This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I think DJT has become a meme stock the same way GME and BBY were before it. Nobody buying DJT at $30 a share is doing a rational valuation based on its actual business. We are talking about a company that, in the three months ending June 30th, had revenue of $800k against operating costs of $19M. You can go read the latest 10Q yourself. Their own calculation shows an outstanding share count of 191M shares against $341M of equity. That's an implied share price below $2, assuming DJT was breaking even in its operations. So, what's the path for DJT to 20x its revenue without any increase in operating cost?
Part of what may be inflating the stock price is the fact it's so expensive and risky to bet against it. shorting is close to impossible due to restrictions and borrow costs; put options absurdly expensive.
i believe Truth Social is profitable as a business and that these $19 million losses are due to one-time expenses, like legal fees . this is under: "Other general and administrative (G&A)"
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/08/12/trump-media-truth-social-stock-price/74768174007/
most of those losses due to the development of the streaming service and legal expenses, which is not too bad.
According to the USA Today article you linked Truth Social had $8.3M in legal expenses and $3.1M in technology expenses for its streaming service. Assuming both of these go to 0 that still leaves them with ~$8M in losses against 800k in revenue. Do you think Truth Social increased it's revenue 10x in the last three months? Did they reduce a bunch of other costs by 90%?
But it's not like they are going to developing a new streaming platform every quarter, or have to pay the same legal expenses every quarter. The streaming platform is is the second unveiling since Truth Social , which is already 2 years old. The legal expenses are related to Trump Media's merger, which is also not a recurring expense. If this were $19 million in advertising to promote Truth Social, then this would be a much worse situation, as it's understood to be recurring. Similar newly-public tech companies such as Twitter and Uber also had large legal expenses after going public, but these proved temporary even if a big deal at the time.
More options
Context Copy link
One might note that Twitter was bought to the moon on similarly dismal fundamentals year after year -- until the nasssty Musksises dropped a tonne of cash on it of course.
Evidence that Twitter's fundamentals were "similarly dismal?" As of Twitter's last 10Q they were reporting $1.2B in revenue against $1.5B of expenses for a net loss in the $300M range. I think having expenses that are around 25% higher than revenue is pretty different from having expenses that are 1000-2000% (10-20x) higher than revenue, as DJT reports.
I'm thinking more of the early stages -- note that even at the end they were losing quite a lot of money and yet people were still investing for some reason. I'd think that the people investing in TrumpCo also have some analagous reason.
"Losing money" is not, by itself, what I object to. Approximately every company loses money in some quarters. Even billions of dollars. It's the scale of the loss relative to incoming revenue. If you look at Twitter's first 10K after going public you will see there was only one year (2011) in which their losses are more than double their revenue. If you look at their first 10Q after going public you will see they were actually profitable that quarter! Meanwhile DJT is posting losses on the order of 10-20x revenue. As far back as I can find data for Twitter, they were not posting losses like that.
And yet DJT only lost $10-20M -- people were quite happy to buy Twitter when it was burning hundreds of millions.
If (for instance) you think that Truth Social might become 'Right Wing Twitter', getting in early would be a smart move. (not investment advice lol)
But X is already right wing Twitter
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Corruption. There are any number of ways a US president can use their office to make a corporation wealthy and powrrful. And-- it's also potentially a way to launder money into DJT's pocket. Much more efficient than the usual book deal/speaker fee shenanigans.
I predict that most serious presidential candiates, from this point on, will have suspiciously well-performing stock.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link