South Korea is more than willing to subsidize the shit out of heavy industry to establish an industrial basis. They recognized that they could either compete toe-to-toe with Japan or be a vassal state of Japan and they went as fascist as they needed to. It worked - they have an industrial base to rival Japan's now and a much younger workforce. They also want to be the ones to sell to China when China gets its shit together. Everybody I know who plays the ponies has made some coin on Tesla. It's always about timing. Thing about Tesla is you aren't betting on Tesla's actual performance, you're betting on the market reaction to Tesla. Wanna see the /b/ of investing?
Everyone (at least in cars) seems to be shifting their game plan to focus more on China, and to a lesser extent, India as emerging markets. The politics behind it are really weird, diplomatically and economically. It's very interesting. I'm on mobile at the moment, so I can't post links, but for example Buick as a brand name is seen as desirable, the Chinese are more than willing to create bootleg versions of popular vehichles, and as a reflection of China's passion for making knock off products, a lot of car companies are nervous to work with China for fear that their patents and technology will be lifted and the Chinese government won't intervene. I've learned bits and pieces about this over the years as I read car blogs, but when I think about it all at once, it feels very overwhelming. I'm not judging anyone who does this, with Tesla's stock or any other stock. I know the stock market has tools built in that encourages this type of behavior. There's something about it though, that makes it seem kind of immoral to me. I feel like maybe treating companies like speculative commodities like gold or oil keeps us from appreciating their real value, and that's the products they offer and the jobs they create. I think owning something makes you responsible to feel concerned for its well being, and that if you decide to own part of a company, you do so not just because you expect it to do well, but because you want it to do well because you value it. I think thats where I'm getting my difficulty wrapping my head around short stocks and how they work. That's probably a really naive way to look at stocks though.Thing about Tesla is you aren't betting on Tesla's actual performance, you're betting on the market reaction to Tesla.
You can look at it that way. You'll get creamed, but you can look at it that way. A better way to look at it is as a method of passive income that has grown ever more important as interest rates cease to reward savers in any meaningful way. Monetary policy is such that your government is deliberately fucking you if you expect to be able to put your money in a savings account and expect to live off of it in the future. That's one perspective, anyway. Me? I hate shorting. Perhaps it's because I short things because I hate them, not because I actually have any real insight into their performance. Bet you haven't heard this one before. (link is dead; here's the content)