What if you build it – and they don’t come?
Send the bill to the taxpayers!
Twice.
This is how you make money in the New America. Well, the green America.
Don’t earn it.
Steal it.
The “business model” is simple enough: Glom on to a politically high-fashion issue – electric cars, for instance. Then obtain government (meaning, taxpayer) “help” to fund their design and manufacture. When no one – or not enough – people buy your electric wunderwagen, simple declare bankruptcy and walk away.
With your pockets full of other people’s money.
Then, when the smoke clears, do it again.
This is exactly what electric car company Fisker – which produces (well, produced) the $110,000 Fisker Karma – did.
And is getting ready to do a second time.
Back in ’09, the company secured $529 million in government loans, which were being doled out generously by the Obama administration (and previously by the Bush administration) under the auspices of something called the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program.
Well, “loan” is not exactly accurate – because the government doesn’t really have any money of its own to loan. It only has the money it takes from you and me others via taxation. So what really happened is that the government forced the taxpayers of the United States to loan Fisker $529 million. (It also forced the taxpayers to “help” fund another electric boondoggle, the infamous – but now forgotten – Solyndra debacle.)
Fisker, like Tesla, specializes in high-dollar electric exotic cars that – so far – have not earned an honest dollar but have cost taxpayers hundreds of millions. Billions, actually. The reason for this ought to be obvious – no engineering degree required.
Electric cars make sense when they are economical cars.
To date, no one has managed to manufacture one. They cost more – overall – to own than conventional cars and they also (unlike conventional cars) have functional liabilities that include long recharge times and limited range. Rather than focus on – and fix – these issues, which might make for a marketplace-viable electric car, manufacturers like Fisker and Tesla build high-performance, flashy and very, very expensive electric cars. On the theory that sex appeal rather than economic sense will sell ’em.
But a six-figure electric car is as preposterous – as pointless – as attempting to inseminate a mannequin.
If the object is procreation, as regards the latter.
And in the case of the former, if the object is – as it ought to be – to reduce the cost of driving vs. a gas-engined car. But buying a Fisker or a Tesla literally triples or quadruples the cost of driving.
Yes, yes, the cars are sleek and sexy – and even quick.
Which is as relevant insofar as the bottom-line purpose of an electric car as how good the mannequin looks in short-shorts. People in a position to buy a six-figure  Fisker Karma (like the actor Leonardo diCaprio, for instance) are not struggling to pay their fuel bills.They buy a Fisker or a Tesla as a fashion statement.
But the people who are concerned about gas bills aren’t in the market for a six-figure Fisker.
Hence the need for government “help.”
When you can’t sell ’em, force others to subsidize ’em.
Now, having lost a reported $1.4 billion in total so far to produce about 2,000 cars (you do the math) Fisker is back at the trough for another heaping’ helping. A new 555,670 square foot factory in Moreno Valley, CA will be opened shortly to make another handful of hand-built electric exotics. These cars will be powered by batteries made by the same company (A123 Systems) whose batteries were recalled back in 2011 due to a design defect that resulted in fires, which resulted in numerous crispy-fried Karmas.  
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Since it can’t find private backing – people freely willing to put their money toward the project – Fisker is getting “help” from guess who?
That’d be you. And me.
Anyone who’s forced top pay taxes.
The extorted money will be taken from us – and given to Fisker (and other such worthy recipients). There will be “rebates” and “incentives” and “carbon credits” galore.
This will “create jobs,” according to backers (which, not surprisingly, includes the infamous Al Gore, who is a partner in the firm and also grown very wealthy being “green”). How many jobs? The company says about 150 – plus the 240 who are already employed (if you can call it that) at the Fisker headquarters in Costa Mesa.
So, that’s 390 jobs – and about 2,200 cars so far.
It’s amazing – a testament to American torpidity – that there are not mobs of people with pitchforks in the streets.
Fisker – and Tesla – are latter day Marie Antoinettes. Their audacity – their effrontery – beggars belief. Average people of average means are compelled to hand over money they desperately need just to make ends meet – to pay the rent, to keep food on the table – so that fabulously wealthy celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio can drive around in a Fisker Karma (or a Tesla S).
The money sunk into just one Fisker Karma would have been sufficient to buy literally thousands of people a brand-new 40 MPG economy car. Better yet, if the government kept its hands out of those people’s pockets, they’d have to sweat the cost of a fill-up much less.
Of course, that’s not very “green.”
Which these days, has more than just one meaning, if you know what I mean. Â
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The New [ Politically Correct ] Dukes of Hazard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHO1PprfmkY
Trigger-warning: this vid is kind of painful to watch… The General Lee now flies the flag of tolerance and runs on clean electric power. Goo goo goo.
This is sad and fabulous all at once; I posted it as a feature video….
If Biden and Musk had lived around the beginning of this Star Spangled Plantation of amber grain and purple mountains, they’d have both been called “Founding Fathers.”
Biden of course would be a bottom tier, paltry results kind of Founder. Musk would be a top tier, major results Founder who protected the dollar against an independence PayPal, and reshaped automobiles, solar energy, and space travel, bringing all three more centralized control and a greater response to centralized power.
A Founding Father, above all else, is a facade of a great man. One who is seen to achieve great things, all the while keeping mum on what is not seen. Which is all the otherwise freemen who would have done for themselves, if they hadn’t been enslaved by a Founding Father and forced to help build his Great Pyramid scheme.
I have yet to see a single Bible Banger make exposition on a single relevant passage of the allegedly Holy Word.
How about a libertarian discourse on the meaning of the simple interjection: “Let My People Go!”
I mean, isn’t that what this whole thing is about. It’s not about the minutae of what a douchebag founding father or douchebag Egyptian Pharaoh wrote on parchment or papyrus all those years ago.
It’s very much a conversation that were still waiting to begin, for the most part.
I’ve looked over Jefferson’s quotes yet again, and none of them really can be found to be faulty. They all check out pretty good, and do appear to speak on behalf of liberty.
But that is the insidious farce of the Sky Stalin who has come down to earth. No where in Jefferson’s biography do you see any instance of him “letting my people go.” All you see is him helping keep the charade alive. Help keep offering the captives the false choice.
Jefferson is useless scumbag just like Biden and Musk. Because at the root of the matter, all he says is: Why don’t you wear my chains and shackles that I’ve fashioned for you.
Under my dominion you’ll be so much more learned, and accomplish so much more with your forced labor. I’ll be the nobleman. You be the journeyman. I’ll be Captain Jean Luc Picard. And all of you will “Make It So.”
– Not me. Fuck that. Fuck Jefferson. Fuck Biden and Musk and all the rest of them. Throw them all in the woods, and then let Jean free to set those woods on fire for all I care. They’re lucky if they get a few scraps of fish heads, as far as I’m concerned.
In fairness, the Fisker was an Extended Range Electric Vehicle (EREV) also known as serial hybrid since it had an onboard gasoline engine (Chevy 1.4 L I-4) and a plug to help recharge the batteries.
It sure had an awesome shape though.
Dear Jean,
This is my ~response to “I think you misunderstand…”
Not much use maybe, since I don’t consider myself in any kind of a “we situation” with you, so there’s nothing I’d want to do in coordination with you. (unless of course, you abandon your ideas and adopt something closer to mine.)I’m also not at all interested in punishment, which seems prominent with your worldview.
I believe only in harm prevention. And that once you’ve failed at this. Tough.
Don’t fail next time is all I can advise you. I have no interest in spending a single minute of my life figuring out how anybody needs to be punished for anything. My version of punishment is to distance myself from the bad actor. And to hearden my defenses and responses to prevent others like him from taking from me, or in anyway hindering me in the future. Your basic stimulus and response model, based on the previous incident where he did something I didn’t like. No non-domesticated animal holds grudges on an individual basis, but only on a biological class theory basis I would argue.
Freedomain Radio Discussion of r/K theory
https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/44515-youtube-the-truth-about-gene-wars-rk-selection-theory/
Cultural r/K Selection (UK Science Policy site)
http://cfpm.org/jom-emit/1997/vol1/fog_a.html
– My work around for now until there is more freedom, is to turn my back on everything China and America stand for intellectually. Yet embrace and deepen my understanding of everything Japan and Great Britain stand for, which are of course closely related.
– For whatever reason, lately it seems being an economic superpower, and having a rational culture that is useful to study, seem to be two totally different things. I’ve thrown America and China in the woods a while ago now.
Cue F-35 vs F-16
It’s obvious that you *like* electric cars. I do. I’ve seen the road tests, the incredible standing still to warp speed jumps. I *want* a car like that. I want one that doesn’t stink up the room. I want the power, the simplicity, the torque of electric. I want to be able to *buy* one, given my limited finances.
There are a multitude of problems: weight and volatility of the storage medium is probably number one. A gas tank may blow up, yes, but it aint like Hollywood shows us. The battery, on the other hand, is just waiting for a rupture to instantly turn it into a high explosive. Even capacitative storage can blow you to pieces. Even old-school SLA batteries are deadly – apart from being notoriously inefficient. And poisonous.
And we’ve heard about the outrageous problems, where an electric automobile turns into a really expensive paperweight when catastrophic battery failure necessitates the replacement of the entire storage system.
For now, I’m content with my electric bicycle, except for the extremely expensive batteries. Or maybe I’m not so content: I don’t have money to replace them.
Re: the recent decision of the Nazgul ‘legalizing’ homosexual marriage, and the calls since to remove the tax exemption of churches who object, beginning almost immediately in the Gray Lady (NYT, for those not familiar w/the phrase)
I have been reminding folks for years of the words of Daniel Webster, quoted by Chief Justice John Marshall in the decision, from McCulloch vs. Maryland, nearly 200 years ago. “The power to tax is the power to control.” Since the gunvermin, according to their own documents, do not have the power, that is, the authority, to control the church, churches are not ‘tax exempt,’ they are ‘tax immune.’
But I just recently realized that the same argument could, indeed should, be used concerning the gunvermin’s ‘right’ to tax individuals.
Actually, it is going to be interesting, per article on Amerika…
And on gun ownership side, too.
1. Amerika talks of how the law is now meaningless. (IE, ALL laws.)
2. Gun ownership sites talk of how this means the SCOTUS has, in essence, made constitutional carry and permit reciprocity a “done deal.” The more cynical like me wonder what gyrations and spasms the court will use to justify their decision that states don’t need to honor each others’ CCW permits, but MUST honor marriage licenses…
http://www.amerika.org/politics/the-problem-with-gay-marriage/
see also http://www.amerika.org/social-reality/when-life-peaks-early/
And “Chicks on the Right” on Facebook, which I cannot link to from here…. Sorry!
GOA might have some articles on CCW reciprocity, I haven’t had time to check them.
Oh, also…
http://www.amerika.org/politics/diversity-is-totalitarianism/
Needless to say, I like the Amerika.org site. 😉
If I was driving, I think I’d enjoy Mockarena and Daisy just fine. And the Amerika site seems fine so far as it goes.
But for me, they do little or nothing. There both about identity politics. About determining who we should be, and then keeping careful watch to see how well we adhere to the one-size-fits-all ideal.
I prefer Heinlein or Rand, because there only about ideas. And that’s the only thing I care about. Both of these authors include 0% group identity content, which for me is exactly the right amount.
That’s also why I throw all founders and every single famous American statesman of all time in the woods, even Ron Paul. I love RP when he discusses ideas or popularizes concepts, but I don’t give a single shit about him as a man, or that I like or don’t like him as a person. Or care about his specific views on when life begins or anything else, that some might identify with.
Instead I study Switzerland and it’s achievements, because it has no mythical men. It’s just about devising workable methods of cooperation. And perfecting a shared a menu of societal ideals of which you are free to choose from, that doesn’t require you to be on the same page with anyone.
Even that is far too strict though. There’s no way the Swiss would tolerate my laissez faire attitude towards everything and everyone.
This thing is an hour long, but basically I support ghetto people who use r gene strategy and have lots of babies and optimize for there being plenty for everyone.
Even though I am raised in a K gene household and am able to adapt to scarcity. And my wife very much enforces much of this without my input. What I don’t support is that “more moral” K genetic people being preferred over “live fast die young”r gene people, who go for quantity of offspring over quality.
The Truth About Gene Wars: r/K Selection Theory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8N3FF_3KvU
Amerika.org
For those who oppose the creeping domination of social thought, based in individualism, over common sense realism. We stand for all who think consequences are more important than intentions, that we should use the past as a library of knowledge, and that some values are eternal and timeless.
As paleoconservatives of a green-leaning deep ecological direction, we believe in reducing the quantitative expanse of humanity in order to focus on quality, and to pursue the perennial things in life: the good, the beautiful and the true.
ChicksOnTheRight book: Right For A Reason
http://chicksontheright.com/book
“It’s time for a real, snarktastic, humor-filled look at what makes conservatism right. We conservatives have truth and rationality and logic on our side.
We just need to remind ourselves why we are right, and we need that reminder delivered in a way that’s not a lecture, not a history lesson, and not a complicated political diatribe.
It’s right to revere the Constitution. It’s right to value personal responsibility, economic liberty, and free enterprise. It’s time to stand up for the unborn.
With humor and insight, “Mock” and “Daisy,” explain why:
It makes sense to be pro-life (abortions up to 5 weeks only) and pro-Plan B.
The Chicks call out Republicans for focusing on the wrong issues and offer suggestions for the conservative “makeover” that will realign the GOP with the regular folks who are frustrated with uptight and clueless politicians. But they also show why conservatism makes sense for everyone, especially those who love their country, their families, God, rock and roll, and a well-made cocktail.
– Maybe you’re into escapism or something, which is fine. It does seem like these guys are at least 40 IQ points below you, but whatever you find informative and entertaining, more power to you. Just don’t expect me to like the fact that they would absolutely impose all this stuff on me, if they’re given half a chance.
Baby what he say, baby what he say………I’m reading JOB, A Comedy of Justice right now for the umpteenth time and enjoying it more every time.
If I ever try to tell anyone how(or why)the world, mankind or anything else came to exist, please use that big piece of rebar I use to bump tires and apply it to my head with plenty force…..please.
Another strange thing I can’t explain. In my above comment where it says “I’m reading”, if it’s looked at in the Latest Stuff column it says(on my computer anyway)what appears to be a vague 4, a space, 7;m reading. Another unexplained thing in this world.
Every day something new blows me away.
Somehow, I’m flying out and then moving my parents from Rutherfordton NC to Kingwood TX next week, in a single rental truck. Hope it’s a really big one.
Maybe they’ve somehow recently downsized and come down enough pegs that all their “precious” is going to fit in a single truck now?
Madness!
Well, at least they’re not asking to move in with you.
Kingwood eh? Sounds like a couple big Mayflower rigs would be the ticket. It ain’t exactly trailerhouse territory. Maybe they’re putting all the “extra stuff” into a container to be moved.
Last time I moved a few of us with several pickups and trailers did so for a week or more. I filled 2 20’X50X10′ storage lockers and a couple friends barns with hotrods and stuff.
The next time I move I’ll be room temperature I’m betting.
When we moved into this place the beginning of Y2K, I told the friends who helped that our next move would be the kids putting us into a nursing home.
Jean, in the first article it says: “The liberal has a fragile and narrow conception of life which allows them to continue living in denial of the real problem (collapse). If it is altered, they exist in a state of panic until they can restore the illusion.”
Looks to me as if the exact same thing could be said of “conservatives”, just a bit different take of different fears, but fears non-the-less, created by THEIR desire to control.
They’re both out of whack in my world. They both seek control over everyone. Now it’s time to get back on the old Rock Crusher.
Not Content With Enormous Taxpayer Subsidies, Elon Musk Pays Prison Inmates 93 Cents An Hour To Assemble Solar Panels For Further Cost Savings
http://thefederalist.com/2015/03/04/not-content-with-enormous-taxpayer-subsidies-elon-musk-turned-to-prison-labor-for-cost-savings/
You Guys sure are frightened of electric cars-the market will sort it out,Somethings pure electric will never be suitable for(cant imagine a practical rechargeable D-8 or huge rechargeable scraper)Hybrids(in whatever form) are here to stay.get over it.
Get pissed over something that really matters(the S&L bailouts and the deplorable political correctness,eg;)One of these days you Guys are going to realize who is really calling the shots,I disagree that 90% will perish in the first year after the grid crashes,but the coming depopulation,will not be pretty.
All I can really advise is,stay under the radar, hide in plain sight,the coming racial tensions are nothing to make light of.Look at the graph of the disparity between those doing alright and those that have it all and you can guess who will suffer the most,when the ball falls.
The only thing else I have to say is,at least Musk produces something and I cannot find many products with our pontificating super greenies name on them.
Hi Kevin,
I’m not frightened of electric cars; I actually like the idea. It just aggravates me that I’m forced to “help” extremely wealthy people buy expensive toys – and that’s what the Fisker and Tesla are. Anyone who can afford a $70k (to start) car does not need my “help”… or yours. Not that I am implying that anyone is entitled to “help” at bayonet-point. But it is particularly obnoxious when it is being done to “help” the wealthy.
I agree with you on the racial (and economic) stuff. The race stuff depresses me all day long. Because it’s so got-damned unnecessary; so deliberately contrived.
In my lifetime, race relations have grown worse, not better – superficialities notwithstanding. Yes, blacks can legally (and practically) do things today that they could not have done in most parts of the USA prior to the “civil rights” act and subsequent. But as a result of that act and subsequent, resentments and hostility have grown and festered sub rosa. Racial identity politics are worse today because “civil rights” relentlessly focuses on… race.
I agree it is going to get worse. Much worse.
Kevin – the market won’t sort it out, because the market is not allowed to sort it out. The problem is not the market, but gunvermin interference with the market – at our expense.
This is not to say that there are not problems with the vehicles, but the market would, as you suggest, sort them out were it ‘free’ to do so.
The problem lies in Musk being part of the problem, producing something of little value for nearly everyone while taking those same people who must pay for it in taxes to the veritable cleaners. He and his ilk are exactly what’s wrong with this country.
Ever seen the big billionaire hide-out built in Germany? If that’s any indication, there won’t be .1% left alive in a couple years or if there are, they’ll all be in places that have nothing to do with advanced culture such as tribes in the Amazon who’ve never seen anyone not of there.
Musk is living out childhood dreams, at least my childhood dreams, at the expense of the american taxpayer. That’s why he has earned my ire. If he had become a billionaire and then made a car company and a space company on his own dime, entirely on his own dime he’d be my idol. But he didn’t. He decided even as a billionaire to be a crony capitalist and for that he becomes the opposite.
Why should I be frightened by electric cars? I’ll do just fine with them. I helped build a hybrid once many years ago. I’ve worked on many battery powered products in my life. The problem with electric cars is cronyism. Get rid of the cronyism, get rid of the special privileges for those who drive them and I’ll be fine with them. And yes there’s some crony capitalism with gasoline powered cars too, get rid of that as well.
Guv’ment Motors has the Volt. They apparently ARE giving them away, almost, since no one seems willing to actually pay for one. I’ve recently seen lease teasers for them at right around $100/month. But even at that price, and for a car that looks fairly nice (IMO), I won’t buy (or lease) a car that needs to be continually on a charger.
I don’t know about the exotics, the Teslas and Fiskers, but the electrics from the others (Nissan, Fiat, GM, BMW i3 etc.) are mostly leased, not sold. Why? I believe that people inherently know that these cars make no economical sense and that they will have no resale value.
Well, Literally, I would only drive one of these cars if they “literally’ gave it to me. And then I’d “literally” have misgivings. Reckon somebody could get one via Medicare/medicaid or some other gimme govt. program? Seems like I’ve already paid for one……so why not?
If it’s green they’re going for, I can make it really green. Our grass is so lush this year the bovines aren’t producing patties but their butts are literally green from swishing their tails over freshly made “runs”. Well, that’s green.
If this car will pull a gooseneck “jeep” it could just whisper into the sales barn. All the cows would be looking at each other with a WTF? expression. Would they simply tippy toe into the “killing floor” what with everything being so quiet and “natural”.
There’s your answer. Whisper quiet, no noxious fumes(power plants don’t really make any undue nastiness with their coal unless you want to count heavy metals in the air that cause massive cancer downwind). Or maybe it could simply be plugged into your own electrical wind generator that is govt. subsidized also.
Now if we could only get the DC crowd to legislate some subsidized cows(well, ok, they have been doing that for decades…..but you have to be a huge corporate entity to obtain it, such as Sam Donaldson formed and got huge subsidies from sheep ranches in New Mexico……cause he was so pore…..pore old Sam)for everybody with a cow. Then give them their own wind-powered generator and an electric pickup made by Fisker and subsidize Fiskar and give them their own electric knife.
We’ll soon all have great jobs working for the green team. Sure, we’ll spend nearly all that great salary on taxes but the difference will be made up by those who make big bucks and didn’t have the foresight to make it in Mexico or Kurdistan.
Now that’s a plan where we all do really well. I think I may be politician material. Yep, got it all figured out.
Uh oh, I just read Eric G and Sojourner Moon’s comments. I see I’m redundant……but redundancy is the order of the day…..these days(see what I mean?)
To be honest, I’m simply glad Cholley Jack is alive and seemingly well today. I was afraid he was going to be a victim of my drug abuse last night. As I was downing a couple Aleve gelcaps while the smell of something to eat was in the air, CJ snatched the one I dropped. i finally found the maximum dose before toxicity for dogs and he’d had twice that amount per pound. It must only apply to little turd dogs but I won’t be letting any Aleve get away from me for a few days. It supposedly builds up according to webmd for dogs. OTOH, he’s really enjoyed the ground beef and rice combo to protect his stomach. Good boy!
8- you’re making me homesick for the aroma of that ‘green.’ Well, not quite.
I’m all with so.
re this: “The money sunk into just one Fisker Karma would have been sufficient to buy literally thousands of people a brand-new 40 MPG economy car.”
Well, not really. $529 million in “loans” to build 2,200 cars equals a subsidy of about $240K per car. The cheapest car you can buy, a stripped down manual Nissan Versa sedan (not quite 40 MPG in EPA highway, but in the ballpark) is just under $11K.
So, about 22 economy cars. If you go for the cheapest car that literally gets 40 MPG highway per the government numbers, the Hyundai Accent at $12,500 would allow you to buy 19 cars.
Even if you’re talking about the total amount spent per Fisker, not just subsidies, to produce 2,200 Fiskers, we’re still talking about under 100 economy cars for that money tossed down an economic black hole.
“Literally” means LITERALLY, not “approximately, albeit off by a couple orders of magnitude”.
Dear Jim,
Using your own numbers:
If you hand 529 million newly printed dollars to Nissan, they’ll produce 48,091 Versas at retail.
If you give 529 million newly printed dollars to Hyundai, they’ll produce 43,900 at retail.
Certainly, Nissan and Hyundai might produce less cars than usual, because in every case, the money allocated this way is always mis-allocated and funneled off to cronies, before the ink on the bills is even dry.
But it would take a lot of balls and desperation to pull the shenanigans that Fisker did. They probably didn’t build a single car with the money. And if any marginally higher amount of cars were produced, they were all made in Finland. None of this Fed money resulted in a single American manufacturing job. Quite the opposite, it paid for Fisker to move offshore even faster than it was previously.
In Fisker’s case, the whole thing became such a complete debacle, that the DOE froze the funds after only $193 million of was wasted. This never happens, so you know it was bad. The official reason given was because Fisker utterly failed to even remotely reach any of the conditions and milestones associated with the money. What a complete understatement that was.
After the shitshow finally collapsed, and Fisker went bankrupt, Hybrid bought their remaining assets and corporate flotsam and jetsam for $25 million dollars.
And then the Feds pulled a brand new con, and pocketed this money for crony distribution as well. They left Hybrid high and dry with nothing to show for their substantial payment whatsoever.
http://fordhamcorporatecenter.org/2014/10/06/vultures-beware-fiskers-potential-implications-for-distressed-debt-investors/
Finally, the Feds allowed Wanxiang out of China to actually buy the remains of Fisker, and this time it really happened. Because the Chinese aren’t so easy to fleece and rip off. Supposedly, wanxiang will be returning the 25 million the Feds stole from Hybrid, and then allowing the remainder to go to Fisker’s secured creditors. Or, just as likely, this money will go to a different set of cronies. This time a set of cronies with ties to the new Oligarch mafia from East Asia.
In any scenario, the Feds won’t be getting a single dime of their money back. And few to no cars were ever produced with 529 million dollars in newly printed Federal Reserve Notes. Talk about Bad Karma.
Fisker to return as Elux in 2016
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/motoring/2015-03/02/content_19689818.htm
Oh come on now “literally” is literally misused literally all the time. My head is going to literally explode if I ever see it misused again. And our next prez is going to be literally a caring, giving, rational thinking, highly intelligent, first order example of the homo sapiens species.
🙂
Over at Ars Technica: http://arstechnica.com/cars/2015/07/why-dont-we-drive-more-electric-vehicles/
Fancy that, a government study recommending the government throw more money at a problem. Once again, money solves everything, even physics. If it were that simple, it would already be done.
I’m all for electric cars. I think in places like Florida retirement villages and big city neighborhoods they can be fantastic devices. But not for driving between cities out west, or traversing mountain passes in the Rockies, or hauling stuff to the dump on Saturday afternoon.
No, no no. You’ve got it backwards. This is all part of the long game. (This is a little bit tongue-in-cheek, but not really).
You see, the plan is to eventually mandate such incredibly high fuel economy standards that if we wish to drive anywhere, we have to do so in an electric boondoggle machine subsidized with taxpayer money.
The plan is pretty simple. First, screw up the market by over-regulating it and distorting it with screwed up incentives so that the honest companies cannot make a living while the taxpayer subsidized dishonest ones (e.g., Tesla, Fisker) get bailout after bailout. If/when the remnants of the free market are able to still keep up, through loopholes or actual invention and entrepreneurship, drive a spike in its heart by adding yet more impossible regulations while providing exclusions or subsidies to the favored friends. Third, watch the market collapse and blame it on “capitalism.” Fourth, force people to buy a product they would rather not have at exorbitant prices they cannot afford that won’t perform the way they need it to perform anyway and fine/penalize them if they refuse to buy it.
This is how Obamacare works. This is how our financial sector/banking works. And this is how the automotive industry works.
For contrast, look at a different industry not fettered nearly as much by government regulation such as the computer and technology industry. Performance keeps going up. Reliability keeps going up. Power consumption keeps going down. Prices keep going down. Why? Because that’s what consumers want and are willing to pay for. We’re not mandated to pay for airbags on our keyboards, or to purchase antivirus software, or to power our computers by multi-thousand dollar solar panel arrays, or any such nonsense.
Or look at veterinary medicine. Though not as clean an example, because they are still fairly regulated, they still display much more of a free market model than modern medicine for humans. You can shop around, switch vets without a referral, and costs are kept in check by the individual being fully responsible, and thus aware, of costs and therefore responding to price signals in the market.
If you’re assuming the goal is to reduce carbon emissions and save the environment. If you’re assuming they care about such things. You’re wrong. All they care about is control. The 0.1% will get exceptions and exclusions to fly around in their fuel-sucking private jets so that they are not inconvenienced while making Average Joe America buy overpriced, underperforming vehicles or just walk everywhere and still tax them for the privilege to support such tree-hugging enterprises as Tesla and Fisker.
Sojourner, I said it before and I’ll say it again, diesel is about to be cheaper than gas and they have both dropped every day for a couple weeks at least. Diesel was only 7 cents higher than gas today.
I see crude trucks offloading all the time and they line up waiting for one of the usually 3 spots at distant offload sites. One of the higher ups in a large pipeline company told me right after the first of the year he expected the pipeline we were finishing to be altered and have a circle back to its origination where massive oil storage exists. Recently ground started to be broken at that site for another tank for that company and I heard tell it was one of several going to be built.
All the big pipeline and oil transport companies are expanding at the ports, mainly Houston and La. to export more LNG, crude and other gases. The free market isn’t at work here unfortunately even though the companies involved would like it to be. The feds won’t let them build refineries, a stupid move since the transport of oil by pipeline is by far the safest and most cost efficient.
I know “some” pipelines have had problems cause I help clean up the spills but they are old and in a free market would be replaced. New lines are made of much better material, some really quality coated steel plus some fairly exotic ABS and PVC lines. It’s examined by a “pig” that runs through it and catches any imperfection before it’s put into use. It’s all high tech these days, made to last.
Whereas in the past pipelines might jut from the ground for purposes of putting valves on them or just barely jut the valves and caps for future lines going into it inthe middle of nowhere with no protection, now we rock the entire site around them and build chainlink fence around the entire site. Every single part of it is locked. If a valve is shut off or opened now, it’s because it was meant to be and not because someone simply stumbled onto it and changed the valve settings.