Goody, Goody!
Donald Trump’s commerce secretary told Americans to buy stock in Elon Musk’s electric car company, only for shares in Tesla to keep falling.
“I think, if you want to learn something on this show tonight, buy Tesla,” Howard Lutnick told Fox News on Wednesday. “It’s unbelievable that this guy’s stock is this cheap. It’ll never be this cheap again.”
He added: “I mean, who wouldn’t invest in Elon Musk? You gotta be kidding me.”
Regarding Tesla at least, the answer appears to be: lots of people. In the last month, shares have lost a third of their value. After Lutnick spoke, Tesla was down again in pre-market trading on Thursday.
Musk donated hundreds of millions of dollars to Trump’s re-election campaign and is now slashing government staffing and budgets under the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) – work proving increasingly unpopular and damaging to his businesses. Amid protests that have included vandalism of Teslas and dealerships, Musk has claimed to have done nothing wrong.
On Tuesday, he told Fox: “It turns out when you take away the money people get fraudulently, they get very upset. They basically want to kill me because I’m stopping their fraud, and they want to hurt Tesla because we are stopping this terrible waste and corruption in the government. I guess they are bad people. Bad people do bad things.”
Republicans have attacked Democrats for speaking out against Tesla. Observers have pointed out how the same Republicans have attacked companies for promoting values they do not share, celebrating financial reverses.
Tesla’s problems continue to grow. Last week, JP Morgan said: “We struggle to think of anything analogous in the history of the automotive industry, in which a brand has lost so much value so quickly.”
This week, Dan Ives, managing director at Wedbush and a major Tesla backer, said brand damage caused by Musk’s work for Trump “has spread globally over the last few weeks into what we would characterize as a brand tornado crisis moment”.
Lutnick spoke to Jesse Watters, a Fox primetime host and Trump cheerleader.
“It’s just so outrageous,” the former Cantor Fitzgerald CEO said. “You have probably the best entrepreneur, the best technologist, the best leader of any set of companies in America working for America, and you have this sort of weird side of the Democratic party attacking him.”
Lutnick repeated the claim that Musk “rescued” astronauts from the International Space Station via his SpaceX company on Wednesday – yet in fact, Nasa chose to wait for SpaceX to be ready for the mission.
Lutnick urged viewers to “buy Tesla” and expressed disbelief about the shares’ performance.
He continued: “When people understand the things he’s building, the robots he’s building, the technology he’s building, people are going to be dreaming of today and Jesse Watters, thinking, ‘Gosh, I should have bought Elon Musk’s stock’ … Whether today’s the bottom or not, I tell you what, Elon Musk is probably the best person to bet on I’ve ever met. And I think we all know that.”
Lutnick and Watters then engaged in cheerful promotion of $30,000 robots for domestic chores that the commerce secretary said Musk would soon bring to market.
Concern is growing about conflicts of interest involving Musk and whether he is profiting from his government work. This week, as Musk’s Starlink internet service was installed at the White House, senior Democrats called for investigations.
Lutnick told Fox: “Elon Musk is the best entrepreneur and technologist in America, and I bet on him. I wish I was allowed [to buy Tesla stock]. I’m not allowed to buy any stock.”
The Big, Bad Wolf and the Three Little Pigs: An Allegory for Our Time
No doubt as to who the Big Bad Wolf is.
Notice, please, that the Big Bad Wolf has only two ways of getting what he wants. The first is that he huffs and he puffs and he blows things down.
Huffing and puffing works fine on the First Little Pig, who built his house from straw—and even on the Second Little Pig, who chose wood as his building material. But huffing and puffing has no effect on the Third Little Pig, who used bricks to build his house.
The Big Bad Wolf’s second and last technique is telling lies. We don’t know whether the lies would have worked on the first two pigs, because they succumbed to the huffing and puffing—and got eaten—even before the Wolf had to resort to mendacity.
As to the Third Little Pig, not only does he build a brick house—and thus survive all the huffing and puffing—but he also responds to the Wolf’s bullshit with effective counterstrategy. And, so, at the end of the day, it’s the Big Bad Wolf who gets eaten, not the Third Little Pig.
One might say that the Third Little Pig knows his Sunzi:
Know yourself.
Know the enemy.
Hundred battles.
No peril.
As I said, we know who the Big Bad Wolf stands for.
The First Little Pig stands for the Republican members of the House and Senate. They are afraid of their constituents. Many of them are unintelligent and gullible. The others, the ones who understand what’s going on, do not have the character and moral courage to do their jobs. As the poet said, the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
And so, the house made of straw stands for our first branch of government, the United States Congress.
The Second Little Pig and his house of wood stand for those parts of our institutions that are made of somewhat sterner stuff than the house of straw, but that still succumb to the huffing and puffing. Think of Jeff Bezos as the Second Little Pig and the Washington Post as the wooden house.
The Third Little Pig and his brick house stand for those of us who’re going to survive this shitstorm. We go into battle armed with skill, flexibility, and moral conviction. In the end, it will be the Big, Bad Wolf who winds up in the pot. Not us.
France Wants Its Statue Back, and I Understand Why
“They Have Seen the Sick and the Hungry in Their Own Land, and Passed by on the Other Side of the Street. They Have Done it in Your Name. Have Mercy on Their Souls. Amen. Oh, P.S., Help Us Pass the Damn Test.”
AL.com, Archibald: Alabama wants to pray or pay
The Alabama Legislature is worried about your soul.
So it is considering a bill that would hold education for ransom, slashing funding for school districts that don’t start their classroom days with a prayer.
Good bread, good meat, time’s wastin’ let’s eat.
HB231, sponsored by Pike Road GOP Rep. Reed Ingram and a host of disciples, is clear. Your students, no matter their faith, creed or lack thereof, must hear a prayer “consistent with Judeo-Christian values.”
Or risk losing 25% or their state funding. More than $63 million in Jeffco, for instance. Almost $100 million in Mobile. That’s $37 million in Madison County, and $34 million in Huntsville.
Can I get an amen?
So let’s just take a quiz. What prayers might meet that standard?
It is, of course, not as simple as all that. The bill, a constitutional amendment that would require a vote of the people, would withhold the money from school districts that show a pattern of refusing to comply. But the point is very real.
Freedom of religion in Alabama means “our way,” or to hell with you. Literally.
If this bill, this public piety for political purpose is passed, teachers should print that final prayer out and read it every single day in class.
Bow your heads and say it with me.
Oh Lord, help those men and women in the Alabama Legislature. They have taken food from the mouths of children, medicine from the sick and hope from the hopeless. They cast your people into prisons without mercy, rail against the poor and the immigrant. They have seen the sick and the hungry in their own land, and passed by on the other side of the street. They have done it in your name. Have mercy on their souls.
Amen.
Oh. P.S. Help us pass that damn test.
___________
Thanks to old friend and fellow Tuscaloosa High grad WA for sending along the article.
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