Curt Doolittle

Theme: Productivity

  • Fixed pie thinking is parasitic, just as pastoralists are parasitic thinkers and

    Fixed pie thinking is parasitic, just as pastoralists are parasitic thinkers and agrarians are productive thinkers.

  • Fixed pie thinking is parasitic, just as pastoralists are parasitic thinkers and

    Fixed pie thinking is parasitic, just as pastoralists are parasitic thinkers and agrarians are productive thinkers.

  • Fixed pie thinking is parasitic, just as pastoralists are parasitic thinkers and

    Fixed pie thinking is parasitic, just as pastoralists are parasitic thinkers and agrarians are productive thinkers.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-11-25 10:43:00 UTC

  • Remington will go upside down relatively soon. Colt is still trying to recover f

    Remington will go upside down relatively soon. Colt is still trying to recover from Bankruptcy. But the underlying issue is fairly simple: all technical innovation in firearms has been coming (as expected) from belgian, german, and austrian engineers. The most popular weapon in the states is effectively open sourced (the AR15) – so much so that like gaming computers and harley davidson’s it’s a kit-gun open for constant customization. The AR15/M4 is actually a poor quality platform – it’s just cheap, light, and reasonably accurate. While the plastic gun craze of the 80s-00’s resulted in a ridiculous number of failed designs, we seem to be exiting that period. And aside from Smith and Wesson, it doesn’t appear that american companies can come close to the production quality of FN/Steyr/HK/Glock. And given that there are no patents on some of the most popular guns (CZ/1911), and that nearly anyone can buy CAD/CAM systems with barrels being the only particularly challenging bit of technology, it’s just …. well, not a good market for americans. I see it as a continuation of the american design ethic, business ethic. We are sort of like the brits now. We can only make labor intensive products with heavy adult supervision.

  • Remington will go upside down relatively soon. Colt is still trying to recover f

    Remington will go upside down relatively soon. Colt is still trying to recover from Bankruptcy. But the underlying issue is fairly simple: all technical innovation in firearms has been coming (as expected) from belgian, german, and austrian engineers. The most popular weapon in the states is effectively open sourced (the AR15) – so much so that like gaming computers and harley davidson’s it’s a kit-gun open for constant customization. The AR15/M4 is actually a poor quality platform – it’s just cheap, light, and reasonably accurate. While the plastic gun craze of the 80s-00’s resulted in a ridiculous number of failed designs, we seem to be exiting that period. And aside from Smith and Wesson, it doesn’t appear that american companies can come close to the production quality of FN/Steyr/HK/Glock. And given that there are no patents on some of the most popular guns (CZ/1911), and that nearly anyone can buy CAD/CAM systems with barrels being the only particularly challenging bit of technology, it’s just …. well, not a good market for americans. I see it as a continuation of the american design ethic, business ethic. We are sort of like the brits now. We can only make labor intensive products with heavy adult supervision.

  • Remington will go upside down relatively soon. Colt is still trying to recover f

    Remington will go upside down relatively soon. Colt is still trying to recover from Bankruptcy. But the underlying issue is fairly simple: all technical innovation in firearms has been coming (as expected) from belgian, german, and austrian engineers. The most popular weapon in the states is effectively open sourced (the AR15) – so much so that like gaming computers and harley davidson’s it’s a kit-gun open for constant customization. The AR15/M4 is actually a poor quality platform – it’s just cheap, light, and reasonably accurate. While the plastic gun craze of the 80s-00’s resulted in a ridiculous number of failed designs, we seem to be exiting that period. And aside from Smith and Wesson, it doesn’t appear that american companies can come close to the production quality of FN/Steyr/HK/Glock. And given that there are no patents on some of the most popular guns (CZ/1911), and that nearly anyone can buy CAD/CAM systems with barrels being the only particularly challenging bit of technology, it’s just …. well, not a good market for americans. I see it as a continuation of the american design ethic, business ethic. We are sort of like the brits now. We can only make labor intensive products with heavy adult supervision.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-11-24 12:55:00 UTC

  • Tesla

    (via Vincent Wolters at Seeking Alpha) TSLA gross margin excluding R&D is comparable to that of competitors. (~25%) TSLA SG&A per revenue is higher than that of competitors and just about wipes out gross profits. There is no indication of economies of scale in spite of increased production. Expansion will not lead to profits if Tesla doesn’t change its cost structure. CURT: (This is being critical of overhead costs – which are, admittedly, nonsense-high, but neither acknowledging that revenues purpose is to offset R&D costs, and the analyst is not putting value on the upside. They’re using the amazon model and betting that they will own the battery market, and therefore the whole car market. IMO this is exactly how leaps in technology should be achieved: public investment (with non-voting public ownership), and funnelling all profits into R&D and market expansion. Markets do not produce capital intensive leaps as fast as mixed market investments.

  • Tesla

    (via Vincent Wolters at Seeking Alpha) TSLA gross margin excluding R&D is comparable to that of competitors. (~25%) TSLA SG&A per revenue is higher than that of competitors and just about wipes out gross profits. There is no indication of economies of scale in spite of increased production. Expansion will not lead to profits if Tesla doesn’t change its cost structure. CURT: (This is being critical of overhead costs – which are, admittedly, nonsense-high, but neither acknowledging that revenues purpose is to offset R&D costs, and the analyst is not putting value on the upside. They’re using the amazon model and betting that they will own the battery market, and therefore the whole car market. IMO this is exactly how leaps in technology should be achieved: public investment (with non-voting public ownership), and funnelling all profits into R&D and market expansion. Markets do not produce capital intensive leaps as fast as mixed market investments.

  • TESLA (via Vincent Wolters at Seeking Alpha) TSLA gross margin excluding R&D is

    TESLA

    (via Vincent Wolters at Seeking Alpha)

    TSLA gross margin excluding R&D is comparable to that of competitors. (~25%)

    TSLA SG&A per revenue is higher than that of competitors and just about wipes out gross profits.

    There is no indication of economies of scale in spite of increased production.

    Expansion will not lead to profits if Tesla doesn’t change its cost structure.

    CURT:

    (This is being critical of overhead costs – which are, admittedly, nonsense-high, but neither acknowledging that revenues purpose is to offset R&D costs, and the analyst is not putting value on the upside.

    They’re using the amazon model and betting that they will own the battery market, and therefore the whole car market.

    IMO this is exactly how leaps in technology should be achieved: public investment (with non-voting public ownership), and funnelling all profits into R&D and market expansion.

    Markets do not produce capital intensive leaps as fast as mixed market investments.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-11-24 12:34:00 UTC

  • by Igor Rogov Sexuality may undermine productivity and lead to unfair competitiv

    by Igor Rogov Sexuality may undermine productivity and lead to unfair competitive advantage, that may undermine corporate structure. And corporate competition undermines healthy sexual relationship. The problem as I see it is in mixing two ethical systems: one of production of goods and another of sexuality. They are not entirely mutually exclusive, but certainly not fully compatible. It would be good to make proper barriers and keep them apart, but alas.