The strangest argument has been put forward in defense of Senate Republicans – who might as well be Senate Democrats – not rescinding the titanic federal subsidization of electric vehicles – i.e., the $7,500 an individual can deduct from his taxes (to be made up for by someone else’s taxes) as a reward/inducement for buying an EV.
The argument is that the car industry must not be rattled by “regulatory uncertainty.” It is used to the subsidization of electric cars; therefore, ending the subsidies would be as wrong as – well, let’s see – dialing back the ethanol mandate or making a bother about stoners buying sushi with their EBT cards.
They are after all, used to it, too.
The ethanol make-workers might have to find productive work. Stoner sushi-eaters might have to just work.
It’s horrible. Someone might be Triggered.
From an editorial in Automotive News:
“… given the precarious state of the EV market, it could have been a big setback for the industry had earlier proposals to wipe out the EV tax credit made it into law.”
Well, first, there is no market for EVs. If there were a market – that is, demand – massive subsidies wouldn’t be necessary to jump-start supply.
EVs are being propped up by subsidies; without the subsidies, there would be very few EVs at all. They cost too much, rendering them uneconomical. They take comparatively forever to recharge, which makes them inconvenient. Hence, most people – most people- are not interested in them – especially without generous taxpayer-financed assistance.
How would be it be a “setback” for the industry to stop having to build cars it can’t sell unless they are propped up by subsidies? Isn’t that – pouring money into a product for which there is no natural market – the most precarious thing imaginable?
“The ultimate resolution should take into account the billions of dollars in auto industry investment that is at stake…”
In other words, continue to throw good money after bad – because hey, we’ve already wasted “x” amount of money. Therefore, waste more. The Defense Department works on exactly this reasoning.
EVs are a neon-backlit, textbook example of a malinvestment, if “investment” means putting dollars toward something that will return a profit. Whether one likes electric cars – or pyramids or $35 million-a-copy fighter aircraft – is an irrelevant consideration, insofar as economic considerations – which are the only considerations when it comes to an honest market driven by real supply and actual demand.
Otherwise, it’s just pyramid building. Cheops, phone home.
If the industry thought EVs could make them money, then EVs would be be made, abundantly. The idea that the industry wouldn’t invest in something profitable absent coercion and subsidization is right up there with the belief that you can leave your wallet on the seat of a New York City park bench and expect to find it (and your money) still sitting there the next day.
So why doesn’t the industry want to invest in EVs? That is, absent the subsidies and mandates? It’s the Question Which Must Never be Asked – right behind raising your hand about diversity being our strength.
Whoops.
“EVs represent a multibillion-dollar wager placed by auto executives into a technology that promises – eventually – to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions,” saith the writer for Automotive News.
Well, perhaps a wager of the kind described by Michael Corleone to his fiancee, Kate, in the original Godfather. He told the story of his father’s enforcer, Luca Brasi, holding a gun to the head of the band leader who had Johnny Fontaine under contract. Don Corleone wagered that either his signature or his brains would be on the contract.
Force, always force. And always euphemized by amen-corner, “embedded”-with-the- program press kit journalists such as those at Automotive News. (Historical aside: The “embedding” of journalists was the invention and practice of none other than Joseph Goebbels, Propaganda Minister for the Third Reich. Just FYI.)
It is the job of a journalist to cut through the crap and explain things in plain English.
But journalism has been replaced by almost North Korea-style incantations of whatever policy the government apparat is pushing, whether it is to rouse the public to support a war of terror or to ramrod EVs down its throat. This is why the use of plain language for the purpose of illuminating facts is rarely used by journalists today. Instead, they convey what the reader is meant to think by use of loaded terms – “wipe out” the electric tax credit, for instance; this is obviously a bad thing – and by statements of fact that are not – such as “harmful greenhouse gas emissions.”
In Stalin’s Russia, less-than-eager-acceptance of the Party Line was pathologized; the skeptic was actually ill in the head. That is probably next, here.
And why would auto executives give a tinker’s damn about a “technology that promises – eventually – to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions”?
Leaving aside the loaded/package-dealing/assertions-as-facts editorializing.
People forget that businesses exist to make a buck.
It’s considered in poor taste – almost like passing wind at the dinner table – to bring that up, of course. People have come to believe – via the incantations of journalists such as those at AN – that the primary reason for the existence of a business is to provide health care, promote diversity and, of course, roll itself around on the grass like a labrador retriever puppy whenever someone mentions “greenhouse gasses.”
The manufacturing of cars that people might wish to buy and which the company can make a buck selling to them is the unmentionable peripheral business which we don’t want to talk about – like changing Grampa’s Depends. It has to be done, but . . .
But, like it or not, business is about . . . business. If one wishes to stay in business. And the car business is no different. Where is the profit in “reducing harmful greenhouse gas emissions”?
This is idiocy of a piece with a Vegan restaurant investing in pork bellies.
Besides which, the extremely dubious presumptions (plural) taken as facts that these “gasses” – we are talking about carbon dioxide – are in fact harmful (ask a plant) and that EVs – which produce plenty of these gasses, just indirectly – will “reduce” them. In fact, if the “gas” you’re worried about is innocuous, inert carbon dioxide – as opposed to the actually harmful ones – electrical generation produces a great deal and possibly more, in the aggregate, than a gasoline engined car.
But to write or say this marks you as racist, sexist, a “denier” . . .
“Congress was right to let the EV tax credits stand,” concludes Automotive News. In order to “… give these investments (there it is again) a chance to succeed.”
Why not let these “investments” succeed – or fail – on their merits? Automotive News does not bother to address this question, probably because it is leery of the public weighing the answer. The subsidies are “hardly a drain on the Treasury,” the AN writer adds.
As if that $7,500 per individual give-away factored over hundreds of thousands of such give-ways doesn’t necessarily involve counterbalancing tax extractions taken from the hides hundreds of thousands of others, whose taxes must be increased in proportion to make up the difference.
Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies . . .
. . .
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Obviously Trump is terrible. But the west is under an existenial attack.
But once he’s gone, it’s back to the same old program.
Millions of 3rd world scum to support.
It’s a hate speech crime to even discuss reality.
Vienna New Year’s baby greeted with righteous anger
http://archive.is/4FBca
Trying to be a better capitalist idealist isn’t going to cut it.
meanwhile in Shitcago
https://kek.gg/i/4LnC6H.jpeg
Netflix cuck ad – see comments
https://hooktube.com/watch?v=VS08cWZrlQA
You are aware that oil is subsidized every bit as much if not more than, ev’s?.
The so-called oil subsidy is to increase the price of oil. From military action to giving away oil on so-called “public” land is to keep the supply of oil in controlled hands. To keep the prices up.
QE in addition to high oil prices became a mistake in this regard. A lot of money looking for some place to go found its way into exploring for oil shale and other not-so-easy reserves. Smaller companies arose developing these sources and oil prices came back down as the Saudis sought to reclaim market share. Of course the point of that was to break the shale companies to send the price back up.
So yes, big oil is subsidized, but it is to make oil and oil related products more expensive to regular americans. To squeeze more out of us.
Hi DTL,
Brent already responded to this business about oil being “subsidized.” I’d only add one critical point: Oil/IC engine technology can stand on the economic/functional merits while EVs cannot. There is ample supply; the cost of the oil itself is low. Take way government interference and the supply goes up and the cost goes down.
What happens if you take away the EV subsidies and mandates?
Motor fuels are taxed extortionately. About 50 cents of the cost of a $2.20 gallon goes to Uncle. Take that tax away and the cost of a gallon of fuel is about $1.70 – but we’re not done yet. Take away the ethanol/renewable mandate and the cost goes down again, probably by at least 10-15 cents a gallon. So we’re at about $1.50 for a gallon of gas. Now adjust for inflation.
Gas today – the actual gas, absent the exortionate taxes and without the artificial price increasers (ethanol, etc.) is substantially less expensive, in real terms, today than it was back in 1965.
What does this tell you?
Meanwhile, EVs are given tax exemptions to make them appear to cost less. To obscure what they actually cost.
Spot on, Eric.
The same thing happens to any subsidized market when its subsidy is eliminated, it collapses.
No, it is not. For one thing nobody is getting a tax break for buying a new gasoline or diesel powered vehicle, nor are they being excused from paying road taxes. Electric cars should sink or swim on their own merits in the marketplace. If they are truly better there is no need for an armed group of violent psychopaths and control freaks (government) to push them. If they are not better, let them fail.
You are aware of the difference between regulation and subsidization?
Trump keeps his pledge to shrink size of government
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/trump-keeps-his-pledge-to-shrink-size-of-government/
Between the start of 2017 and the end of September, the federal government under Trump shed close to 16,000 permanent workers, bringing the staff figure to 1.94 million
http://www.newsweek.com/trump-slashed-staffing-all-cabinet-departments-except-three-reversing-obama-767047
Hi Tor,
Two million (just about) useless eaters… I wonder how large a ditch one would need to accommodate them?
And I am sure that 1.94 million doesn’t include the military at all. That is just the civilian departments.
Why would we need to accommodate them beyond their trials for treason, after which incarceration would be unnecessary? It is up to the relatives of a traitor to dispose of the body following execution.
Chevrolet Beat Notchback 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGfHPCDth4c
To call a Mexico City car dealership
011 to get out of US
55 City code for Mexico City, then phone number
when in mex dial 01, city code, phone number
CHEVROLET BEAT 2018 – 011 55 41254800 Tlalpan, Mx
Car One Mexico
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZjzKL1_a-Q
How many Mexicans, into which one is attempting to blend, own brand new vehicles of any kind?
Brand New 2018 Chevy Beat $7200 ($139,900 pesos at official xchg rate)
https://www.gruporivero.com/chevrolet-beat-2018/
Only a 2 hour drive from Roma, Texas
Directions…
Roma
Texas 78584
Take Garfield Ave to N Grant St
1 min (0.2 mi)
Follow Reynosa – Nuevo Laredo to Av. Miguel Alemán/Monterrey – Apodaca/México 54 in Guadalupe, México
2 h 4 min (101 mi)
CHEVROLET GROUP RIVERO
Av. Miguel Alemán 5400-D, Torres de Linda Vista, 67138 Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Roma,+TX/CHEVROLET+GROUP+RIVERO,+Av.+Miguel+Alemán+5400-D,+Torres+de+Linda+Vista,+67138+Monterrey,+N.L.,+Mexico/@26.0602194,-100.1880186,9z/am=t/data=!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x86646e1008049ee3:0xe66708d7b6fcc558!2m2!1d-99.0156554!2d26.4088523!1m5!1m1!1s0x8662955114140fdf:0xb733077df83e7c05!2m2!1d-100.23847!2d25.6932317
It’s interesting to see what the US automaker offer for sale in Mexico isn’t it? Mostly smaller less expensive cars and smaller pickups along with the rest of the US lineup. Only GM offering electric (the bolt and volt).
Judging by my visit to Batopilas several years ago, Ram trucks have the majority of the market flush enough to afford a new pickup.
Eric,
A guest host is talking about self-driving cars, and their likely mandatory nature, and electric cars also, on the Rush Limbaugh show now. You may find it interesting. He is pointing out a lot of problems with them.
Thanks, Dr. Jim!
I have been laid low since yesterday by a potent bacillus. I’ve been hunkered in the bunker, fire blazing, guzzling as much Makers as I can stand… feeling slightly better as of 6:42 east coast time…
Impotent bacilli usually don’t survive to reproduce, let alone infect.
Bacteria are rare human infectors, that usually falls to viruses and fungus.
How far would Henry Ford have gotten if he ran his business the way Musk runs his?
How much tax rebate did those who bought his new Model Ts get?
Elon Musk has replaced the televangelists as the new prophet. The millions that gather at the alter of Tesla, worshiping the great political correctness and fairy tale.
Congress…well forget congress. The lot of them are so corrupted and blackmailed they have virtually become enemies of the American people. Controlled entirely by isrealhell.
Can anyone explain to me why I should be forced at gunpoint to subsidize the purchase of one of Musk’s fantasy cars by some millionaire? It’s bad enough I have to pay for some ghetto hood rat to have another baby out of wedlock. Or some welfare tweaker in West Virginia.
It’s bad enough that I have to pay for endless wars and uncontrolled military spending on planes that can’t fly, ships that can’t negotiate the seas without falling apart and other military hardware that either doesn’t work or requires such huge investments, paid for by the taxpayers just to even get it working.
Or that the orange baboon in the White House sells sophisticated arms to the neonazis in Ukraine or the criminals in Riyadh.
America is run by criminals for criminals. It is controlled by psychopaths and maniacs.
America is nearly finished. There’s not much left of it.
Even the Bill of Rights is being eviscerated.
All young people should leave for somewhere else to live. America is no longer a fit place to raise a family. Your children should not be used as canon fodder or as sex toys for elites and politicans.
You leave first, pink pussy hat loser. And take all your relatives with you. We real Americans will stay here to fix the mess.
I’m pretty sure “real Americans” don’t indulge in petty, unwarranted personal attacks on others for expressing opinions they disagree with. And where were the “real Americans” when it came to preventing the mess in the first place?
The “Real Americans” as they style themselves? They’re the ones slavishly licking the boots of cops and the military while tossing epithets at those that point out the sick authoritarian distopia that’s being built around them. They’re the ones giving money to the NRA, perhaps the biggest sell-out of them all. They’re the ones talking about Obama or Clinton “taking their guns” as though Barack is going to show up on their doorstep and demand they hand over their Glock. No, Mr. Real American, it’s going to be the cops, deputies, National Guard and the military that you worship that will kick in your door in the middle of the night and disappear your patriotic ass.
And it will never occur in Park County, Wyoming.
Did not seem to be a “pink-pussy hat” answer to me, other than the dig at Trump…. All valid points.
So just where did your ancestors come from and why did they leave their native country?
America was colonized by people for many reason none the least was to escape a tyrannical government/ king,Queen or dictator. Some for religious reasons, some to make a better life for themselves and some who saw it as an investment opportunity.
All of them left for a better life away from the deprivations and tyranny of government.
America has become that which we have been taught to despise. And it is going to become much worse than it now is.
And speaking of patriots, where are all those patriots who remained silent when congress passed the patriot Act, NDAA, Military Commissions Act, the creation of the DHS, TSA; where are all those patriots when the NSA was revealed?
How many of those patriots realize that all these wars America is involved in is only worsening the situation for America and its relations with the rest of the world?
Where are all these patriots who say nothing while Trump continues to arm police with more military equipment?
Where are they when Trump continues to sabre rattle towards North Korea? Where are they when Trump sells arms to the fascist neo-nazis in Ukraine or the tin pot tyrant in Saudi Arabia?
Where are they when Trumps own Attorney General calls for more civil asset forfeiture and to persecute those states who legalize marijuana?
Personal attacks don’t bother me. They are nothing more than uneducated responses from people who have no counter arguments.
where are they when the Constitution was tossed into the dumpster and where are they now that Washington is busy eviscerating the Bill of Rights?
The truth is, we may not be able to fix this mess; after all we helped cause it. There may come a time when people realize that this nation may be lost. Whether or not it happens depends on the American people and I don’t see it happening. Not even with the election of Trump. In truth Trump will likely make America even worse.
Have a happy day.
“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Albert Einstein
Nor is it a place where they can learn to spell, it seems.
One of the concepts of an “investment” is that success isn’t guaranteed. Just listen to all those promotions for ridiculous investment ideas you hear talked about ad nauseum on late-night television. And just like an investment in Automotive News would not necessarily guarantee a future pay-out of a higher amount to me. Or to any of its other owners (I believe that the owner of Automotive News doesn’t have publicly-traded stock, but that’s not a material point).
The “investment” mantra is the same way Beltway Boobs talk about taxes: You pay a tax, but we make an “investment in the future.” Political types don’t know how to value investments, and the Federal Reserve destroying market pricing has made it more difficult. After all, at near-zero interest rates, you don’t always need to earn a real return to pass muster with your loyal stockholders. See: Elon Musk.
Oops,,,did I mention the Sainted Sycophant of Electricity? I guess I did. Amazing how it all comes full circle.
Indeed, St. Elon of Musk…
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/musk
This. And I also have a bad attitude toward ethanol, a fuel so useless it was monetarily subsidized and is now forced down our throats by federal diktat. It’s been great for screwing up my older engines. So I have to both subsidize the satanic piss and suffer damage from it at the same time.
From my window I can see an ethanol plant all lit up like Disney World with happy corn farmers all around it, and it burns my grits.
Me too, Ross…
I have lots of old stuff – lots of carburetors. Which gives me lots of work to do to prevent them from being gunked up by the “gas” we’re served.
Ethanol’s subsidy has created a lot of jobs at cornfield plants and saved us from eating a lot of GMO corn.
Lol. Agreed. People need to be a lot more careful about reading labels on food. I am not as much against the ethanol “subsidy” as I am against the whole idea of oxygenating fuel. The whole thing has brought nothing but seasonal and annual instability to the gasoline market. Since 2000, we have had a seasonal 20-40 cents a gallon spike in fuel prices directly due to the RFG mandates. At first, it was restricted to large cities, now, its a national issue.
Instability is a bureaucrat’s excuse for their jobs to continue.
Like many here, my objection is not to EVs. It is to being force-fed EVs, made to subsidize EVs… it’s all of a piece with the “welfare dynamic.”
—————————-
Excellent post,you nailed it in 2 sentences.
Thanks, Fred!
I feel the same about the new Coke Zero Sugar. It’s really terrible but Coke thinks they can force it upon us as if we have no choice. Windows 8? Diitto.
The US is a bankrupt warmongering police state.
The US is fake and rigged.
The USA is so evil now that even good people feel crooked.
One wonders how Americans can stand the lies and the hypocrisy in the USA today.
The US pretends to be a free country, but is a police state.
The US pretends to be a peaceful country, but is a warmonger.
The US pretends to have a booming economy, but it is bankrupt.
The US punishes hard work with taxes and regulations while rewarding laziness with welfare and allowing millions of 3rd world immigrants to flood the country.
The economy crashed in 2008 and the bankers were rewarded with billions in bailouts instead of being arrested for fraud.
The government knows this fraud can’t continue forever which is why they’re building a police state and trying to start wars with Iran, North Korea, Russia, and China to distract Americans and boost the economy.
Americans torture yet think they can take the moral high ground.
Everything is illegal and everyone is a criminal.
The US government lies and blatantly breaks the law and expects Americans to pay taxes and obey the law.
Even honest Americans must lie if they want any privacy because they are being wiretapped 24/7.
No one dares to admit the truth because what would Americans be if the fraud is uncovered?
Americans hate the truth so much now that they would rather ban, censor, and call truth-tellers racists and nutjobs while calling for them to be given IRS audits, arrested, or killed.
The collapse of the US is shocking and shameful.
The elites control the government, corporations, Hollywood, the media, magazines, newspapers, radio stations, and TV stations.
Americans either don’t know or don’t want know about the collapse of the USA or think that the US can’t be saved.
Old Americans don’t seem to care about fall of the USA because they’ll be dead soon and the young don’t care because they never knew what freedom was like.
The few Americans who are awake and think that there is still hope for the US are divided about what the problems are and how to fix them.
Some Americans think the US will last another 100 years and others are ready to start the revolution tomorrow.
Some Americans think the solutions to the problems in the US are secession, to drop out, to masturbate, to get right with God, or to flee to another country. Others think the US government controls asteroids with radios.
Some Americans think the solutions to tyranny, wars, and debt are a bigger police state, more wars, and more debt.
If Americans protested, they would be arrested or killed.
If Americans used their guns against the government, the government would use the tanks, jets, helicopters, aircraft carriers, submarines, and nuclear bombs that the
American taxpayers paid for against the rebels. A civil war would be bloody, but there is still hope because the US government hasn’t won a war since 1945.
The USA is totally rigged.
The 1% has control of the media, corporations, and the government,
Your votes don’t count.
The US is a bankrupt warmongering police state.
Everything is illegal.
Instead of killing the elites, the politicians, Communists, and Fascists, why not just go Galt, drop out, opt-out, do not participate, and do not comply?
Go underground and work off the books.
Don’t pay taxes.
Don’t sign up for Obamacare.
Don’t get a driver license.
No one rules if no one obeys.
What if Americans just dropped out and stopped supporting US wars, debt, and tyranny?
What if everyone became stateless?
What if everyone stopped using their name?
What if everyone stopped using banks and started buying gold, bartering, and hiding cash?
What if everyone bought farms using anonymous private shell corporations?
What if everyone stopped driving cars and getting driver licenses?
What if everyone stopped using phones and the Internet?
What if everyone stopped flying?
What if everyone stopped paying taxes?
What if everyone stopped joining the military?
What if everyone stopped voting?
What if everyone avoided being photographed?
What if no one signed up for Obamacare?
One way to resist tyranny is to move to a free country.
Consider moving to a country with few laws or a nation where laws are not enforced.
Maybe the elites want everyone to give up, but at at least we won’t be paying them and we can help the system collapse faster so it can be reset.
Illegal immigrants, Muslims, and homosexuals suck, but the main issue today should be restoring the Bill of Rights.
Live and let live.
Pass the word.
Patriotic Americans can’t help being obsessed about saving the US.
Everyone is born for a reason.
No matter what happens, Americans should stay healthy, make plans, stock up, buy gold, buy guns, and get
the word out now.
https://lookism.net/Thread-Don’t-fight-fire-with-fire-How-to-resist-an-unjust-regime-nonviolently
http://f2bbs.com/bbs
Well said.
America is finished.
Far too many Americans spend their time watching televised sports, stupid comedies that aren’t funny, which promotes homosexuality ans lesbianism and stupid cops shows.
If you want a good idea of how the American masses think just talk to anyone on the street. Just be prepared for mass stupidity and ignorance.
I will leave that to commentator Mark Dice. I don’t have the stomach for it. Or very much these days. I’m getting old. Tired. Almost 54. I want to stay healthy, but I’m not sure that I want to see what’s coming. I wish I was closer to 75.
Tired at 54 doesn’t bode well for alive at 75.
Get a passport at your post office for $150. Need DL and birth cert. Will come in mail 5 weeks later. Good for 10 years. Fly to Mexico City for $250. Start over never look back.
PRI has held power for 80 years in Mex. You will stop believing in the possibility of a good govt the first day.
Or fly to Colombia $700. Central America, or anywhere else.
Unless you look like and speak like a native, you’ll be among the first to be culled when the economy falls apart.
Wrong.
There are plenty of gueros (light skins) throughout the Americas.
Just act like a human being for a change and not some jacked up gringo-bot and you’ll be fine.
Don’t visibly live better, have better than your neighbors too. Always a wise choice everywhere.
Think Gran Torino. Don’t have such a car in inner city Detroit. Problem solved.
What happens when the applicable country adopts legislation similar to the sanctuary city prohibitions pending in Congress? It wouldn’t even take a law with a active swatter operating.
Or have a brand new 2018 American car in the ghetto of Mexico City?
You NAILED it, Free Speech! That’s America today…perfectly described. Most Americans are too dumb to even realize it; and if they come to realize it, they don’t care, because they are too morally debased.
We are a deranged nation, and our deranged “leaders” have the gall to go around the world exporting our sick culture, and provoking war.
That Kim Li’l-Dong or whatever his name is : D in NK may not be any better…but ya gotta at least give him credit for not bowing to our BS- and being willing to resist our tyranny at any cost, just as our forefathers resisted the most powerful empire of their time- England.
Whatever integrity and credibility America once had has now been lost. The actions of Trump has finally sealed America’s fate. It is no longer going to be the power it once was as it is no longer going to provide any example of moral or intellectual leadership.
America is a failed state. It has no moral character, it’s monetary substance is doomed and it is fast losing influence around the world, not just politically but financially as well. In truth it has lost so much influence that it appears to be nearly isolated.
The latest actions by trump in regards to Jerusalem has alienated nearly everyone. His saber rattling, now aimed at Pakistan is only going to create more problems and blow back.
The entire Trump administration is in such disarray that prompted author Michael Wolff to write the book “Fire and Fury” Inside The Trump White House.
America’s prestige around the world has been severely damaged by the past several administrations and this one has finished it off.
America has no prestige, It has no moral compass and it has no authority, legal, moral or otherwise to order other nations around and how to conduct business or who to associate with.
The future of America is based on the termination of the ignorance of the average American.
You had me until you cited Michael Wolff. He is a columnist for USA today and Vanity Fair Magazine. I wouldn’t trust a damned thing that guy says. He works for fake news. Enough said.
Exactly, Swampy. As loathesome as the Donald may be in most ways- the snowflakes will never mention those things, because their own heroes are guilty of the very same things and more.
So instead, they have to resort to fiction.
I was just reading an excerpt from Wolff’s book…. It is pure fiction. Unless Wolff is omnipresent, he (nor anyone else) would ever be privvy to the conversations he describes, nor the thoughts and intents he ascribes.
According to him, Trump “didn’t want to win the election”- He just wanted to be the most famous man in the world [Yes, we all know how famous all past presidential contenders are- much more famous than Trump apparently- whom I guess was an unknown before the election…], and for himself and Junior to be celebrities….
After that, and the supposed quoting of the details of a mundane conversation between Trump and top-level staffers, I couldn’t even read anymore of the excerpt, as it is obvious that is a figment of the author’s imagination.
I find myself saying to people over and over again that Donald Trump is fundamentally* no better or worse than any of the others. It’s a trivial matter to prove he’s this or that or even crazy but it’s very difficult to do it without proving the same for just about every president going back to Abe or further.
*as in principle, not details like was Trump’s tax reform better than Obama’s? Who cares, both served political purposes and come from the same principle. Could Trump’s meddling turn out to be better or worse than Obama’s? Sure. Both are meddlers though.
Either Trump is as stupid, ignorant, crazy, and incompetent as his critics are saying he is, or he is setting up a political pool table multiple bank shot that will, if successful, be the subject of political strategists for decades to come. Since the table is in play and I don’t have a quarter on it, all I can do is hope the latter is correct and comes off the way he plans.
Comparing the various attributes of politicians is like comparing the merits of bullies or executioners or muggers.
The only real qualitative difference seems to be their success in lying.
In the most recent election, Trump proved to be the better liar than Lying Hitlery. Hitlery was beating the war drums and saying that the first thing she was going to do was bomb Syria, and vanquish other enemies. Trump said he was going to make nice with everyone.
Trump wins, and then carries out the exact same routine which Hitlery had promised. Where is the choice?
Few who supported Trump seem to care. They act as if they weren’t lied to, about the above and 1000 other things. Come the next election, the exact same scenario will play out again- and all of last elections promises and lies will be forgotten, and the sheeple will again elect the best liar to rule over them and their countrymen. And the wars and the welfare will continue unabated.
Hi Nunz,
There is one plus in Trump’s column: His mere presence drives the people we can’t stand up a tree. That was worth pulling the lever, in my book! Also, denying Hillary the one thing she desired even more than Huma Abedeen’s vagina…
Hi Ya, Eric!
Oh, I agree! Which is why I actually avoid the temptation to criticize The Donald in public- I’d rather be in that camp, than with the Snowflakes or Never-Trumpers.
And to be fair, at least the guy has done a little good; and might have done more, if not hampered by the usual cast of idiots.
If it weren’t for his militarism and reckless provoking of other countries, I’d think a little more highly of him.
Yep, with the average income of a Tesla buyer over (IIRC) $300,000, the EV credit should have been repealed long ago.
People buying EVs are willing to pay for the cachet of owning an EV.
The same logic that demands we all “contribute” to the Social Security. Most of us are too far down the road to start over with the assumption that we won’t get anything from Uncle when we retire, even if we were to get 100% of our paycheck starting tomorrow. Perpetual motion, cash moving from one generation to the other, all the time forever (or at least until entropy sets in).
Social Security is the world’s biggest chain letter/pyramid scheme. (Of course the SS Administration claims that it is not – by reason of “we are the government.” Bernie Madoff learned from the best!)
Except that in this case, if you break the chain you’re certain to have bad luck!
Bernie Madoff was actively ignored by the SEC through dozens of high-level complaints.
He must have a learning deficiency.
All enforcement is selective. Bernie likely thought he would never be selected due to whatever relationships he had in place. Perhaps someone retired leaving Bernie vulnerable.
Or he ripped off someone who knew someone in a position to do the job of enforcement which is altogether too selective too much of the time.
Madoff made the mistake of ripping off the super rich as well. Most scams like these target middle class people, who of course will never see any “justice”.
So long as the ill gotten gains flowed to them his wealthy clients didn’t seem to care much. The ones that knew most likely protected the scheme.
Why would the super rich require an association with a common scam artist?
What was common about him? The principle of the scam? Yeah so? The wealthy have been running scams with the same principles behind them for six thousand years or more. It’s not like they need an uncommon scam, they want uncommon scale and a manner of doing things that won’t get them busted.
Madoff easily beat Ponzi on scale, but the latter didn’t have the SEC to fear or bribe.
Eric, you forgot the most magical incantation of all, “Sustainability”.
Which is perhaps the most UN-sustainable concept of all. Permanence. Stasis. Never Changing. The hallmark of the grave. And that’s exactly where this will all take us.
The media company in which I am employed has a program to save the planet one Styrofoam cup at a time if it kills us. They run psa’s that tout vegetarianism as a way to save the planet and have their “holiday” party at a steak house. They have others that tout “wait 30 days to make a purchase” to avoid “impulse” buying. No word yet what the advertisers that pay our salaries think about that one.
Corporate ‘Murica is driving down an intellectual cul-de-sac while they think they’re in command of the universe.
Check, please…
I have numerous friends who are small businessmen of one sort or another and I’ve noticed what suckers they can be for a “tax credit”. They will blow $100K on something they wouldn’t otherwise buy just because of a tax credit. Tell me please why it makes sense to spend $100 on an EV just because you get a $7500 tax credit?
You’re still out $92500. WTF?
“Diversity being our strength” – interesting. I would love for you Eric to do an article on that one! It seems the whole country has bought into, hook line and sinker, that utopian liberal “idea”.
Most of us have not “bought into it” but if we say what we really think, we’ll be demonized by the (((usual suspects))) and lose our reputations, families, jobs and wealth. Me, I’m retired and wealthy, so they can only say I’m old and senile when I speak truth to power.
True dat, Eric.
EVs and automated vehicles are also being force-fed to the public when they aren’t truly ready for prime time. So, we ultimately end up with inferior products. TPTB would rather us have said inferior products sooner than better ones later.
Furthermore, the whole EV thing comes out of the California coast, a place that’s not too hot or cold, not too hilly, and where chargers are not too few and far between.
EVs haven’t been tested, let alone proven, in the frozen expanses of Alaska or the Rockies, the vast searing deserts of Arizona, the rolling hills of Pennsylvania, or the crawling rush hour traffic of NYC or DC.
And there are so many more things we have yet to figure out when it comes to EVs:
We still haven’t figured out how much of a strain EVs will put on our electric power grid, let alone how to upgrade our generation and transmission capacity.
We still haven’t figured out exactly what environmental, health, and safety hazards EV batteries really pose, especially when they become commonplace. For instance, we know that the Li-ion batteries can catch on fire. Will fire departments need costly special equipment to put out these kinds of fires?
We still haven’t figured out the needs for the rare earth minerals used in EV batteries, and how we’ll secure a supply of these minerals. Could doing so involve the kinds of meddling in the affairs of even more politically unstable, anti-American countries, just as we have done in the Middle East for oil?
These have all been said before, but they bear repeating.
Hi Bryce,
Like many here, my objection is not to EVs. It is to being force-fed EVs, made to subsidize EVs… it’s all of a piece with the “welfare dynamic.” I plow my elderly neighbors’ driveway every year because I want to help them; they are nice people and I am glad to be of assistance. If, however, the government told me I had to plow their driveway – or else – my heart would harden toward my neighbors, whose enslaving of me I would resent bitterly.
Take force out of the equation – or everything – and most problems go away. And much more important, people once again regard one another as people – not potential threats, parasites, etc.
The only party really benefitting from all this is, of course, the government.