Well, I was referring to the Dragon Capsule, not the SS. But to your point.

Lines that hold pressure may be rated for weeks and thousands of temperature cycles may not be rated for months and 10's of thousands.

The Soyuz capsule is designed to be a life boat and for months at a time it is basically dead. so it has the ability to start from a cold start. The SS couldn't do that.

Not saying that it (either the SS or Dragon) couldn't be designed to those specifications but that were not. The things you point our were ratted for those missions.

Space is a harsh mistress (or was that the Moon?). You don't have to worry about corrosion but there are many other things one has to worry about - most which are exotic and that we have only have modest understanding of. (Unlike corrosion - a well know and understood monster)

Is it a human consumables issue?

When I read the comment my mind jumped to harsh conditions of space. Having all of the components work flawless for a few weeks is one thing, a few months is another thing.

The thing is that it is not snowing most of the time so you only need the heat for brief periods of time. The road can soak up the solar power over many days (where individually each day could not provided the power) and dump it's power over a short period of time to heat the road to melt the snow.

No, it is totally legitimate to say it is "private" even if the government is the only buyer (and their not –as others have pointed out.) – the profits flow to Musk & Company.

I think what you are trying to say is that it is not a free market – but that also is not true. For a free market to work all you need is multiple independent agents (publicly or privately owned) who can freely bid for the work. That is the bare minimum in order to have a free market is to have multiple producers or multiple consumers.

Of course the fewer agents involved the greater the chance of mischief will occur but that would be a different point – the efficiency of the market.

The value add for Tesla, if I understand correctly, is that Tesla get a reliable source of battery packs. Panasonic was unwilling to invest in a new plant because of the risk – why build a expensive plant that will be gathering dust in 10 years because Tesla has moved on – either by going bankrupt or moving to a new battery technology.

It is not uncommon for a company to co-invest with a supplier to ensure their supply chain. Apple invested in new Samsung LCD foundries to ensure they would have a ready and exclusive supply of retina displays, but I don’t think Apple got hold of any of Samsung’s IP.

Auto manufactures, Intel, WalMart, and Boeing are a few of the other companies that I can think off – sometimes they reach deep into the supplier, other times not.

So at this point I am saying I don’t know but I think not – still looking for evidence.

It will be producing Panasonic batteries so I assume that the majority IP would be Panasonic. Besides, it is not just the IP (knowledge) but also “total factor productivity” (ability to apply that knowledge.) I assume the ability to (hopefully) efficiently run the factor would mostly accrue to Panasonic. (and yes, I am making a lot of assumptions here. I would love to hear from anybody who knows more.)

For the battery packs, I would be surprised. The Gigafactory that Tesla is building will be majority owned by Panasonic. i.e., it is a Panasonic factory, building Panasonic batteries, but it is being built for Tesla, with Tesla money. It is “Tesla” factory because they will be getting the output.

I know that Tesla is looking for better battery solutions but I have not heard that they have come up with anything.

Right - If Tesla sells it's own stocks those funds are treated as cash flow. If Tesla issues bonds that would be treated as cash flow. Both of these end up on the balance sheet as either equity or a liability. In neither case does it show up on the income statement as profit or revenue.

As a side note, Tesla can only dilute it's own stock by issuing new stock as long as investors have a long term positive view on it's profitability. The more shares you issue the more you dilute any future profit that a single share has claim to, reducing the price of that stock.

Service for current vehicles.
Powertrains for Toyota's RAV4.
They sell fuel credits to other companies that make polluting vehicles.
etc.

Lots of this and that.

How does a rising stock price affect Tesla's profit? If Tesla sold more of it's own stock that would generate cash flow, not profit. Any other explanations?

At least 5%. The Fed wants it to be closer to 8% so we don’t have another financial crisis. See Basel III to understand. True, the banks only have to deposit that with the Fed but that fraction still adds up to the trillions.

O.K. What does that give us? Banks would no longer need 3t at the reserves – they would need 3t in the bank vaults. That just shifts the problem.

As for the other points it looks like we have a misunderstanding – I am not sure how you pulled that statement. Let me try again. US Money (M2) is balanced upon the smaller supply of currency with a value of about 3t. We currently have gold with a value of 240b, which leaves us a gap of~2.7t. Filling that gap would be interesting . one would need to do it either by buying vast amounts of gold or by gimmicks. Revaluing the dollar is not going to do you any good – you are not changing the value of the gold – the value of the gold is set by world prices.

I do not like hard currency systems, but if you are going to have a hard currency system you should do it right. Its virtue is that it is simple and robust. There is no way to break the bank by having a currency run. Hybrid system between hard and fiat money tend to have contradictions that causes their collapse.

On to your points.

MO is just physical cash. You also need to factor in the monetary base – what banks keep in the vault or at the central bank – the non-fractional part of fractional reserves. That would also need to be replaced.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...

For a gold back standard to work a country must able (or appear able) to swap currency with gold, which means it is tied to the world price of gold. People have tried various methods to get around this.

One could revalue the dollar vs. gold, which really means devaluing, which means debasing, which just causes inflation and does not get you anywhere. Remember, the value of all dollars should be the same as the value of your gold in your vault.

People have tried to game the system. The problem is that when people call your bluff and you can’t ante up, your currency collapse.

Most hard money types consider FDR’s action the first step off of the gold supply. Also times were different then. The US had much more gold in stock relative to the economy and the economy was less global. Not so much today. Plus FDR was sitting on the biggest supply of gold. As the 800 pound Gorilla nobody nation could called his bluff.

There are other ways to bluff the system. Cranking up real interests is one but that hurts the real economy. On can restrict currency conversion (holding gold, exporting gold, or importing anything else.) to have a closed system but that has serious implications. See Venezuela today. There are many other examples back in the 70s and 80s. Countries have tried to get away with holding only fractional reserves or dual reserves (Gold and Silver) but when these system are tested they hold up until they crumple like a pop can.

You are right. Currency is fixed. Money (i.e. any ready asset, not just currency) is elastic. Only currency would need to be fully backed by gold – and it would have to or there would be a run on the currency. If there were a run, well.

We would need about 3 trillion dollars of gold to go back on the gold standard. I think we have about 240 billion. Not sure how many more metric tons we would need.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...

My 2 cents - I don’t think currency should be backed by stock, be it gold, cattle, cotton, stock, etc. We have a responsible central bank, and as long as we have one of those the benefits of fiat money outweigh the risks.

There is a simple way to identify something as an investment or speculation. If something has a cash flow (or a yield) it is a investment. If it doesn’t it’s speculation.

If I purchase 1 BitCoin and 1 ounce of gold today, I will have 1 BitCoin and 1 ounce of gold 1 year from now. That’s speculation – you are hoping that the price will change.

If I buy a bond it has a yield. If I buy some stock I am going to get a slice of the company’s earnings. If I buy property I will get rent. If I buy some forest my trees will grow – this is my non-cash example. These are investments.

Sigh, no it doesn't. About 5% to 10% of mined gold goes into manufacturing. The rest goes towards bullion or jewelry (which for most people is the same as bullion – a store of wealth). We could shut down every last gold mine and have enough in our reserves to meet manufacturing demands for centuries. The price of gold is determined by the “investors” in gold – not the manufactures.

If you want to tie your currency because they have manufacturing value, chose copper, chromium, nickel, or tungsten