Tag: Finance

Tesla vs. Gasoline: Analyzing Fuel Costs in 2025 | February 26 2026, 04:07

We bought a Tesla in mid-2025 – comparing gasoline costs to electricity costs.

Looking just at charging the Tesla, the stats are separate. Since buying, we’ve used 5000 kWh costing $738 – covering 13,550 miles. Meaning, traveling 18 miles (28 km) costs one dollar. On a Toyota RAV4, one dollar spent at the gas station gets me 10 miles (16 km).

Tesla Ends Lifetime Autopilot: Subscription Models Rise | January 24 2026, 19:27

Tesla has stopped selling the lifetime autopilot option for $8,000, leaving only a subscription for $100 a month. I never understood people who pay these $80,000 instead of sticking with the subscription, because the subscription only equals these $8,000 after 7.5 years (considering 3% inflation), when probably it’s time to switch to a new car anyway.

But it’s interesting how much Tesla has increased the attractiveness of cars with low mileage, which have FSD, but are sold significantly below the MSRP due to being used. In fact, if you’re buying a car and seriously intend to pay for FSD, purchasing a used one could save you thousands of dollars in ownership costs.

Federal Reserve Under Pressure: Jerome Powell’s Video Address on Presidential Influence | January 12 2026, 21:43

In the Russian-speaking segment, this news is somehow not visible at all, none of the media outlets are writing about it. Yesterday, Jerome Powell, the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, released a video message on the official Federal Reserve website’s homepage, stating that the president’s administration is putting pressure on him and his system, and part of this pressure involves trying to charge him for the building’s facade repairs.

The Federal Reserve System is the “bank of banks” and the main printing press of the world. Since the 1950s in the USA, there has been an unwritten rule: the president does not interfere with the Federal Reserve’s operations. If the Federal Reserve starts printing money or lowering rates just because the president needs to “boost” the economy before elections, the dollar will depreciate, and inflation will become uncontrollable.

Quote:

“I deeply respect the rule of law and accountability in our democracy. Of course, no one, including the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, is above the law, but this unprecedented action should be viewed in the broader context of threats from the administration and ongoing pressure.”

“The threat of criminal prosecution is a result of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best judgment of what serves the public interest, rather than according to the President’s preferences. The issue is whether the Federal Reserve can continue to set interest rates based on data and economic conditions — or whether monetary policy will be determined by political pressure or intimidation.”

If the pressure continues or if Powell is removed/arrested, there is a high chance that the loss of the Federal Reserve’s independence could lead to a sharp drop in the dollar’s value and an increase in the prices of gold and other assets.

As Nikolai Chapaev said in the textbook “Introduction to the Course ‘Philosophy and History of Education'”, “God forbid you live in an era of changes”…

Arbitrage Adventures: A Glimpse into Venezuela’s Currency Chaos | January 04 2026, 17:10

I first looked at a map of Venezuela around 15 years ago when you could fly there from Russia for a couple hundred dollars. I studied the map but never used it (though perhaps I should have).

At that time, it was the era of wild currency arbitrage, where the difference between the official bolivar rate “from the TV” and the real price on the black market reached astronomical proportions.

The scheme was simply brilliant: within the country, all airlines were required to sell tickets for local currency at the government rate. If an international flight cost a thousand dollars, it was converted into bolivars at the “pretty” official rate. But if you came off the street with a stack of real dollars and exchanged them at a money changer, the sum in bolivars needed to purchase the same ticket cost just a real hundred dollars, and sometimes even fifty.

The real fun began when intermediaries or acquaintances within the country got involved. You could book a ticket online through a local office, pay for it in bolivars through someone in Caracas, and then simply give them cash dollars when meeting, or transfer to a foreign account. The savings were so absurd that people flew business class simply because it was cheaper than lunch at Miami airport.

But cheap tickets were just the tip of the iceberg, because there was also something known as “raspao”. The state gave every traveler the right to buy a couple of thousand dollars at the cheap official rate on a credit card for spending abroad. Eventually, people bought cheap tickets, flew to the nearest islands, cashed in their currency quota, and returned home virtually rich, having sold these dollars on the black market for many times more.

Of course, this bonanza could not last forever and very quickly ended with a loud crash. Airlines quickly realized that their accounts were filled with millions of worthless-bolivars, which the government flatly refused to exchange for real currency. Planes flew half-empty, although all seats were officially bought out for currency quotas, and the government’s debts to carriers grew to billions of dollars, after which global giants simply began to massively leave the market.

But it worked for a while. I don’t remember exactly, somewhere between 2011 and 2014.

How such a breakdown between the official and unofficial rates lasted so long is beyond comprehension. The government could not quickly abolish the official rate because it supported imports of food and medicine. As soon as they acknowledged the real dollar rate, prices in stores would have skyrocketed immediately (which later happened). Flight tickets merely became a “collateral hole” in the system that everyone used while it was possible.

Decoding Insane Prices in the Art Market | November 20 2025, 19:03

Let’s be honest about the art market (and why the prices there are insane).

Actually, there’s no mystery to it. It works somewhat like NFTs, only with a longer history and a better reputation.

The scheme is simple:

You take an item that hasn’t been on the market in this form yet (a painting, sculpture, installation — doesn’t matter). You call it an “important artifact”. It helps if you have connections — galleries, auction houses, billionaire collectors. If you don’t have connections, then find someone who does and sell the cow to them. Since uniqueness is required, there will be no paintings of bears in a pine forest, no matter how brilliantly they are done. There will be something distinct.

The very notion of “this is a painting/sculpture” — is just a convenient formality. The main thing is that the object can be incorporated into the already established art trading system.

Art is such — one of the most convenient ways to “optimize” taxes and move large sums of money. Paid 18 million euros for someone else’s work, and then someone “on your side” bought some of your work for the same 18 million. Virtually no money was really lost (just taxes), and now in catalogs and rankings, two works are each priced at 18 million. The price can be pushed up by selling them cascadingly. Win-win. Auctions are just in on the deal. Further, if you donate this work to a museum for charity, you can even cut more taxes. But it can also be sold. And here’s why.

Currently, there are simply too many free funds in the world. The number of billionaires and their wealth is growing faster than the availability of truly rare assets (real estate, companies, gold, etc. have all been divided already).

Art is one of the few markets where “scarcity” can still be created literally out of nowhere.

If you have access to a hundred such wealthy simpletons and you can tell stories (“this is an investment for 20-30 years, it will only increase”), then selling is purely a technical matter. Two or three interested parties = bidding already starts, and already you see +50-100% to the price.

Over time, real cases appear: someone bought in 2000 for 2 million, sold in 2024 for 80 million.

These cases are used to convince the next buyers. New buyers with their money confirm and amplify these cases. The cycle is closed.

Result: the rise in prices in the top segment of art is directly tied to the increase in the number of super-rich and their capital. As soon as a serious global crisis occurs and the extra trillions stop being printed/earned, and the pyramid collapses, the market will very quickly show where there was real cultural value, and where it was just a beautiful financial scheme.

P.S. This doesn’t mean at all that all contemporary art is a bubble. There are works that are really important historically and culturally. It’s just that at the very top of the price pie, cultural value has long ceased to be the main driver.

But at the summit of Olympus of the most expensive paintings of classic genius solitaries, there will never be, because galleries and dealers need artists who can produce 20-50 works a year to satisfy demand, organize exhibitions in five capitals simultaneously, and maintain turnover. Artists like Lopez Garcia, Odd Nerdrum, or Ron Mueck make unique pieces that will become especially valuable only after the artist dies.