accused him of refusing to pay his taxes in a year when he paid $38 billion which was more than any American in history is near as I can tell. Did the Democrats once thank him for creating more new jobs in America than any new corporation or for leading the electric car revolution globally,? while I was saddened by his recommendation that is 100 million followers vote Republican, you have to say that the Democrats did all they could do to push him away from the Democratic Party that he’s always supported in the past. Why they would alienate the most progressive industrialist that history may have ever seen is beyond my comprehension.
I agree that top corporate and individual income tax it should be roughly double what they are right now but admonishing Elon for paying the prescribed tax rate is rather foolish. Somehow people expect him to solve world hunger, homelessness in America while exhausting him with nonstop character assassinations which are often without merit although I certainly will agree that he’s not here typical CEO personality. Does anyone on here think that maybe we should cut him some slack from time to time?
I think you just verified exactly what I was saying. In spite of the fact of me taking the time to create a meaningful account where every single point can be easily fact checked, you chose to disrespect that effort with your response. My main objection is that people commenting on here have virtually no information nor are even prepared to have a good faith discussion. Blindly believing talking points on important issues is the very reason why America is spiraling out of control with people preferring to believe nutty conspiracy theories rather than facts. By not engaging in a meaningful way you Become part of the problem instead of part of the solution.
1. I don’t believe Musk needs any slack. He takes what he needs. Just like attempting to extort the state of CA or move his company to Texas. CA told him Happy Trails!
2. You cannot treat free will labor as slave labor.
Until he gets this one right, I won’t defend him or pay attention to anything he says or does. Certainly won’t buy a Tesla or go back to tweeting. Can’t do a damn thing about SpaceX. Just wish we hadn’t pulled out of our space programs years ago.
If you are interested in an EV, Time Magazine Nov 21, Nov 28 issue had the following on page 51... "Next Level EV: Lucid Air. This sedan is more proof that EVs are getting better. Unveiled in late 2021, in many ways beats Tesla. It has the highest EPA-estimated range (520 miles), but offers much more than a big battery: 1,200 horsepower that accelerates 0-60 in less than 2 seconds, charges 300 miles in just 22 minutes, Dolby sound system, edging out Tesla, Porsche, Audi and Mercedes. " Worth looking into with that 520 miles range!
I had a followed lucid with interest from his very inception and a read virtually every article and watched every video test review on all their vehicles. I think their vehicle is astonishing in every way and I like their CEO who is one of the early departures from Tesla. However, I believe they’re making a mistake trying to make a car that beats Tesla and every way. They have a luxury vehicle that is also designed to match the Tesla plaid performance. Biso doing compromises have to be made and they come first in the area of reliability with fairly high maintenance for some complex systems but most importantly The average unit cost of the vehicles is around $450,000 US compared to the Tesla model plaid that cost them around 1/10 of that. We in the electric vehicle community discuss issues like this regularly and we see no clear path for sustainable financial security for Lucid.
yes, I am sure you are right. and the car is too big for me. I just note that there are alternatives when it comes to Tesla. And I really like the idea of over 500 miles on a charge. Batteries are getting better and better.
Beyond your insightful comments, Musk's request to see snapshots of code written is farcical. Looking at static, printed code is almost entirely useless in terms of "understanding the tech stack". The people who could explain that were almost certainly among the first to leave, perhaps voluntarily. Elon apparently was quick to fire the senior people who managed the developers, and they were also among those who understood the architecture and the technology decisions.
several thoughts: first: the person whom musk "borrowed" the largest amount of money from is most famous for sawing WaPo journalist jamal khashoggi into tiny pieces whilst that poor man was still alive -- all because he expressed an opinion that had not been pre-approved by the saudi prince. Or Putin.
second, my reading about musk and his relationship with jack dorsey (developer of twitter, who now is building a new platform, bluesky) is extremely disturbing. for example, i thought they disliked each other but in fact, they are very good friends.
i read this interview transcript by Dave Troy, an investigative journalist addressing threats to democracy, about musk yesterday night and had nightmares as a result:
apparently, musk doesn't care if he makes money. he cares about realizing his leadership of his mars cult. according to this piece: "Musk and the people backing all this are more interested in reshaping the global order than in earning fake “fiat currency.” Their real goal is to usher in “hard currency” and re-base global currencies around scarcity and physical assets. So no it really doesn’t matter much what happens to Twitter’s ad model in the meantime. It will probably do alright, and they can probably find other ways to make money, like adding in payments and weird Dogecoin schemes."
I just read the article in the link you posted. Confirms everything I thought about Musk and why he’s doing this. Very disturbing but thankful there is someone who understands this and is reporting it. Saudi Arabia...another very disturbing entity that the United States keeps propping up.
Omg, when I read I didn’t put two and two together. So their goal in the end is to destroy any western power and kill it. Musk may be the next ground up dinner if he doesn’t pay up. Wow
here's an other piece that further explores the reasons why musk ("Space Karen") is destroying twitter: the author argues it's deliberate. i agree with her:
in this piece, she argues: "Elon Musk is still worth nearly $200 billion. He’s using other people’s money to play with one of the world’s most important venues of public discourse. Maybe Elon Musk and his friends didn’t wildly overvalue Twitter. Maybe we wildly undervalued it. Maybe we’re the ones who don’t understand the worth of a public platform like this."
Thank You GrrlScientist for posting this link to David Troy’s article. In it he makes reference to a white paper he wrote that I found especially cogent to todays discussion about not just Musk, but the entire information miasma we are swimming in. I cannot seem to find a way to link access to it other than to urge readers to find it within the above link you gave. The white paper link is in the second to last paragraph of his article.
Star link has to make Musk a fortune. And that is not only point of sale ( very expensive internet) but ongoing subscription fees. He’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
good memory! yes, Saudi Al-Waleed bin Talal & Kingdom Holding Company apparently purchased a 5.2% stake in twitter in October 2015. (note that Musk owned the largest share of 9.2% stake in the company at this time.) In 2019, two former Saudi employees of twitter, Ali Alzabarah and Ahmad Abouammo, reportedly used their access to the internal systems of Twitter to spy on dissidents of the Saudi regime and on American citizens (Khashoggi?). This led to them being accused of acting as foreign agents within the territory of the United States. It's unclear to me what, if anything, happened to them.
Profound truth! Thank you Robert. It's mind boggling how little Musk knew about how tech companies work and the value of technical and organizational knowledge. I guess that's the kind of myopia that comes from only being a rich owner and reckless, narcissistic consumer .. but not even a very curious one. Sad. Let's hope a more humane alternative emerges and triumphs.
Professor Reich is right on. I would generalize this a bit more, because I remember my Father's stories from the aerospace industry of the 1960's. He has so many wonderful stories from the factories of workers who were not branded as "elites" yet showed brilliance in their work and were irreplaceable to the company. His funniest stories are about what would happen when the new "efficiency" experts would come in to study the production line and increase profitability. The workers, often women, would suddenly change their entire routines, forget everything, and work in slow motion. Once the observers were gone they would go back to their dizzyingly quick and efficient normal routine. My Dad would talk to them about it and they would laugh, then they would show him a dozen things that could be changed to make things better. The moral to his stories is always to respect and trust the people who work with you and seek their advice. The basis of his management style was always respect, and he was the best advocate for his employees. That is at the heart of it. When you spend your days doing a job you become the expert on how it can be done better. Over the years you gain knowledge about how to make your tools better, whether they are physical or mental tools. You are an asset well beyond what you produce on a daily basis. That was true in the equivalent of the tech companies of the 1960's as it is today. The new generation of tech companies didn't magically reinvent the workplace, they didn't create a system that defies the rules of decent human relationships. As Professor Reich points out, they are learning the hard way the lessons my Father learned sixty years ago - and I am sure that those were the same lessons that were learned in the decades before as well.
I seriously wondered about Musk's $44 billion offer for Twitter. Just where was he going to get $44 billion of _value_ from the transaction? Given that Twitter was losing $4 million EVERY day, it was a losing proposition from the get-go. My impression was that it was some kind of market manipulation involving sparking interest in Twitter shares, driving up the price, at which point he would unload his substantial portfolio of Twitter stock which he **already** owned, making a HUGE profit on the sale. I doubt he ever seriously believed that Twitter would actually want to sell out to him -- an impression reinforced when he immediately tried to back out of the deal. When Twitter sued and won to force Musk to honor his offer, it left him in a position where he has had to scramble to just avoid _losing_ many billions of dollars on the deal. About the ONLY thing he can do is arbitrage the company: break it up into its component parts and sell it off for pennies on the dollar.
Just like Babe Ruth: known to be the Home Run King, but also the strike out king as well. Musk is renown for having become a multi-billionaire from his success in a business venture. Now we see he is also quite capable of striking out -- and ruining the lives of thousands of employees because of his flub. He will be lucky if he loses only $20 billion on this deal when all is said and done.
I think it was a hostile takeover. The $44B offer couldn't be ignored. Trying to back out triggered a court case where Musk got what he wanted, discovery. With that evidence, Musk closed the deal and Twitter was his. The 4 bosses fired the first day? I don't think they will see any golden parachute any time soon, if at all. Musk has too much on them.
IF -- and it is a big "if" -- Musk actually _wanted_ to own Twitter, that $44 billion offer shows what happens when someone KNOWS he has more money than he could spend in ten, twenty, a hundred lifetimes given "normal" spending. What's $44 billion when, even if you lose it all, you're **still** a multi-billionaire? (More than $200 billion, in fact.)
Given what Musk has done with Twitter since he took ownership, he looks worse than DeJoy (USPS), destroying his company from the inside.
I think that this underestimates the speed with which Twitter is headed for the trash heap of history. Its reputation for being a reliable means of communication is now gone and there is no sign that its earlier competence will or even could be quickly restored. With its reputation and reliability gone, the exodus will be fast and people will not flock back quickly in the numbers needed to keep it afloat. I predict that it will have to declare bankruptcy in one or two weeks. A classic example of Hubris meeting its Nemesis.
In creating one of the worlds most complex AI applications, Tesla replaced thousands of employees who were labeling video images to teach their neural Network how to understand what it was seeing. Once the team had evolved auto labeling they could do this work many thousands of times faster without the need of humans which is the only way you can get a complex application such as full self driving to run.
By comparison analyzing a relatively simple tweet is far simpler. In microseconds of computer time, A tweet can be analyzed as to whether it’s respectful, racist, accurate and whether it possesses other dangerous qualities such as suggesting attacks on people or endangering children. A fully documented rule compliance score can be instantly attached to any tweet in order to promote meaningful dialogue between people.
All you need to do to understand the horrific nature of our communication between opposing groups is to read the comments on this article. Not a pretty nor constructive picture. I’m sure that if Robert took the time to read all those comments he would be horrified to see the unhinged reaction people were having to his articles on Twitter.
Understand that on other platforms those comments can be far more dangerous.
Let me explain what you’ll see/read.
1. Ad hominem attacks where instead of discussing the topic those commenting will attack the individuals character directly.
2. crude language and even cursing with no real comment
3. talking point phrases such as “Elon didn’t start Tesla“ Repeated Word for Word by many of those commenting. Not only irrelevant to any central argument but may be a talking point supplied by a vested interest such as the fossil fuel industry that has been attacking Tesla for a decade.
4. comments that have no intellectual content or may simply be emojis with no clear point being made.
5. comments written in ambiguous language where it’s not even possible to determine pro or con
6. statements made as fact that are easily proven dubious or entirely incorrect.
Artificial intelligence can attach a percent probability Range wrt accuracy and create a an exhaustive list of all the sources from which information had been extracted. Databases exist that contain every word ever published in the English language So we’re talking exhaustively thorough here. Additionally artificial intelligence can point to conflicts and inconsistencies which can identify fallacious tweets. Sure, say anything but know that it will be evaluated extensively and characterized so the reader can determine whether they want to expose themselves to material which has a very low probability of being correct. Additionally this process would enable readers to expand their knowledge since as a society there is no way we can agree on solutions if our factual basis are not aligned.
Roberts articles have  unintentionally driven people into a reactionary and hysterical camps where comments are antithetical to the possibility of meaningful discussion. Once a respectful conversation ceases, people take sides and our society will enter a downward spiral that may be impossible to break out of. While I do not pretend to know the details of Elon‘s plan, I do know his stated intention is to create a meaningful town Square where people are free to say what they want but where our attention will be drawn to the more meaningful conversations instead of those that will simply incite the greatest Hostility which is pretty much where we are now.
Elon has succeeded incredibly in his for companies and has expressed humanitarian tendencies consistently so at least we should give him a chance to show us what we can do instead of hooting constantly from the peanut gallery as if we know better. None of us have created a multi billion dollar enterprise which requires a skill set that few on here will acknowledge. 
"I do know his stated intention is to create a meaningful town Square where people are free to say what they want but where our attention will be drawn to the more meaningful conversations instead of those that will simply incite the greatest Hostility which is pretty much where we are now." Where is Trump now?
Elon Musk might be a genius in his own way but he is deeply unintelligent when it comes to people and "meaningful conversations." You cannot be a Libertarian who wants to do away with the government (in a democracy the government is the people and the people is the government, remember?) and truly think.
The theory goes that if Trump is on a site that is created to promote meaningful conversation then he will be quickly exposed as a fraud. As it is he’s free to say anything he wants without the embarrassment of his statements being rated for truthfulness.
In the early days of the Quora forum, many of us were able to collectively learn a lot about the inner workings of politics because we dealt with each other in a respectful and kind fashion. Whenever people stepped out of bounds they were gently tapped into line.
Apparently, calling out authoritarianism, sociopathic behavior and attachment to a christian-fascist party, formerly called Republican party is hysteria! 🤣
However did we miss his wonderful qualities? Perhaps we’re all missing Trump’s intelligence & competence too. 🙄
I have campaigned tirelessly for the past seven years against Donald Trump and everything he stands for so to imply sarcastically that I somehow support Trump in any way does not give me a good feeling. While I was depressed as anybody could be at Elon‘s recommendation that his followers vote Republican, it is important for the Democratic Party to clearly evaluate the penalty they may have paid for attacking him needlessly several months ago. Prior to that Elon openly admitted that he had always voted Democrat and would not consider voting Republican. Do you know what changed his mind? Because if we are not aware of that, means we are giving them Republicans an advantage they don’t deserve.
I suggested that had the Democratic party and Elizabeth Warren in particular acted more responsibly they could have instead gotten won the House back as well. not understanding past errors of judgment is to repeat and add to those failures. All I’m suggesting here is that an open, honest and respectful exchange of ideas is warranted and unfortunately mostly what I see here is reactionary behavior that is only slightly less severe than Republican voter’s logic who as you say seriously do want a Christian authoritarian dictatorship which we are getting horrifically close to obtaining. No one is more disgusted by that potential outcome than me which is why I work tirelessly to do whatever I can to avoid it. Putting our heads in the stand and thinking we understand Elon‘s future vision is a mistake. That’s all I’m saying. Can’t we do better than simply deriding anybody who wants to have a realistic conversation such as myself?
I might say you had a point if you didn’t grossly mischaracterize the nature of the comments made here. When you have to misrepresent the data to support you conclusions...
Example: Many commenting here HAVE acknowledged Musk’s successes with other companies. But they also note how a social networking platform is a different kind of beast. And we don’t have to “wait and see when Musk can do” since, daily, he’s showing us.
I invite you to identify the “many on here who acknowledge Elon success“… Paraphrasing your statement. I didn’t see any on this article and then Roberts previous I scanned well over 100 and don’t believe I saw a single one. In most cases they stated he came from a rich family, had nothing to do with the success of SpaceX or Tesla that were funded entirely by the government magically and so on and so on.
I haven’t gone back to log specific comments nor, honestly, do I intend to spend the time doing so to support my claim. You can choose to believe me or not as you wish.
But I have seen many people here noting and even making a point of recognizing that Musk has done well at Tesla, SpaceX, and other ventures. They acknowledge that. But then they also make their point that Twitter is a distinctly different type of company, it’s a distinctly different type of business than a car or rocket company. And one which, based on what he HAS actually done (not some thing we have to wait around to see), he doesn’t understand and is not competent at.
It’s tiresome to read through the comments. I wish Prof Reich would comment on the massive strike for living wages which is going on at his own institution. It would be a hell more interesting.
Musk failed to understand that an internet based company like Twitter has to manufacture an environment for communication that people want use just like a car manufacture has to produce cars people want to buy or rockets people trust to send their payloads into space. 21st century dude Musk is stuck in 1965.
Musk is just continuing to prove what labor activists were screaming for years and what the COVID years revealed with shocking clarity. It's almost like ALL workers are essential, and some ARE more essential than others, but it turns out it's the opposite of what we've been told. Remember when every corporation was on the edge of collapse, and it wasn't because the Senior Associate VPs of XYZ weren't showing up, it was because the facilities staff and the customer service reps and the cashiers and the other consistently belittled and mistreated and exploited workers weren't? Well, most of the species remembers.
Ian. And remember. Teachers ALL stayed home due to their unions. The essential workers stayed working.
Cecelia, What, teachers all stayed home because of their unions! Yeah, you don't know what you are talking about! As one of those teachers you are maligning, I will tell you it wasn't our unions. We had no say. The state shut down so as not to pass COVID on to our students and colleagues or have it passed on to us, then on to our families and friends. That's what people who actually care about one another do. We still taught our students, and it was hard since most of the students in my district had no internet and no equipment to use it if they had it. We had to build our learning network from the bottom for those students and families. Then we are blamed because students aren't receiving scores on standardized tests at the levels rich white kids are getting. Yeah, those rich white kids who could still attend schools because they all lived in single-family, mostly 2-generational houses with people who had mostly decent health care. Many people in my community died including one of my colleagues. We may not have been "front-line workers" in hospitals, police stations, and fire houses, but our work and stress were no less real. It is interesting how quickly people forget what it was really like living through COVID, a PANDAMIC that impacted everyone, though some more than others. It explains a lot of why people will vote for candidates who have done nothing for them. A few ads can help them forget that the crime and inflation they whine so much about were helped along by those candidates' inaction: sensible gun control and corporate price-gouging. Short attention spans and limited memory for events and impacts distort recall of events for a lot of people.
<3 RUTH I SEE YOU Super Heroe! THANK YOU for all you do! Some of us know. You are essential and you hold the world in your hands. God bless you <3
Ruth, education is essential. Since you are an educator, you are one of the most important people who exist. Thank you.
Yeah! Well put! I'm a retired teacher from a high poverty Middle School and the teachers from that school were teaching their students via zoom - and, like you explained, many of the students didn't have the support at home and/or the network connection allowing them to access what they were SUPPOSED to be learning. My grandson who has ADHD - even though his parents are affluent - couldn't learn via zoom and now he's behind - like MILLIONS of other students and the teachers are working long hours trying to figure out how to help them/him and the others in his class to catch up. Plus, he and many of the others are suffering from anxiety - my grandson fears there will be a school shooting at his school which makes it hard to get him to even show up. His school had a confrontation with the Proud Boys when our district (actually state) mandated masks - when the kids finally went back to school. That just made my grandson's fear of a shooting get worse. And, my wife is still teaching - also in a low socioeconomic school - and she was teaching FIRST graders via zoom. The UNION had nothing to do with what was happening - the teachers just did what they could to reach as MANY of their students as possible because that's what MOST of them do, regularly. And, now they're, as I said, in "catch up" mode. Just as my daughter, an RN who worked overtime during the pandemic, so did my wife and the other teachers I know. The part of the right wing idiocy regarding the pandemic which aggravates me most is their attack on teachers and health care workers. A close second was how BILLIONAIRES and CEO's (many of them) tried to tread the pandemic as "just another flu." It was, in fact, the COVID pandemic where I first realized what an ASS Elon Musk is - he violated the California state mandates putting his workers in jeopardy and, as a result of California's mandates, moved his operation to Texas (as much as he could). He reminds me of a spoiled 6th grader who is all about himself. He is destroying Twitter and, as far as I'm concerned, it will be good riddance.
(I believe he's also DAMAGING Tesla and he's pretty much ruined his personal "brand")
Comments like Cecelia's, unfortunately, have been commonplace for the past couple of years. Shows a lack of knowledge regarding both teachers and their union.
David, thanks so much for your comments. It still amazes me how common the ignorance is among conservatives related to so many things. After reading your comments, I think I have my answer to my question as to what conservatives are trying to conserve. I think it is two things: money and a reworked memory of what things were like in the past. Neither of those is worthy of conserving. Children have no idea of how hard teachers and medical folks work, so if they don't increase their knowledge of that over the years and find it easier to pick up the whines of people trying to undermine others, they don't come to a better understanding. I am sorry your grandson is having such a difficult time. I know his situation is not entirely unique. I think keeping children and families on edge related to violence that could be directed toward them is a tactic of the right. If everyone is so stressed out and the line in response is the ridiculous nonsense that a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun, guns become the thing and arming folks, particularly white men can ready them for that "civil war" they think they are hoping for. I am sure I don't know what to do about any of this as long as our "Supreme" Court is tied into their pseudo-Christian beliefs that they are called to create a Catholic nation. They dismiss the part of Christianity that calls for love above everything else. They lie to themselves that they are doing their harm in the name of love. It is the same nonsense that parents tell themselves when they are beating their kids. Than, there's Musk! Child-man with far too much money and leeway.
Hi Ruth, to me, Musk is the epitome of what greed and arrogance does to anyone who gets into the mindset of "I can do anything." That he would invest 44 BILLION dollars into a company which he has no idea how to manage, to me, is a "neon sign" of both human frailties. Greed: He's openly stated he envisions Twitter becoming some kind of social media behemoth which grows his "fortune" even more - and, he'll likely become more determined to make that happen the closer he gets to utter failure. It appears he's willing to turn Twitter into the "cesspool" he told advertisers wouldn't happen - if that's what it takes to avoid complete failure. Arrogance: That he thought he could just come in and "fix" the company overnight with little to NO knowledge of how it worked. And, FIRING half the workforce in his first week, along with ALL the executives and the BOARD was, well, again, arrogance. Not to mention putting his narcissism on full display as he's upended the lives of, now, close to 5000 families. All this while apparently thinking he's done such a great job at Tesla that it will manage itself - like he believes cars can drive themselves. Tesla, so far THIS year, has had 19 recalls. Maybe spending $44 BILLION on his Twitter "toy" may cause him to lose much more than his $44 BILLION. Musk has, no doubt, done much "good," so it's sad to watch him imploding over something as unnecessary as Twitter. Watching what a couple hundred Billion dollars has done to Musk has made me thankful to have "enough" and happy I don't feel the need for more!
David, yours is a good assessment of the challenges huge amounts of money have for people. No one that rich comes off unscathed. Musk has always been far too arrogant for his knowledge and abilities. That is not to say that he in the past has not had some good ideas, but he really doesn't know what to do with those ideas when he gets it started. I think it is because he doesn't really trust anyone else and to be a true leader, one must trust and respect others. Greed is a terrible master, which is why it is one of the 7 deadly sins. It can lead to all the others if out of control and for Musk, I think it is out of control.
Bravo Ruth. The truth is a beautiful thing. Keep up the good work.
Yes ma’am and thank you for speaking out about that awful time and pray we aren’t headed for another bad time. No one ever wants to thank a real teacher. When in fact they rank right up there with Doctors and Nurses. After all those Doctors and Nurses didn’t gain their knowledge by holding a book.
Hello Nancy: For some reason this comment of yours was in my "inbox":
"Then why did you start out criticizing teacher’s unions? Unless you live in “The land of DeSantis and Abbott” I don’t why you would bad mouth their unions."
Sure hope it wasn't directed at me based on anything I wrote. Come from a long line of union organizers and sympathizers before there were even such things as teachers' unions. Workers had to shed a lot of blood before their basic rights to a safe workplace were ever even acknowledged, so please don't ascribe anti-union sentiments to me. Musta been some sorta miscommunication. It happens sometimes.
Indeed, sorry about that! I probably was hot under the collar. From a family of union workers myself, my Dad and older brother were Union IronWorkers. The union out of OKC kept them both working and making decent wages in hard times. Reagan did a number on unions.
Sorry, but so many teachers who ‘stayed home’ were working harder than ever! You are speaking from ignorance on this, let me assure you. What were these ‘essential workers’ actually doing in empty schools and school offices? Time for more ‘education’ here!
Paul, thank you so much for your response related to teachers. As a teacher during the pandemic, I affirm your understanding of just how difficult it was.
I know teachers who worked longer and harder with extreme stress during covid shutdowns. Had to learn the remote tech, and create new curriculums to teach and engage their students remotely. Teachers were heroes during this difficult time.
My sister is a teacher. Trust me I get it. We were ALL stressed out. But we should have thought what would have been best for the students. We made mistakes. But as a society we learned and should move forward. I am glad teachers got to learrn to remote tech. Good for us all to grow and learn.
Many teachers switched to remote teaching during the pandemic.
Yes, it's nearly impossible to teach remotely like that. That's what I and many others said from day 1... "Don't close the schools!"
We have ruined an entire generation with our knee jerk reaction.
Gandalf, you know your comment is nonsense and must be from someone who lives in a community that had few cases of COVID and assumed that was the same for everyone. It wasn't. Teaching remotely was hard, but better by far than school children and staff sharing COVID that could be taken home to vulnerable people living in multi-generational homes. This is not a "lost generation." I know the young people will be rightly incensed that people who do their best work looking back can make such ridiculous pronouncements.
Most grandparents would be willing to take a risk for the sake of educating their grandchildren. Most also knew that if they were healthy they would survive covid. Those who were unhealthy should have taken the responsibility of protecting themselves. It was not that difficult.
The entire reaction was typical knee jerk Democrat, in cooperation with the pharmaceutical giants who made billions by "flattening the curve". They knew that by stretching the period of infection new variants would appear.
Pharmaceuticals knew that government would pay them for "free" vaccines to the tune of hundreds of billions in new profit. They knew that the media would not turn on their number one sponsor and support the idea that the virus was created in their own lab. A biolab in the midst of a crowded metropolis takes "trusting the science" a bit too far. We need an international treaty to stop them.
Once upon a time, my former liberal party would be all over the pharmaceutical companies about this.
Sadly, Democrats have become "the man", sponsored by Pfizer, et al.
https://youtu.be/L2LQW1TY0lY
Oh Gandalf, You are one of the lucky ones who got through COVID with no problems. Well over a million other folks were not so lucky. It wasn't as easy as you claim for people to protect themselves from the virus, particularly those with other health challenges. I am glad there are a few of you out there who can't empathize with what so many Americans had to experience. You must be one of the privileged ones, the ones who will probably relate the history so people won't remember it being as bad as it was. I am glad you have your fantasy and that it works for you. No, I'm not!
In Florida during the pandemic, the governor was not only in favor of keeping schools open: he favored unmasking, which was a mistake.
DeSantis is right.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02669-2
Sorry Gandalf, DeSantis is a fool and because COVID didn't touch him directly, he chose to have no clue regarding the damage it was causing, the damage he was causing. When the story of the pandemic is told, DeSantis will not come out looking very good. The word "evil
might actually come up.
Yes, all that’s necessary is to ensure that Florida’s cash-strapped public schools have state-of-the-art air filtration systems.
Paul. I have lots of family members that are teachers. We know exactly what they were doing. It was a stressful time for us all. So don't try and educate me. I am fully aware.
Cecelia, it sure didn't sound as though you understood despite your family members who are teachers. And where did unions come into it? Are your family members among the few teachers who resent unions? Teachers' unions are the only formal bodies that stand between teachers and sometimes out-of-control parents or administrations. They work for better working and learning conditions for everyone involved. They do take the brunt of the anger of rich corporations and others who want complete control over what happens to workers. I say, "long live teachers' unions!" I wish all workers had access to effective unions who can when management permits it, work with them to make jobs, even whole corporations better.
All of your comments are OUTSTANDING, Ruth! You are right on! Thank you on behalf of educators everywhere! And on behalf of the teachers' unions, too!
Thank you Fran for the kind words. I taught for 26 years in public schools and value my time with my students and colleagues as some of the best time I have spent in my life. I know that as a visually impaired, eventually blind teacher, I may have never been able to keep my job without my union. People have all kinds of ideas of what blind people can do, and teach is rarely one of those things. I was blessed to be named Educator of the Year in 2020 by the Pennsylvania Association for Gifted Education and know it was my fellow teachers and my amazing students who enabled me to bring that honor to my district. I also had terrific families supporting my students too. My students' parents understood how difficult teaching is and appreciated the efforts made on behalf of their kids. I wish more young people could see what a truly special career teaching is and that the teachers' unions lift some of the stress and burden of the job.
Cecelia: Actually, I'd really like to know what their - your educator family members' -- feelings are/were. I think I understand the distinction you are making. Is it that support staff/maintenance workers had to physically work under dangerous conditions while educators who were covered by their unions could evade such duties? If that's the case, definitely we should get into that discussion.
DNKARR, how is this an issue? The maintenance personnel did work in the buildings at times, but had or were supposed to have safety measures in place. There were no teachers and students to clean up after and so risks for them were low, and a lot of school districts, ones that appreciate their workers, have maintenance workers in unions too.
Ruth I am not arguing with you at all and you're correct that maintenance workers, some not all, also have their unions. But I do think it's an issue if there exists some feeling, misplaced or not, that somehow support staff/maintenance crew were forced to go in while "professionals" higher up the hierarchy were not. Hopefully safety measures were actually in place. Perhaps it depends on the locale; nonetheless, if there are grievances I think they should be addressed.
And by unions following the recommended public health orders, hundreds of thousands of people were spared death or long covid. Because of Trumps refusal to follow what the science told him, it is estimated that at least 600,000 Americans died needlessly. His damaging and slow response continues to put Americans behind the eight ball. This is still a new and evolving disease and as science learns more we will get further recommendations, but many Americans will not follow because of distrust brought about by Trump and conspiracy theories. If you doubt this just google how other countries with low death rates handled the science . We will be generations before recovering from the loss of life and the chronic illness that has resulted..
Linda, you are right about COVID and the really bad responses by folks who believe Trump believes what he told people about COVID and how it wasn't so bad. He got vaccinated as soon as he could but when some people at a rally booed him, he stopped even saying it. It wasn't CEOs who saved any lives outside the corporations working on vaccines and treatments for COVID. Wealth and good health care kept a lot of those folks from suffering the blows poor communities faced. It was states, cities, and other communities that saved lives as well as all of those front-line workers who did what they could to keep people alive. Even CEOs of hospitals weren't so great because of their bad staffing practices and other working conditions in place even before the pandemic hit.
And Ruth that is just one reason I like unions. They did follow CDC guidelines because we all or most of us knew he just didn’t care.
Cecelia, teachers didn't stay home just because of their unions, and we see now how essential they are with the severe drop in the math and reading scores of our children.
Do you really believe that, just because they weren't getting in their cars and driving to a physical building that they weren't working? I've got news for you! Those teachers were tasked with a challenge that would make most mere mortals weep. Handling a classroom of students Remotely? Are you kidding me?
Dear, sweet, clueless, Cecelia,
Teachers are the MOST essential of essential workers! They shape the minds and inform the hearts of future leaders. Good, dedicated teachers are Super Heroes! (I've always wondered where they hide their capes.)
Next pandemic? Hold the Big Mac. Take care of our teachers and our students! Take care of our future!
BJ Crish, thank you so much for your exceptional defense of teachers and plea that folks appreciate what teachers do. I am a recently retired teacher and have watched colleagues leave the profession because of the stress during COVID and previously. Sometimes, no matter how hard teachers work, a few of our students don't get the messages of cooperation and appreciation of the contributions of others, like Musk, Zuckerberg, all the management of Amazon, Trump, Russia's Putin, Marjorie Greene and the Jan. 6th insurrectionists, and a bunch more. The sad thing for me is how many of those we teachers can't reach end up in power somewhere.
YES!! And thank you, vjcrish!!
VJcrish. I agree with you. Take care of our teachers and they should take care of the students. I have seen too much over the past 50 years with my own children and now my granchildrens to know there are some GREAT teachers and others that stay below the radar working only 9 months out of the year to collect their pensions and medical insurance for retirement. The teacher unions have hurt the education world. Every industry had to figure out how to handle the pandemic. Some industries did much better than others.
Ah Cecelia, yes there are a few teachers who work their, actually more like 10 months, then leave it for a couple of months, but your hatred of teachers' unions is inexplicable. Those unions you despise have made it possible for teachers to even get pensions and any vacation time at all. A couple of years of teaching, I added up the extra hours I worked each week and found I worked my summer months off, during the year. I didn't get paid any more for the extra time, no teacher does, but parents and grandparents never see it because they aren't looking. I get it that conservatives need something/someone to hate and teachers' unions work well for that. I suspect other unions do too. I don't get it because it has been unions that have made work possible for workers over time. Pre unions, workers were expendable and if they died or were injured on the job, oh well, such is life. Sixteen hour days were not unheard of. Union-haters usually don't think about that. When Dickens was writing in mid-19th century England, he was not creating a world of intense poverty and exploitation. It was already there and horrific for huge numbers of workers. We don't have that anymore and it wasn't because of the kindness of business owners. There were a few industries that did better than others during the pandemic, although I have no idea what you were meaning when you said that. Many did abuse their workers and exposed them to COVID, well, because they couldn't see the need for safety measures. Did they come out OK? I am sure the families of those who died from on the job exposure don't think so. My question as usual is, what is it you conservatives are trying to conserve? Then, is what you want to conserve something valuable to people beyond your family, farm, town?
clearly.... you are not a teacher... and... ALL .. is incorrect
Why are you ragging on teachers unions?
Thank you Robert for this brilliant explanation and bringing into daylight the stupidity of Elon Musk While I am very sorry for the employees and some of the users of Twitter, I won't shed a tear for musky or the greedy banks who so gleefully enabled him. And guess what (ha-ha) they'll be lucky to get 10 cents back on the dollar borrowed. Like trump only oilier, musky is a con man.
"Banks who so gleefully enabled him." A .consortium of seven banks that provided $13 billion in financing. Bank of America Corp., Barclays Plc, BNP Paribas SA, and Morgan Stanley. I'd bet that they required a pledge of Tesla stock as collateral as Twitter had contingent liabilities. .The terms of the loan agreements aren’t public. But they likely include standard covenants providing that missed payments give the banks the right to immediately accelerate the full principal,
Short sellers are another matter.
Robert says: "Twitter is no longer worth the nearly $44 billion Musk paid for it. It’s now probably worth only a fraction of that sum — a fact that should be of no small concern to the bankers who lent Musk $30 billion to purchase Twitter on condition he pay $1 billion a year in interest."
The FTC has been regulating Twitter.
In 2011, after two data breaches that the FTC said stemmed from Twitter's lax security, the FTC barred Twitter from misrepresenting "the extent to which it protects the security, privacy and confidentiality of nonpublic consumer information" for 20 years.
Twitter paid a $150 million fine in May for violating the 2011 consent order. Its updated version established new procedures requiring the company to implement an enhanced privacy protection program as well as beef up info security. The new procedures also require the company to include an exhaustive list of disclosures Twitter must make to the FTC when introducing new products and services — particularly when they affect personal data collected on users.
"If Twitter so much as sneezes, it has to do a privacy review beforehand," tweeted Riana Pfefferkorn, a Stanford University researcher who said she previously provided Twitter outside legal counsel. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/twitter-bankruptcy-elon-musk-warns-executives-resign/
Tesla has lost 2 years of gains over the Twitter episode, $674 billion in value since November 2021 peak. Elon Musk's net worth has dropped to an estimated $195.6 billion, according to Forbes.
A net winner in all this reportedly is Bill Gates. Musk said he believes Gates has sold short $500 million of Tesla shares.
Daniel, I think we’re all feeling gleeful at watching this implosion. Think of our next chapter…dismantling of the GQP.
You are always our encyclopedia of information and references…thank you.
Thanks.
Why should members of Congress sit with insurrectionists?
A simple loyalty oath may do the trick.
Why aren't the Democratic leadership all over this? DOJ?
Daniel, I have been asking the same questions for months. I get it that it will take time and effort to bring charges and such, but with McCarthy as speaker, and Greene, Boebert, Jordan, and their crowd with the loudest mouths, chaos is likely unless Dems step up and act really soon. No one should have to serve with people who attempted to overthrow our government and would have gleefully witnessed their deaths or kidnapping.
Or worse.
There are some real questions about lack of fist pounding from the Democrats from the beginning…the cheating on 2016 election of TFG and onward. If anyone should have been climbing the capital walls, it should have been Democrats.
Daniel Solomon ; Isn't the Oath of Office a loyalty oath ?
"That I never participated in an insurrection"
I guess in legal pledges to follow the rule of law, it's not enough to respect the rule of law and uphold the Constitution. One must be explicit and specific that they will not attack the people's house at the seat of our government. Look what was argued in the reversal of Roe v Wade. Since abortion was not specifically mentioned. A right to one was null and void.
We the People have very bad memories about loyalty oaths...why isn't their Oath of Office to protect the Constitution enough? I'm not saying it is (obviously) just asking why that isn't enough to get rid of the insurrectionist cheerleaders?
Arthur, good question! I agree one's oath of office should be sufficient to forestall insurrection behavior, but perhaps it is the group aspect of it. I am wondering if it would help to require each House member and Senator as well as all federal officials to swear their oath in small groups of 2 or 3 so their individual voice is heard and possibly recorded for their records. That way, they can't even say to themselves later, I raised my hand, but I didn't really say anything, or whatever it is such people tell themselves. We need a mechanism for keeping insurrectionists from ever running for office and removing them from office if already elected. The Constitution states it pretty clearly, but does not indicate who should make it happen. Congress could do that as part of a revised code of ethics for all government agencies, courts, and congressional members and staff. They should need to repeat it every year in Congress and on the courts. Maybe they could repeat it as a group after the first year of a term, then in the small groups at the beginning of each term. Judges and justices, every single year publicly for all of them, covered on national or local media depending on their office. Just some thoughts, but I do believe we need to do something. We should have learned from Civil War days and other times in our history that if people are not held accountable, they don't change their behavior and can serve as an example to others who want to get away with things.
Every action in Congress is recorder in the Federal Record. People are sworn every day.
I had to take several-- was subject to repeated security background checks.
Nobody has challenged them. The House has an impartial committee that is supposed to investigate -- but hasn't.
I also don't understand why the media hasn't asked Gym Jordan, Biggs, et al whether they were part of the Green Bay sweep. Several House members asked Trump for a pardon.
IMHO to repeat the big lie should be disqualifying.
Daniel, I agree with you whole-heartedly. Those who are supposed to be investigating and vetting have not been doing their jobs. And, when someone does not show up for a subpoena, they should automatically be held in contempt and given 2 weeks to correct it, then given a set time in jail, then fined. They already have the 5th amendment, so they can sit all day and declare it, but they need to do it for the Committee, and the world. When Trump and Krump refused, nothing was done except to 1 or 2 folks and still no consequences. Perhaps, one of the penalties should be inability to run for office in the future. That seems harsh, but when people have/get wealth, they think they are better than anyone else and do things that are illegal because they think their money lets them do it.
Musk may end up getting what he deserves, unfortunately many of the employees didn’t.
YES!
Whoa, very interesting Daniel! Musk has treated his Tesla employees, pardon the expression, like pure shit, deplorably. He's just been emboldened since apparently regulations, regulatory agencies, rule of law for the oligarchic class simply don't exist. No surprise Must can decimate his work force. He's just a long line of oligarchs doing it, Starbucks, Amazon, Meta, etc. And they learned from the best Jack Welch at GE who is the Godfather of outsourcing employees. Oh....and look at GE today.....We need anti-trust laws!
Ronald Reagan built the model for destroying a workforce when he fired all the air traffic controllers with no discernible consequences to himself.
We need an updated Taft-Hartley act… NOW!
Well, if not up-dated, at least IMPLEMENTED!
We have an anti-trust law, it's just not enforced.
Well maybe the ones we have just need to be enforced and not just a slap on the hand if they get caught!
Daniel, an interesting history of Twitter's challenges. I just don't understand why banks would have given Musk so much money for a corporation that was definitely not worth anything close to what Musk claimed he wanted to buy it for. Shouldn't there be some regulation as to what companies and corporations can be bought and sold for based on history, current revenue, and other important criteria? Ugh!
Tesla stock is probably the collateral.
Duty to do due diligence. They were probably betting that Musk's overall fortunes would rise, making them a profit.
Thank you so much for this great information. How lucky we are to have someone both as informed and articulate as you on our forum. Much appreciated.
Keep up the good work Danial. I appreciate you doing research for us all!
I heard some talking head speculate that if twitter were actually in imminent danger of collapse, Musk would make it a division of Tesla.
Good one, made me laugh.
Difny, I find that interesting that Musk would/could make Twitter part of Tesla. What would that get him? He isn't exactly doing all that well with Tesla these days either. That could bring both corporations down.
And what about Twitter shareholders losing their shirts now?
Musk is Twitter's only shareholder now. The $44 billion he paid all went to the previous shareholders. Many former Twitter executives and employees are now very wealthy thanks to Musk paying way too much for their stock.
Chris, it's always curious to me why chief corporate executives are often considered to also be the chef assets of a company. They are rarely punished for their manipulations and misdeed.
They routinely coerce those below them with little or no power to follow plans that lower ranked managers and workers are only privy to limited explanations of, while at the same time they reap huge bonuses and incentives for sometimes nefarious schemes to make even quicker profits at the expense of the company's reputation, product, welfare of the employees and many times the welfare and wellbeing of their customers.
Fay, you have described Musk quite well. He is a con man who has some ideas and way too much money for his or anyone's good.
I am hopeful that this will mean that Trump will not have this platform.
Robert, you are a great American, and I think you need not take the job of Postmaster
general, but please keep on trying to replace DeJoy.
My real concern and the reason I am writing this is to ask you to somehow ensure that those members of Congress who let insurrectionists into the Capitol on Jan 5 not be permitted to serve, whether on not they won re-election. best wishes.
That is a nagging insistence in my mind as well. Why are they allowed to sit and participate in Congress?
Fervently hoping Smith will recommend indicting orange, & his croanies as well. Wouldn't it be something if they lost the majority when removed from house leadership?!
It would be great
Wouldn’t that be great!
Having spent most of my vocational life in high tech, I can tell you that almost without exception, these companies have a very hostile relationship with their employees. Exactly as Prof Reich noted, employees are seen as a cost, which means optimizing them equals eliminating as many of them as possible. Furthermore, they are silently rated on a scale from compliant to “difficult”, where the latter applies to employees who disagree with senior management on anything.
The reality is that high tech companies have almost no value and no capacity outside of their employees, and have almost without exception failed to grow up enough to admit and nurture that instead of trying to minimize it.
It isn't just the high tech companies, Bennett. I worked as an internal auditor for a multinational fossil fuel corporation for a number of years and saw the same thing. What's truly disgusting is that these numbskulls who have wreaked havoc amongst the productive employees are then promoted! Grrr!
Spending my career in healthcare for 30 years, I can also attest to the lack of concern or respect for employees by healthcare corporations. We are just a number and even when they try to keep morale up by recognizing “ nurses day” with a rose and candy, they raised nurse patient ratios to dangerous levels and kept pay to a minimum. Often the aids and nurses with a lessor degree were not recognized. On top of it all our health insurance was more expensive then careers of comparable value. I swore I’d never go back after burning out.
I’m in healthcare as well, and it’s imploding. Covid just made it more visible for the average person to see just how f’d up healthcare is.
My profession (respiratory therapist) is hurting bad for people, they are going begging for respiratory therapists in some areas, just like nurses....but we are sick and tired of being treated like crap.
Nurses are getting beat up and even killed by the very people they are trying to care for, the bosses are treating us like crap....no wonder people are leaving healthcare.
Bennett, how depressing that Big Tech sees its workers in such a wasteful manner. I do believe it stems from a history of corporations seeing their workers that way, but also the number of child-men who rule those high-tech corporations. It is tough to deal with toddlers who have power. Any parent can tell you that.
You have identified the problem: child-men in positions of power. CEOs and other C-level people are of course a diverse group, so there are exceptions, but in general, they don't get to those jobs by being great human beings. In particular, in my experience in high tech, CEOs tend to be willfully detached from observable data, actively disinterested in people, and incapable of recognizing how much of their own material success is based on the work of other people and just dumb luck. This distortion is reinforced by the ridiculous income gap between those who do most of the work and those who so frequently misdirect that work. There are articles and I think een whole books discussing the pattern in high tech to "fail up". This is the pattern in which a person has the CEO role in one company after another despite having run each of them into the ground. I have frequently found myself referring to them as especially badly behaved three-year olds.
When a badly behaved three year old runs a company, who do you think gets promoted, the person who tries to interject reality, or the person who says we can stay at Disneyland permanently if the damned employees would only work harder? What do you think the real corporate culture is like, despite the hollow statements they have been taught to make? One guy who stands out as a great voice about good management is Simon Sinek. My claim however is that those people who take his guidance and behave accordingly will not keep their jobs for very long. Even in high tech, where everyone is highly educated and intellectual work is the entire product, lower brain stem functioning and dog-eat-dog-ism dominate.
You can't imagine how relieved I am to be retired now and no longer in that environment.
Bennett, I appreciate your relief on retiring from such a world. I wonder how much better the whole tech industry could have been had fewer toddlers been in charge. My sister who worked in tech for more than 30 years was also glad to retire. She found management at all levels unwilling to change course even when things were not going well. Those who were doing the work were mostly ignored unless they couldn't keep the miracles coming, then they were insulted and had their jobs threatened. Sometimes she would make necessary, but unapproved changes and the management would claim the improvements as something they themselves had orchestrated. This development, though was not as much in evidence in the '80s as by the 2000s. Could it be it took a little while for the wealth to infiltrate to such an extent that it corrupted the whole enterprise? Or, was it that the toddler-run corporations just got too big for the child-men to handle them well?
Exactly so. When I first got into tech it was like being among university colleagues. We were doing things that had never been done before. We were advancing bleeding edge tech for the benefit of mankind. We were inspired. We inspired each other. We worked as a team energized by what we accomplished together. Then, sadly, it turned out that people could make money with what we were doing, and people who cared only about that infiltrated and gradually took over. I have no objection to making money. I like making money. But it's only money, not *everything*. Where it is construed as the only thing that really matters, everything else that actually matters to people (or even the whole planet) is construed as just a drag on the system.
Bennett, that's exactly what my sister said. She liked working to make things better for folks in a collegial atmosphere. She mostly worked in customer interface. She liked helping customers figure out how the tech product or service could best serve them. It changed when the new management learned it would take hours or days to work things out for an individual customer and that was too long. The threats and complaints from management became more and more frequent. Some of her employers were really good and appreciative of the workers, the more recent ones, less so. There was no way to stop the downward slide as she saw it.
"...corporations that regard employees only as costs to be cut rather than as assets to be nourished can make humongous mistakes."
Excellent point.
Employees are the engine that run the corporation, they keep manufacturing going.
Sadly it's the CEO who rakes in all the top dollars and probably doesn't know half of what his employees know.
That is certainly true for the University of California where Prof Reich is working and where a massive strike for living wages is going on. Except the person with the top dollars who earns 100 times that of the striking poor is Berkeley’s football coach.
Yeah, Hartmut, isn't it sad that the highest paid person on campus, and in my whole state of PA public jobs, is a football coach. Says a lot about our culture!
Yup. This is where the rubber meets the road. Here in Santa Cruz, TA's do most of the teaching but are barely paid. It's their "dues" in order to (eventually) get employment in the field in which they are studying.
Hi Becky! How are things in ol' Santa Cruzin'? That was my home for many years until I moved to the Boston area to be near my kids and granddaughter. I miss the land of Aging Hippies With Money 🤣, but not so much with the long drought. We still have a family retreat home in Soquel but I have no idea when I'll visit again. Give my love to the beach!
Great to hear from you! I'm not in Santa Cruz anymore either. I live a bit south of there in Seaside, CA. now. One less aging hippie in town, I guess.
Yes and Reich has totally avoided this subject. He seems to advocate unionization everywhere else.
It’s been that way for decades. Corporate hierarchies sit in a perch and torture the people who work for them. I think it’s dandy that muskie and the banks that put him up to it are in a nosedive. The idea of one person owning a communication platform that large is not promising for a democracy anyway
em, the challenge, those CEOs don't know what they don't know, and actually don't care. They figure they hired folks who will do whatever is necessary or get thrown out or edged out due to age or salaries they think are too high. That way the corporation loses a lot, but the CEO will never know, and a lot of potential innovation is lost.
Here’s another example of arrogance! Why is it that the richest men in the world do more harm
Than good?
Look at all the good Bezos’ ex-wife is doing! Smart lady! And everyone loves her. This difference is, she is actually generous and helpful and does NOT require her ego to be put above all.
McKenzie Scott sounds like a smart, sincere, likable person, but I don't think we should sit silent about the way in which her fortune was amassed. Our problem, as Professor Reich has pointed out, is the gross inequality that all the wealth creates—usually at the expense of workers. Excessive wealth needs to be taxed (we could argue about the amount of the excess, but not the principle, IMO).
While that is true, it is commendable that she donated a property to charity that just sold for 38 million. Philanthropist also do good work, and they should.
While I don't deny that many philanthropists do good, we should keep in mind that it allows them to direct the proceeds of their charity, while if the money entered the government as tax revenue, Congress could direct that money toward what is determined to be the public good. Of course, Republicans like Grover Norquist and some Democrats have disparaged the government to the point where many voters want to deny it any source of funding. And that gives more power to the mega-rich, even those who vote Democratic.
They could do so much good in the world with all their money, if it were used to help some of our worst problems like climate chaos, mass extinction, poverty & homelessness. I just read that it would take only an estimated $10 billion, a sum someone like Musk could easily afford, to solve the problem of homelessness in America. Solve something like that & a billionaire would forever more go into the history books as a sort of savior of the people. Given that most billionaires are narcissists, it's ironic as well as sad that none of them have done that.
I'd feel a whole lot better about greedy mega-millionaire and billionaire CEO's if they had to pay real taxes, on the Eisenhower scale when those who had gigantic sums had to pay their share based on assets and earning.
I've proposed raising taxes to 90% on income exceeding $1 million, 80% on income in excess of $500K (up to $1M), 60% from $200-500K, 40% on $100-200K, 20% on $50-100K, no tax on income below $50 thousand.
The amount that was just spent on this midterm election. Says a lot about American values.
The price tag is closer to $20B/ year to put every person currently experiencing homelessness into at least a motel kitchenette. While I believe in taxing the rich as a general principle, a portion of the $80B we just sent to the Ukraine might have been earmarked for here. Homelessness is a function of the high cost of housing. As those costs increase, more and more people lose their housing.
I understand that some don’t see the importance of assisting a country under attack from a fascist that wants to take over the world but consider the outcome if Putin has his way. He already threatened Finland and Sweden. Fascism is a real and present danger. If you don’t think America would be influenced by that you are seriously misinformed.
They've essentially threatened all of Europe as well as the US, & not just with nuclear weapons. One Russian influencer said their goal is to push past the Polish border to Berlin & Lisbon. Another advocated taking back Alaska. Russia will not stop their obsessive expansion of empire until they are forcibly stopped or rule the whole world. They've been that way from the beginning.
So far as I'm aware, there is not currently any Federal program that offers housing to the homeless on a national level. I don't doubt that the problem is huge and quite widespread, but we shouldn't cut off our nose to spit our face, and we have the resources to do both.
Ukraine is in the midst of a hot war brought about by a fascist dictator who has dreams of restoring the old Russian and Soviet empire. He is intent on destroying freedom and more especially, democracy, and in that regard, the heroic actions of Ukraine are our first line of defense against fascist expansion and the demise of democracy there - and here as well.
I think you would agree that those in our country who support Putin's merciless and deadly adventure in Ukraine are also those who think less about the wellbeing of Americans, homeless included, than they do about amassing total dictatorial power by destroying American democracy through insurrection and stopping the franchise for those people who might vote against them.
Very well said!
I’m going to help Ukrainians anywhere I can and anyway I can. They are fighting for freedoms we take for granted every single day! Putin doesn’t give a damn about anything but his own narcissistic ego! Hope the Russian people take care of him in the only way he understands!
Because they are more interested in wealth, monetary wealth, then their fellow travelers in this world.
Very well put.
I'm sad the to see the demise of academic Twitter: it was a great place to connect with researchers around the world. But my work (Arctic Research organization) is already searching for another space. Maybe Mastsdon?
Twitter bankruptcy will stop the twitter addiction. I will never buy a Tesla and those workers should join the auto workers union.
I bought a Tesla before knowing just how monstrous Musk is. Almost all major corporations and car companies are owned by right wingers. (Think of the fossil fuel relation with most). Most major stores and media are owned by these rt wing monsters so it’s not like we can escape that as much as we’d like to.
I love my Tesla, despise Musk. I have the car and hope to keep it for years but I’m certain more comparable options will be available next round.
We really need a different system from Capitalism…it’s time. But short of that, we need to bring strict regulations back. That’s almost impossible with the make-up of Congress.
It’s not capitalism. It’s unfettered capitalism. But the greedy overlords will not allow any sort of regulation. Taxes are needed for the people of our country. People must be paid a living wage. Stop with the incessant cry for more millions and billions and more inequity. Our value system is incredibly skewed.
Yes, it is Capitalism at issue. It does work much much better with regulations, but that doesn’t mean it’s good. We would probably need a hybrid of what works best. Similar to viewing the documentary by Michael Moore…Where to invade next…not about war.
Trump’s tax cut which lowered corporate tax from 35% to 21% essentially put 2 trillion more into the national debt. We need more responsible people running the country. If everyday people managed their finances the way our gov does we’d all be bankrupt. I realize bankruptcy is Trump’s business model but it shouldn’t be a nations’.
I’m sure you realize that Musk didn’t invent Tesla. He became highest shareholder (using federal subsidies, no doubt), then fashioned an NDA and booted one of the owner/ partners out. His father also owned emerald mines during apartheid in S. Africa where he grew up. Using slave labor may be all he knows. Wasn’t there some issues with racism in his Tesla factories? I think that says it all.
The auto workers union had seven of their leaders indicted for fraud. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for what they might do for their workers. The problem with the electric vehicle market is that the margins are very slim. In spite of GM getting a rousing endorsement from Biden Supporting union workers, they proceeded to move their production of their Bolt to Mexico.
Big margins cannot compete with the benefits realized when replacing combustion engines with electric ones.
I agree with your comment that big margins do not compare with the economic, health and environmental benefits that electric vehicles provide. However, American manufactures are struggling with their cost of production as follows;
1. GM projects they will begin to breakeven on their electric vehicles in 2025 which means in the meantime every vehicle they sell Is that a loss. In spite of Biden praising GM for leading the electric vehicle revolution and they ceased production 2 quarters ago entirely and recalled every one of their electric vehicles with battery problems. They also moved their production of their mass market Bolt to Mexico. So much for union jobs in America.
2. Ford moved its production of its popular electric Mustang to Mexico and then cancel it all together because it was costing them more to make that they were selling it for.
3. Lucid which is a car that attempts to complete with the Tesla model S plaid Sells for just over $100,000 US but after production of around 50,000 units they have not been able to pull their cost of manufacture down below $450,000 per car. Those of us who study electric vehicles on a regular basis or wondering about their path to sustainable financials.
4. Aptera and Arcimoto, 2 innovative American brands, are still about a year away from producing vehicles.
5. the Nissan leaf has been built in the USA for over a decade. It is a reasonably good looking car with its latest updates along the lines of the GM bolt but it’s never been a really big seller. And I don’t know of their cost of manufacture.
6. meanwhile Tesla which has a higher American made contact of any car built in the USA has captured nearly 70% of the entire electric vehicle market in the USA and due to their incredible engineering and I would claim Elon’s blood sweat and tears has accomplished all this and achieving mid 25% profit margins which is more than any other manufacture.
Most legacy vehicles run in the 7 to 11% profit margin range. Consider also that Ford loses money on every car it sells in America except it’s trucks. My point being here that making electric vehicles in America In a financially stable way is exceptionally difficult. Meanwhile in China the top electric vehicle manufacturers make very compelling electric vehicles that Tesla is still close to number one in terms of dollar value of vehicle sold. China committed early to the production of batteries and electric vehicles and currently has well over 100 significant electric vehicle manufacturers in China.
My point here is that well people might be confused understandably about Elon‘s intentions with Twitter and I certainly sure that confusion, it should be recognized that his contribution towards producing consumer goods in America with American materials and using the American supply chain should not be underestimated. Detailed financial analysis will uncover a rotten financial framework underlying both GM and Ford. GM in particular are essentially only setting themselves up for another government bail out. Wild people trash Tesla for being somehow supported by the government, the exact opposite is true. when GM was granted $3.9 billion to bill it out in 2009, tesla got a $545 million loan that was re-paid in full with interest ahead of time. Tesla receives no benefits not available to the other car manufacturers and in fact since they spend zero dollars on advertising, The average person is left to get their information entirely from existing Tesla customers. When you consider that Tesla sold 1 million cars last year and made more profit than four dead on 13.5 million vehicles, you all understand why Tesla is regarded as a global industrial powerhouse not seen in America for a century or so.
Many of the comments on here would certainly apply to GM and even Chrysler who are the bail out requiring king and queens of the American automobile industry. Tesla in general and specifically Elon himself have been subjected to a firehose of criticism from Elizabeth Warren for not paying taxes in spite of the fact that he is paying all the taxes that her Congress has mandated. While campaigning fiercely against Elon she accused him of refusing to pay his taxes in a year when he paid $38 billion which was more than any American in history is near as I can tell. Did the Democrats once thank him for creating more new jobs in America than any new corporation or for leading the electric car revolution globally,? while I was saddened by his recommendation that is 100 million followers vote Republican, you have to say that the Democrats did all they could do to push him away from the Democratic Party that he’s always supported in the past. Why they would alienate the most progressive industrialist that history may have ever seen is beyond my comprehension.
I agree that top corporate and individual income tax it should be roughly double what they are right now but admonishing Elon for paying the prescribed tax rate is rather foolish. Somehow people expect him to solve world hunger, homelessness in America while exhausting him with nonstop character assassinations which are often without merit although I certainly will agree that he’s not here typical CEO personality. Does anyone on here think that maybe we should cut him some slack from time to time?
Colin Genge ; BS
I think you just verified exactly what I was saying. In spite of the fact of me taking the time to create a meaningful account where every single point can be easily fact checked, you chose to disrespect that effort with your response. My main objection is that people commenting on here have virtually no information nor are even prepared to have a good faith discussion. Blindly believing talking points on important issues is the very reason why America is spiraling out of control with people preferring to believe nutty conspiracy theories rather than facts. By not engaging in a meaningful way you Become part of the problem instead of part of the solution.
1. I don’t believe Musk needs any slack. He takes what he needs. Just like attempting to extort the state of CA or move his company to Texas. CA told him Happy Trails!
2. You cannot treat free will labor as slave labor.
Until he gets this one right, I won’t defend him or pay attention to anything he says or does. Certainly won’t buy a Tesla or go back to tweeting. Can’t do a damn thing about SpaceX. Just wish we hadn’t pulled out of our space programs years ago.
If you are interested in an EV, Time Magazine Nov 21, Nov 28 issue had the following on page 51... "Next Level EV: Lucid Air. This sedan is more proof that EVs are getting better. Unveiled in late 2021, in many ways beats Tesla. It has the highest EPA-estimated range (520 miles), but offers much more than a big battery: 1,200 horsepower that accelerates 0-60 in less than 2 seconds, charges 300 miles in just 22 minutes, Dolby sound system, edging out Tesla, Porsche, Audi and Mercedes. " Worth looking into with that 520 miles range!
I had a followed lucid with interest from his very inception and a read virtually every article and watched every video test review on all their vehicles. I think their vehicle is astonishing in every way and I like their CEO who is one of the early departures from Tesla. However, I believe they’re making a mistake trying to make a car that beats Tesla and every way. They have a luxury vehicle that is also designed to match the Tesla plaid performance. Biso doing compromises have to be made and they come first in the area of reliability with fairly high maintenance for some complex systems but most importantly The average unit cost of the vehicles is around $450,000 US compared to the Tesla model plaid that cost them around 1/10 of that. We in the electric vehicle community discuss issues like this regularly and we see no clear path for sustainable financial security for Lucid.
Expensive, I’m sure. Who can afford a 100,000 dollar car?
yes, I am sure you are right. and the car is too big for me. I just note that there are alternatives when it comes to Tesla. And I really like the idea of over 500 miles on a charge. Batteries are getting better and better.
Beyond your insightful comments, Musk's request to see snapshots of code written is farcical. Looking at static, printed code is almost entirely useless in terms of "understanding the tech stack". The people who could explain that were almost certainly among the first to leave, perhaps voluntarily. Elon apparently was quick to fire the senior people who managed the developers, and they were also among those who understood the architecture and the technology decisions.
several thoughts: first: the person whom musk "borrowed" the largest amount of money from is most famous for sawing WaPo journalist jamal khashoggi into tiny pieces whilst that poor man was still alive -- all because he expressed an opinion that had not been pre-approved by the saudi prince. Or Putin.
second, my reading about musk and his relationship with jack dorsey (developer of twitter, who now is building a new platform, bluesky) is extremely disturbing. for example, i thought they disliked each other but in fact, they are very good friends.
i read this interview transcript by Dave Troy, an investigative journalist addressing threats to democracy, about musk yesterday night and had nightmares as a result:
https://davetroy.medium.com/no-elon-and-jack-are-not-competitors-theyre-collaborating-3e88cde5267d
apparently, musk doesn't care if he makes money. he cares about realizing his leadership of his mars cult. according to this piece: "Musk and the people backing all this are more interested in reshaping the global order than in earning fake “fiat currency.” Their real goal is to usher in “hard currency” and re-base global currencies around scarcity and physical assets. So no it really doesn’t matter much what happens to Twitter’s ad model in the meantime. It will probably do alright, and they can probably find other ways to make money, like adding in payments and weird Dogecoin schemes."
I just read the article in the link you posted. Confirms everything I thought about Musk and why he’s doing this. Very disturbing but thankful there is someone who understands this and is reporting it. Saudi Arabia...another very disturbing entity that the United States keeps propping up.
Not to mention the billions that Kushner gets from MBS. That’s something cdemocrats should be investigating.
I agree wholeheartedly.
Yep, think it’s gonna happen in our lifetime? I don’t either!
Brilliant article.
Omg, when I read I didn’t put two and two together. So their goal in the end is to destroy any western power and kill it. Musk may be the next ground up dinner if he doesn’t pay up. Wow
here's an other piece that further explores the reasons why musk ("Space Karen") is destroying twitter: the author argues it's deliberate. i agree with her:
https://jessicalexicus.medium.com/maybe-killing-twitter-was-the-point-51eda25774a8
in this piece, she argues: "Elon Musk is still worth nearly $200 billion. He’s using other people’s money to play with one of the world’s most important venues of public discourse. Maybe Elon Musk and his friends didn’t wildly overvalue Twitter. Maybe we wildly undervalued it. Maybe we’re the ones who don’t understand the worth of a public platform like this."
I agree he is probably purposely destroying Twitter to disenfranchise the "lower classes." And doesnt care at all about his employees.
I don’t trust the Bluesky alternate of Twitter…that Twitter was sold to Musk is bad enough for his Dorsey’s reputation.
agreed!
Thank You GrrlScientist for posting this link to David Troy’s article. In it he makes reference to a white paper he wrote that I found especially cogent to todays discussion about not just Musk, but the entire information miasma we are swimming in. I cannot seem to find a way to link access to it other than to urge readers to find it within the above link you gave. The white paper link is in the second to last paragraph of his article.
Star link has to make Musk a fortune. And that is not only point of sale ( very expensive internet) but ongoing subscription fees. He’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
Wasn't the Saudi Kingdom already an owner of Twitter stock before Musk bought it out?
good memory! yes, Saudi Al-Waleed bin Talal & Kingdom Holding Company apparently purchased a 5.2% stake in twitter in October 2015. (note that Musk owned the largest share of 9.2% stake in the company at this time.) In 2019, two former Saudi employees of twitter, Ali Alzabarah and Ahmad Abouammo, reportedly used their access to the internal systems of Twitter to spy on dissidents of the Saudi regime and on American citizens (Khashoggi?). This led to them being accused of acting as foreign agents within the territory of the United States. It's unclear to me what, if anything, happened to them.
The article in the link stated Saudi’s were second largest share holder of twitter.
Profound truth! Thank you Robert. It's mind boggling how little Musk knew about how tech companies work and the value of technical and organizational knowledge. I guess that's the kind of myopia that comes from only being a rich owner and reckless, narcissistic consumer .. but not even a very curious one. Sad. Let's hope a more humane alternative emerges and triumphs.
Yes, more money than brains (and ethics) does not work so well.
He DOES have an IQ rated 5 points below Einstein, but sure.
Genius does not guarantee common sense.
Consider that he was raised during his formative years in Apartheid Africa. Father owned emerald mines.
Professor Reich is right on. I would generalize this a bit more, because I remember my Father's stories from the aerospace industry of the 1960's. He has so many wonderful stories from the factories of workers who were not branded as "elites" yet showed brilliance in their work and were irreplaceable to the company. His funniest stories are about what would happen when the new "efficiency" experts would come in to study the production line and increase profitability. The workers, often women, would suddenly change their entire routines, forget everything, and work in slow motion. Once the observers were gone they would go back to their dizzyingly quick and efficient normal routine. My Dad would talk to them about it and they would laugh, then they would show him a dozen things that could be changed to make things better. The moral to his stories is always to respect and trust the people who work with you and seek their advice. The basis of his management style was always respect, and he was the best advocate for his employees. That is at the heart of it. When you spend your days doing a job you become the expert on how it can be done better. Over the years you gain knowledge about how to make your tools better, whether they are physical or mental tools. You are an asset well beyond what you produce on a daily basis. That was true in the equivalent of the tech companies of the 1960's as it is today. The new generation of tech companies didn't magically reinvent the workplace, they didn't create a system that defies the rules of decent human relationships. As Professor Reich points out, they are learning the hard way the lessons my Father learned sixty years ago - and I am sure that those were the same lessons that were learned in the decades before as well.
I seriously wondered about Musk's $44 billion offer for Twitter. Just where was he going to get $44 billion of _value_ from the transaction? Given that Twitter was losing $4 million EVERY day, it was a losing proposition from the get-go. My impression was that it was some kind of market manipulation involving sparking interest in Twitter shares, driving up the price, at which point he would unload his substantial portfolio of Twitter stock which he **already** owned, making a HUGE profit on the sale. I doubt he ever seriously believed that Twitter would actually want to sell out to him -- an impression reinforced when he immediately tried to back out of the deal. When Twitter sued and won to force Musk to honor his offer, it left him in a position where he has had to scramble to just avoid _losing_ many billions of dollars on the deal. About the ONLY thing he can do is arbitrage the company: break it up into its component parts and sell it off for pennies on the dollar.
Just like Babe Ruth: known to be the Home Run King, but also the strike out king as well. Musk is renown for having become a multi-billionaire from his success in a business venture. Now we see he is also quite capable of striking out -- and ruining the lives of thousands of employees because of his flub. He will be lucky if he loses only $20 billion on this deal when all is said and done.
Read the article in the link in a prior post. It shed much possible light on the whole thing.
I think it was a hostile takeover. The $44B offer couldn't be ignored. Trying to back out triggered a court case where Musk got what he wanted, discovery. With that evidence, Musk closed the deal and Twitter was his. The 4 bosses fired the first day? I don't think they will see any golden parachute any time soon, if at all. Musk has too much on them.
IF -- and it is a big "if" -- Musk actually _wanted_ to own Twitter, that $44 billion offer shows what happens when someone KNOWS he has more money than he could spend in ten, twenty, a hundred lifetimes given "normal" spending. What's $44 billion when, even if you lose it all, you're **still** a multi-billionaire? (More than $200 billion, in fact.)
Given what Musk has done with Twitter since he took ownership, he looks worse than DeJoy (USPS), destroying his company from the inside.
I think that this underestimates the speed with which Twitter is headed for the trash heap of history. Its reputation for being a reliable means of communication is now gone and there is no sign that its earlier competence will or even could be quickly restored. With its reputation and reliability gone, the exodus will be fast and people will not flock back quickly in the numbers needed to keep it afloat. I predict that it will have to declare bankruptcy in one or two weeks. A classic example of Hubris meeting its Nemesis.
LOL! As Mark Twain is rumored to have said, “Just say the report of my death has been grossly exaggerated.”
Democrats have Made a huge mistake
It’s the efficiency of AI stupid
In creating one of the worlds most complex AI applications, Tesla replaced thousands of employees who were labeling video images to teach their neural Network how to understand what it was seeing. Once the team had evolved auto labeling they could do this work many thousands of times faster without the need of humans which is the only way you can get a complex application such as full self driving to run.
By comparison analyzing a relatively simple tweet is far simpler. In microseconds of computer time, A tweet can be analyzed as to whether it’s respectful, racist, accurate and whether it possesses other dangerous qualities such as suggesting attacks on people or endangering children. A fully documented rule compliance score can be instantly attached to any tweet in order to promote meaningful dialogue between people.
All you need to do to understand the horrific nature of our communication between opposing groups is to read the comments on this article. Not a pretty nor constructive picture. I’m sure that if Robert took the time to read all those comments he would be horrified to see the unhinged reaction people were having to his articles on Twitter.
Understand that on other platforms those comments can be far more dangerous.
Let me explain what you’ll see/read.
1. Ad hominem attacks where instead of discussing the topic those commenting will attack the individuals character directly.
2. crude language and even cursing with no real comment
3. talking point phrases such as “Elon didn’t start Tesla“ Repeated Word for Word by many of those commenting. Not only irrelevant to any central argument but may be a talking point supplied by a vested interest such as the fossil fuel industry that has been attacking Tesla for a decade.
4. comments that have no intellectual content or may simply be emojis with no clear point being made.
5. comments written in ambiguous language where it’s not even possible to determine pro or con
6. statements made as fact that are easily proven dubious or entirely incorrect.
Artificial intelligence can attach a percent probability Range wrt accuracy and create a an exhaustive list of all the sources from which information had been extracted. Databases exist that contain every word ever published in the English language So we’re talking exhaustively thorough here. Additionally artificial intelligence can point to conflicts and inconsistencies which can identify fallacious tweets. Sure, say anything but know that it will be evaluated extensively and characterized so the reader can determine whether they want to expose themselves to material which has a very low probability of being correct. Additionally this process would enable readers to expand their knowledge since as a society there is no way we can agree on solutions if our factual basis are not aligned.
Roberts articles have  unintentionally driven people into a reactionary and hysterical camps where comments are antithetical to the possibility of meaningful discussion. Once a respectful conversation ceases, people take sides and our society will enter a downward spiral that may be impossible to break out of. While I do not pretend to know the details of Elon‘s plan, I do know his stated intention is to create a meaningful town Square where people are free to say what they want but where our attention will be drawn to the more meaningful conversations instead of those that will simply incite the greatest Hostility which is pretty much where we are now.
Elon has succeeded incredibly in his for companies and has expressed humanitarian tendencies consistently so at least we should give him a chance to show us what we can do instead of hooting constantly from the peanut gallery as if we know better. None of us have created a multi billion dollar enterprise which requires a skill set that few on here will acknowledge. 
"I do know his stated intention is to create a meaningful town Square where people are free to say what they want but where our attention will be drawn to the more meaningful conversations instead of those that will simply incite the greatest Hostility which is pretty much where we are now." Where is Trump now?
Elon Musk might be a genius in his own way but he is deeply unintelligent when it comes to people and "meaningful conversations." You cannot be a Libertarian who wants to do away with the government (in a democracy the government is the people and the people is the government, remember?) and truly think.
The theory goes that if Trump is on a site that is created to promote meaningful conversation then he will be quickly exposed as a fraud. As it is he’s free to say anything he wants without the embarrassment of his statements being rated for truthfulness.
In the early days of the Quora forum, many of us were able to collectively learn a lot about the inner workings of politics because we dealt with each other in a respectful and kind fashion. Whenever people stepped out of bounds they were gently tapped into line.
Keep drinking that Kool-Aid, buddy. Note the slightly bitter taste … that's the cyanide.
Apparently, calling out authoritarianism, sociopathic behavior and attachment to a christian-fascist party, formerly called Republican party is hysteria! 🤣
However did we miss his wonderful qualities? Perhaps we’re all missing Trump’s intelligence & competence too. 🙄
I have campaigned tirelessly for the past seven years against Donald Trump and everything he stands for so to imply sarcastically that I somehow support Trump in any way does not give me a good feeling. While I was depressed as anybody could be at Elon‘s recommendation that his followers vote Republican, it is important for the Democratic Party to clearly evaluate the penalty they may have paid for attacking him needlessly several months ago. Prior to that Elon openly admitted that he had always voted Democrat and would not consider voting Republican. Do you know what changed his mind? Because if we are not aware of that, means we are giving them Republicans an advantage they don’t deserve.
I suggested that had the Democratic party and Elizabeth Warren in particular acted more responsibly they could have instead gotten won the House back as well. not understanding past errors of judgment is to repeat and add to those failures. All I’m suggesting here is that an open, honest and respectful exchange of ideas is warranted and unfortunately mostly what I see here is reactionary behavior that is only slightly less severe than Republican voter’s logic who as you say seriously do want a Christian authoritarian dictatorship which we are getting horrifically close to obtaining. No one is more disgusted by that potential outcome than me which is why I work tirelessly to do whatever I can to avoid it. Putting our heads in the stand and thinking we understand Elon‘s future vision is a mistake. That’s all I’m saying. Can’t we do better than simply deriding anybody who wants to have a realistic conversation such as myself?
I might say you had a point if you didn’t grossly mischaracterize the nature of the comments made here. When you have to misrepresent the data to support you conclusions...
Example: Many commenting here HAVE acknowledged Musk’s successes with other companies. But they also note how a social networking platform is a different kind of beast. And we don’t have to “wait and see when Musk can do” since, daily, he’s showing us.
I invite you to identify the “many on here who acknowledge Elon success“… Paraphrasing your statement. I didn’t see any on this article and then Roberts previous I scanned well over 100 and don’t believe I saw a single one. In most cases they stated he came from a rich family, had nothing to do with the success of SpaceX or Tesla that were funded entirely by the government magically and so on and so on.
Nevertheless your comment is appreciated.
I haven’t gone back to log specific comments nor, honestly, do I intend to spend the time doing so to support my claim. You can choose to believe me or not as you wish.
But I have seen many people here noting and even making a point of recognizing that Musk has done well at Tesla, SpaceX, and other ventures. They acknowledge that. But then they also make their point that Twitter is a distinctly different type of company, it’s a distinctly different type of business than a car or rocket company. And one which, based on what he HAS actually done (not some thing we have to wait around to see), he doesn’t understand and is not competent at.
I highly recommend the weekly ("copyrighted feature") of Harry Shearer's "Le Show" called: "It's a Smart World After All."
Also, Al Franken's recent You Tube where he has Alexa and Siri testifying to a congressional committee. Hilarious.
Sorry, that's all I've got for now. The smell of hubris drives me away.
And yet you attack democrats in the very first sentence of your post.
Please tell me how my title “Democrats made a huge mistake“ is an attack? How do you suggest I would’ve worded that so it was not an attack?
Your post has nothing to do with democrats.
It’s tiresome to read through the comments. I wish Prof Reich would comment on the massive strike for living wages which is going on at his own institution. It would be a hell more interesting.
Prof. Reich has an "institution"? On strike? Tell us more.
Musk failed to understand that an internet based company like Twitter has to manufacture an environment for communication that people want use just like a car manufacture has to produce cars people want to buy or rockets people trust to send their payloads into space. 21st century dude Musk is stuck in 1965.