Even before that there was Walter Cronkite, then Peter Jennings.
That was back in an era where everyone watched the same “influencers”. The good part of that was that for the most part, these influencers were rigorously fact checked so the people who watched them agreed on the same set of facts, and those facts were more or less true.
On the other hand, there were times when these “influencers” were biased or even hid the truth. The bias was often something they even had trouble noticing. Like, they all believed communism was a big threat, or that police were trustworthy. As for hiding the truth, sometimes when a politician got in trouble the news would drop the story because of their deference to power. They’d also sometimes try to repeat whatever the government said as truth without checking it, or not investigate bad things the government was doing overseas because they saw that as being patriotic.
Overall, I think it was better when everybody agreed on most things, even if sometimes the news / “influencers” were biased. At least it meant that the government was more or less functional. At least it meant that people were relatively civil with each-other.
A P/E ratio that’s high indicates that investors think something is a growth stock. A typical mature but growing tech company has a P/E ratio of 20ish. Tesla’s P/E ratio is currently 182.
Now, there’s a saying “the markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent”, but TSLA is poised for a huge collapse. It was already way overvalued even a year ago when Musk was just this right-wing asshole who bought Twitter and ruined it. Everything since then has destroyed his image and made it so nobody wants to buy his cars. He’s pissed off Democrats, and now he’s pissed off MAGA Republicans. And, most importantly, Tesla is clearly no longer a growth stock. Sales are declining year after year.
If Tesla were a normal, boring car company that was competently run by someone nobody hated, it might have a P/E ratio similar to Toyota: 7. To get there from here, TSLA would have to shed 96% of its value. Keep in mind, that’s not what the price should be. That’s what the price should be if nobody hated the brand and it was a normal well-run car company.
Somebody is going to make absolute bags of money shorting TSLA. If I were rich I’d do it. But, as I’m not rich, the downside of the market remaining irrational is too big a risk. But, IMO, it’s just a matter of time.