He's not going to get all the incentives, well unless they rig it. He will need to sell a piece of spacex on the market to cross that magic threshold. Now who is stupid?

He really needs to try harder if he wants to even come close to trump. He should at least add a meme crypto coin, some hats, maybe MGBGA hats, a line of booze, maybe Irish whisky or beer, and I'm sure trump had others, just can't remember them off the top of my head.

I think pretty obvious to all but the stupid, spacex is there to help elon be The First Trillionaire.

Spacex is private. Elon runs it. Tesla similar, although public Elop owns such a large percentage along with trusted cronies owns enough he gets his way. I don't own amazon, but I do own share in companies and I vote just like in elections. Often not the way the board of directors recommends.

died. Micro-strategy I just read is now saying they may have to sell some btc to pay dividends and interest. If that stock isn't a pyramid scheme, I don't know what is. They sell common shares to buy btc to inflate btc price. Problem is that means more dividends to be paid, and the dilution of their current btc holdings from selling shares. I think China is smart enough to know when this sucker crashes, its going to be monumental. And they'd rather not have their citizens holding the bag.

Time flies, 20 is only 2005, which was full swing internet. I'd say 40, well really close to 50. I was using email in school on arpa in 78 or 79. Commercial beginnings were mid-80's I think. I worked for a defense contractor early 80's and the project managers were communicating with DoD via arpa email. Mere worker bees like me were using email, but I think all internal if I remember right, on a VAX/VMS system, and near the end of my stint there, Sun's. So long ago a bit foggy. I do recall in 92 submitting an application for a domain name for a company I joined. It was much more of a bar to jump to get a domain name back then. Basically you had to justify why and promise all sorts of things. Now you don't even give your name.

I think many have sold them off. Ford looks like they still own a /8(19.xxx), but gm does not anymore. The "big" guys these days are the cloud providers, although quite fractured. ATT & verizon as you'd expect have big chunks as well.

Perhaps if you work for someone. I've had several things done over the past few years. A water heater for 3500, probably cost 600, so around 3 grand for 3 man hours of labor. The guy worked as a contractor. I asked him if he ever moonlit, as I thought he did good work and would want to bypass the corporate take if he could. He was completely uninterested. Completely. I think he was making very good buck as he had his own tools including a cool little device to crimp copper fittings. I also had a new AC put in. I did a little research, looked like around 4 grand in materials for the system. My price, 13.5K. Probably 20 man hours between the group. Not quite as good as the plumber wage. These were some guys that worked for themselves, and their price was lower than a "big firm". So I see a big disconnect between that average wage and what I've been paying.

OK Komrade. Pretty clear where your loyalties lie.

a low budget sci-fi movie. Attack of the black radioactive fungi. Or Escaped from Chernobyl.

And I repeat, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The alliance was happy to have Russia throwing bodies on Germany's eastern front. Immediately after the war, the friendship was over and the winners were in chop up mode. The west got western Germany & Russia got eastern. Which would you want to have lived in after the war?

That was a very brief period when Yeltsin was pres and it looked like Russia may go for a real democracy. Didn't last. And if we go back to the earliest days, the French wanted to screw the British so they helped the US against Britain. Spain and the Dutch also provided some support. Russia was nowhere. The US should be natural enemies with any dicktatorship. Which is precisely why we should be supporting Ukraine, not having our puppet help vlad take Ukraine, and probably the rest of eastern Europe after he does that. If we are lucky, Putin will die. Hopefully from his fav, poison.

Remind me, when were the US and Russia ever really allies. Immediately after WW2 the alliance collapsed. We were never friends beyond the enemy of my enemy is my friend. That is not friends.

That is my point. The subsidy is they work more for less. The US conversely works less for more. Unsustainable. Really a typical cycle. Societies ascend, societies descend. Maybe it is China's turn again to be top dog. Humans being humans, expect a war.