Split Thread Trickle-down economics

[The Great Zaganza]

That is stupid when the potential harm is predictable, as it adds layers of discovery and litigation to the process, only benefiting companies with a big legal department.

It's doubly stupid in cases where harm is predictably unpredictable, like anything affecting water flow.

Musk just wants profits now, lawsuits and bribes later.
It's a familiar pattern

 

[dirtywick]

I do, but I'm a realist. Everything humans do has an impact on the environment. We have to balance that against the benefits we get from our activities. Environmental policies and regulations should strike a balance too. Elon Musk says regulations should focus on punishing infractions rather than preemptive regulation. I agree with that where the likely harm is small. Because Musk's companies started out with little or no experience and are innovating hard they have made some mistakes, but they are learning. The system is working.

You OTOH would cancel them because their record on the environment isn't spotless. I bet yours isn't either, but you're not cancelling yourself. Something else is going on here, and we all know what it is.

i’ll take that bet. present your evidence or retract your claim

 

[dann]

From bsky:

 

[Trausti]

From bsky:

Yes. There's this money tree. The 1% got there first and harvested all the money. No money left on the tree for the rest of us. How wealth is created is just one of God's impenetrable mysteries.

 

[theprestige]

It's hilarious to me that, in a thread about trickle down economics, people are ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ all over the company that's done more to advance the state of the art of commercial space launch than the American and European cartels - ULA and Arianespace - combined. A central tenet of space exploration enthusiasts is that innovations there have laudable trickle down benefits to society as a whole.

 

[steenkh]

It's hilarious to me that, in a thread about trickle down economics, people are ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ all over the company that's done more to advance the state of the art of commercial space launch than the American and European cartels - ULA and Arianespace - combined. A central tenet of space exploration enthusiasts is that innovations there have laudable trickle down benefits to society as a whole.

Aren't you confusing trickle-down economy with technological benefits here?

 

[theprestige]

Aren't you confusing trickle-down economy with technological benefits here?

It all adds up. Cheaper space launch means more accessible communications. It means lower costs for government and military satellites. It means more productivity and efficiency for average people.

Remember "you didn't build that"? Someone else built it, and the economic benefits trickled down to you, and it's thanks to them that you are economically successful? Trickle-down economics. Someone invests in Not You, and that's how Yes You gets help.

But not when SpaceX is the investor. Not when SpaceX generates the enabling benefits for you. Because trickle down economics is only real when the government does it with your tax dollars, apparently. Investor dollars can't do it. Commercial opportunities for private corporations can't do it.

No, for you, trickle down economics, "you didn't build that" economics, can only work - can only be allowed to work - when the government shuts down as much private enterprise as possible, skims as much tax revenue as it can off whatever private economic activity is left, and then tries to build some enabling infrastructure prop up a government cartel like ULA.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

only works if the gap is close enough that Luxury Items can become commonplace.
Doesn't work for private plane or yachts, mansions, etc. etc.


and you completely missed the point of "you didn't build that": they absolutely didn't, a society provided them with the means and opportunity to build it. You can't build a reactor in a cave on your own if you are not Tony Stark.
There are no "self-made men" or fortunes. Never have been.

 

[theprestige]

only works if the gap is close enough that Luxury Items can become commonplace.
Doesn't work for private plane or yachts, mansions, etc. etc.

I'm not arguing that the personal wealth of 1%ers trickles down. I'm arguing that private investment in commercial activity generates effects that flow out to the rest of society as a whole. I'm arguing that it does so in much the same way that government investment in commercial activity - including in infrastructure, and including things like lowering regulatory barriers to entry, and lowering regulatory barriers to profit - generates effects that flow out to the rest of society.

I'm also arguing (by implication) that I did in fact build those bridges and highways and other commerce-enabling infrastructure that Barack Obama was so unjustifiably proud of. It's my tax money that pays for it. Taxes levied on my labor, my economic activity. Infrastructure doesn't come from the magical benevolent hand of the Obamassiah. It comes from taxes on the private labor of private individuals.

The government didn't build SpaceX. The government didn't develop reusable first stage rocketry. It hired SpaceX. With my money. And if government was any good at its job, the reduced costs of space launch would trickle down to me, if nothing else than in the form of dissolving the overpriced ULA cartel that is currently crying for government protection.

 

[dirtywick]

well, they didn't. the reduced launch costs made spacex satellite network a lot cheaper to build out and the ceo and it's biggest investors kept the profits and the savings to the tune of being some of the richest people on the planet

so unless the personal wealth trickles down, seems like you got the raw end of the deal

 

[Roger Ramjets]

well, they didn't. the reduced launch costs made spacex satellite network a lot cheaper to build out and the ceo and it's biggest investors kept the profits and the savings to the tune of being some of the richest people on the planet

This is silly. Every business 'keeps its savings and profits'. In a competitive market anybody making excess profits will be undercut by others offering the same thing cheaper.

But is SpaceX making a profit?

SpaceX Aims To Be the Largest IPO Ever — But It Just Posted a $4.28 Billion Quarterly Loss

Strip out the AI business, and SpaceX looks healthy. The company generated $18.7 billion in consolidated revenue in 2025, up 33% from $14.1 billion in 2024, with $6.6 billion in adjusted EBITDA. In 2024, before the xAI merger was folded into the financials, SpaceX posted net income of $791 million. After the merger, the picture flips. SpaceX recast its 2025 results to reflect xAI and reported a $4.94 billion net loss for the full year.

5.5% net profit in 2024. Doesn't sound excessive.

The reason SpaceX can absorb that burn is Starlink. The Connectivity segment booked $11.39 billion in revenue in 2025—about 61% of the company's total—with $4.42 billion in operating profit and a 39% operating margin. Subscribers more than doubled year-over-year (YoY) to 10.3 million across 164 countries. It is the only segment that consistently earns money on a GAAP basis.

One yellow flag... average revenue per user slipped from $81 at the end of 2025 to $66 in Q1 2026 as Starlink pushed into lower-priced international markets. Growth in subscribers is offsetting it for now

Musk isn't pocketing the profit. He's plowing it back into infrastructure, making Starlink available to more customers at a lower price and/or better service than alternatives. He's also planning on putting data centers in space so they don't use up terrestrial resources. You could say that Starlink customers are paying for that development indirectly, but this applies to any company which is developing new products.

So how did Musk become a Trillionaire? In short, by growing the business instead of pocketing the profit, making the company worth more in the eyes of investors who bid the stock up. If Musk screws up SpaceX could be worth nothing, and he loses all his 'wealth' overnight. In the worst case scenario SpaceX's creditors call in their loans and the business can't make payroll, resulting in bankruptcy. Since Musk has personally guaranteed some rather large loans he could end up literally penniless.

That's how capitalism works in our society. If you don't like it then vote in the Communist party and have everything planned by committee. Then while you're queuing up for your weekly loaf of bread you can feel happy that Elon has to queue up too.

 

[dirtywick]

if there's any sense of justice musk will end up penniless, he's a lying con man. but he's rewarded, and that's how capitalism works in our society.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

I'm also arguing (by implication) that I did in fact build those bridges and highways and other commerce-enabling infrastructure that Barack Obama was so unjustifiably proud of. It's my tax money that pays for it. Taxes levied on my labor, my economic activity. Infrastructure doesn't come from the magical benevolent hand of the Obamassiah. It comes from taxes on the private labor of private individuals.

No, you didn't. Everybody (not just you) paid taxes that the government then put into roads and bridges. You just provided the money, same as you do when buying stuff from private companies. What Obama was saying was that everybody is benefiting from public works. If the government hadn't built out the interstate highway system back in the 50's with tax dollars you didn't pay, the US economy wouldn't be what it is today.

The government didn't build SpaceX. The government didn't develop reusable first stage rocketry. It hired SpaceX. With my money. And if government was any good at its job, the reduced costs of space launch would trickle down to me, if nothing else than in the form of dissolving the overpriced ULA cartel that is currently crying for government protection.

The government didn't build SpaceX, but it did give it the leg-up it needed to become viable. That's one reason it contracts stuff out to private companies. A mixed economy works better than pure socialism or pure captilaism.

The usual (and valid) complaint about trickle down is when tax cuts or handouts are given to the rich on the theory that it will 'trickle down' to poor consumers. But this often isn't the case. Instead they simply pocket it and carry on as usual - which is what we would do too!

 

[Roger Ramjets]

if there's any sense of justice musk will end up penniless, he's a lying con man. but he's rewarded, and that's how capitalism works in our society.

I grant you that Musk has been optimistic in some of his aspirations, but I wouldn't say the things he has produced are a con. This includes the most popular car model (not just EV) on the planet, autonomous driving that works anywhere, grid-scale battery storage which is making fossil power plants redundant, home battery storage that creates a 'virtual power plant' of thousands of homes on the grid, reusable rockets that dramatically reduced the cost of sending things to space etc.

Yes there have been some misses, and Musk now admits that nobody's going to be living on Mars any time soon. But this was mostly due to naivety on his part, not a deliberate attempt to con people. He still has wild ideas today, but they are more grounded in reality.

Reminds me of a guy I knew in the 80's who had this great idea for a more efficient speedboat hull. Time came to demonstrate it at an event in Auckland and the bloody outboard motor wouldn't go to full throttle. So there we were puttering around at about 5 knots and the crowd wasn't at all impressed. That guy was also a genius - and thought way more of himself than I could stand. Eventually he went bankrupt and I lost the money I had invested in his business. But I wouldn't call him a conman, just an inventor who was too arrogant to realize his own limitations.

 

[dirtywick]

i know you wouldn't say he's a con obviously, you're like a huge musk stan. but he's been found liable for securities fraud by the sec so that's kind of enough by itself. i don't know if i need to get in to any of the other things he's done, like the more than one time he ran tech demos remotely controlling robots and presenting them as autonomous, his doge coin influencer scam, or what about the fake election fraud lotteries? that stuff is pretty bad. of course he has reason to be optimistic, he got away with a lot of it.

but that all is minor frauds compared to hiring a guy named big balls to upload hundreds of millions of people's social security data. did that guy you knew in the 80s do that?

 

[Trausti]

if there's any sense of justice musk will end up penniless, he's a lying con man. but he's rewarded, and that's how capitalism works in our society.

Malicious envy is such a destructive trait.

 

[ZiprHead]

Musk isn't pocketing the profit. He's plowing it back into infrastructure,

If that were so, it wouldn't be classified as profit.

 

[dirtywick]

musk is in $600m in political contributions in the last two election cycles while raking in these government contracts. not hard to see where he's plowing his money and why

 

[psionl0]

If that were so, it wouldn't be classified as profit.

That's not how it works. Capital expenditure is not an expense but an investment and therefore, does not affect profit. (Why do you think that the tax man only allows you to included the depreciation of business assets and not their cost as a deduction?).

 

[Frank Newgent]

That's not how it works. Capital expenditure is not an expense but an investment and therefore, does not affect profit. (Why do you think that the tax man only allows you to included the depreciation of business assets and not their cost as a deduction?).

In the US Section 179 of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code allows businesses to immediately expense the full cost of qualifying equipment, software, and property in the year it is placed in service. Though the max deduction for this year is $2,560,000.

And the deduction cannot exceed your total business net income for the year.