And when you need to raise capital? Tough sell.

What he's describing is communism. Since he won't actually control his business anymore, there won't be any need to raise capital.

I'm not saying seize the means of production. I'm saying "stop putting all of the money into places where it does no good". That's simple as giving a pay raise without a corresponding price increase to offset the costs to shareholders, who often have no real association with the enterprise.

The entire premise of an economy is people exchange money for goods and services. Instead of having money available for that exercise, we've locked a lot of the value produced into equities that are left mainly as unrealized gains. The unrealized gains must continuously go up while the ability for people to participate in the economy by spending money that they earned has gone down, because they receive less of the share of their labor.

Theoretically, you'd need to raise less capital once the business is established.

Money paid out to some retiree who doesn't even know that they hold shares through their retirement or pension plan is money not put into company bank accounts to fund future business endeavors.

Actually, speaking of the retiree, I don't know what it is, exactly, that the modern shareholder brings to the table that justifies their returns, especially in situations where they receive a dividend. The vast majority of shares of most publicly-traded companies are held by financial institutions who have a fiduciary duty to account holders. That means that, at the drop of a hat, they need to be able to exit their position on a given equity and put the money into something that either earns more money or loses less of it. They have as little attachment to the stock, and thus the business fitness, of the company as is possible. This means they don't care how things are going at the company. In a society that puts a lot of essential services, goods, and infrastructure in the hands of publicly-traded corporations, this means no one cares how things are going at the institutions holding up massive parts of society. See Boeing and their QC woes over the last decade while also noting their importance to American national security.

Also, how about make smaller cheaper pickups. These giant pickups cost a small fortune. A small affordable pickup would do well on the market, including an electric one.

They did that for a year with the Maverick.

The refresh jacked up the price, because, well, they can.

This is North America. With the exception of a few relatively small metro areas, if you live in the US or Canada, you must own a car in order to survive. They've got it; you need it. Pay up.

There's also the impact of CAFE rules. "Let the market sort it out" types often point to these as perverse incentives ruining the profitability of small trucks, but they forget that the automakers lobbied for the light truck exemption.

> The refresh jacked up the price, because, well, they can.

Publicly traded company gonna behave like a publicly traded company.

Yeah, I wanted a Maverick, and bam price went up.

Fingers crossed for Telo Trucks! Barely bigger than a kei truck but with as much bed space as a light duty pickup.

"Ford CEO says new mid-size electric pickup will match the cost of Chinese EVs":

https://electrek.co/2024/10/28/fords-new-electric-pickup-riv...

BYD Shark PHEV is 40k USD in Australia - there’s just no way they can match that.

The way they match that is by lobbying the Australian government to jack the tariff on Chinese vehicles through the roof compared to vehicles made anywhere else, particularly North America.

With only a 29kwh battery? I'm expecting a much larger battery in Ford's BEV compact pickup.

Logic Henry Ford would recognize.

Ah yes, the famous logic of Henry Ford. Pay union workers? Bad. Buy newspaper to run anti-semitic trash for eight years? Good.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dearborn_Independent