Bribed to Buy

51
6070

Here’s an obvious thing that never seems to occur to EV apologists: Why is it necessary to pay people to buy them? 

That’s what those “tax credits” you’ve no doubt heard about amount to.

Yes, it’s true that the people who qualify for them are merely getting back some of their own money – that would otherwise have been paid (that is, taken) in taxes. It’s still effectively a bribe. In return for buying something you probably otherwise wouldn’t we will give you back some of the money you otherwise would have had to pay the government.

“Tax credits” were not necessary to sell cars that sold – on their merits – like the 1964 Mustang, for instance. It was a new kind of car – the eponymous pony car – that Ford took a gamble on that paid off handsomely. The Mustang has been in continuous production ever since. This year is its 60th anniversary. Millions have been produced over that timespan.

And no one had to be bribed to buy one. As opposed to the “Mustang” Mach E, which is an EV (and isn’t a Mustang any more than mRNA drugs are vaccines).

No one got a check from the government for buying a VW Beetle, either. Or – for that matter – one of VW’s high-mileage, low-cost diesel-powered cars. The ones you can’t buy anymore. The government attacked VW for selling them to people who very much wanted to buy them – using their own money.

This says a great deal about what government wants.

Try to imagine what the landscape would look like if the government weren’t bribing people to buy EVs. It is easy to imagine, because there would be very few, if any, EVs. It is why there were almost no EVs from circa 1930 to circa 2008, when Tesla began converting Lotus sports cars into battery powered devices.

You have probably read about the problems manufacturers are having trying to sell EVs even with the bribes in place. Try to imagine the problems they’d have if people weren’t being bribed to buy EVs.nIf everyone who actually wanted one had to pay for it, just the same as everyone else who buys cars they’re not paid to buy.

EV apologists will often comeback with the accusation that oil is also subsidized; that people are not paying the full cost of the fuel they’re buying. This is absurd. If anything, they are paying through the nose already. The cost of a gallon of gas includes extortion – they are styled “taxes” – to the tune of about 50-60 cents per gallon, depending on which state you live in. Filling up an average car’s 15 gallon tank entails paying around $8 in taxes. Annually, that comes to around $400. If you have driven an average car the average annual mileage for the past 20 years, you have paid more (about $8,000) than the buyer of a new EV is bribed to buy an EV.

This does not factor in the income taxes paid to the federal government that go to pay for “defense” – as offense is now styled. The cost of all that “defense,” we’re told, is to protect the nation’s supply of oil. Except most of it was produced here until just three years ago, a story for another time.

And in spite of all that paying in “taxes,” the people who bought the cars did so with their own money. Because they decided the car was worth the money.

EV buyers have not yet been obliged to make that calculation.

The result has been an artificial – and temporary – blip in the apparent popularity of EVs. It is not that they are really popular, something that cannot be established until it’s clear there a sufficient number of people willing to buy them, using their own money. What it is – right now – is like the fancy (and expensive) car wash place that opened in my area recently. They have been offering free car washes – and there’s a line around the block.

Naturally.

Free is our favorite price – to quote Woody Woodpecker, after he dined and dashed at the restaurant owned by the poor walrus.

Subsidized – and discounted – works, too. People will buy things that sell for less than they would otherwise cost. The difficulty – for the seller – lies in absorbing such costs. Clearing out inventory does not mean you’ve made a lot of money – or that what you’re selling is popular. It means you cleared out inventory – by lowering the price to a level low enough that people were willing to take off your hands that which they would otherwise have left on the shelves.

It’s no way to run a business.

Certainly not for long – as you eventually run out of other people’s money (borrowing a line from Margaret Thatcher, the onetime prime minister of Great Britain).

Those obliged to sell EVs are dependent on the bribes it takes to get people to buy them. They know that were it not for these bribes, they would have a much tougher time selling what people would otherwise not be able to buy. In italics to emphasize the fact that EVs are simply too expensive for most people to buy, leaving aside their hypothetical desire to buy them. The latter in italics to emphasize the fact that what a person wants is immaterial if it is beyond his means. Many of us would very much like to own a luxury car, for instance. But most of us don’t own one because we’re not paid to buy them.

Unless, of course, they’re battery powered devices.

. . .

If you like what you’ve found here please consider supporting EPautos. 

We depend on you to keep the wheels turning! 

Our donate button is here.

 If you prefer not to use PayPal, our mailing address is:

EPautos
721 Hummingbird Lane SE
Copper Hill, VA 24079

PS: Get an EPautos magnet or sticker or coaster in return for a $20 or more one-time donation or a $10 or more monthly recurring donation. (Please be sure to tell us you want a magnet or sticker or coaster – and also, provide an address, so we know where to mail the thing!)

If you like items like the Keeeeeeev T shirt pictured below, you can find that and more at the EPautos store!

51 COMMENTS

  1. Volvo to shareholders: Take this tar baby — please!

    ‘Shares of Volvo Cars dipped on Friday, after the company said it would dilute its stake in electric vehicle maker Polestar by distributing 62.7% of its holdings to its shareholders.

    ‘If approved during the company’s annual general meeting of March 2024, Volvo would retain around 18% of Polestar’s shares.

    ‘The announcement comes after Volvo Cars said earlier this month that it would stop funding ailing brand Polestar and is considering adjusting its holdings in the electrical vehicle maker.’

    https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/23/volvo-shares-fall-after-it-sets-out-to-dilute-stake-in-polestar.html

    With the EeeVee Bubble in full-on implosion, Volvo has the right idea. The best thing they can do is chuck that electric tar baby into the briar patch, and RUN LIKE HELL.

    • Even if Volvo abandons Polestar, it still makes Volvo-branded EVs, so the Chinese automaker does not appear to want to abandon its EV follies altogether.

  2. Never forget: Elon Musk became the world’s richest man on the backs of American taxpayers. (OK: he gamed the system legally, to his ‘uge advantage; would you?) All Tesla sales subsidies were at the latters’ expense. Without them, well, draw your own alternate-universe speculations.

  3. Every time I see that brain-dead chimpanzee eating ice cream cones I think that it must throw it’s own poo around when it gets mad. It’s even funnier when the political terrorists dress it up in cool sunglasses and a leather jacket. It is like a circus animal in the eyes of the people outside the USA.

  4. In ’99, I bought a new vehicle that got 600 miles/tankful (highway) or 550 m/t (normally). With a full tank, I left Maine and drove to Tampa, FL with only one other fill up. And now they want us in cars that MIGHT get 150 miles before needing a multi-hour charge? There’s a reason why they are pushing this and it’s not because of the (man-made) climate change scam. That car was a VW Jetta TDI (49-50mpg with a 12 and a half or so gallon tank). Our 2014 VW doesn’t come close to the ’99.

  5. The US Government decided in the name of Global Warming/Climate Change/Climate despite historical fact that mankind is causing fluctuations in Climate. These fluctuations are causing mass migration, imagined storms, cats and dogs living together. It is in reality a wealth pyramid with socialists believing they will be at the top. All that aside fossil fuels got to go. Nobody wants EVs and the result is no infrastructure momentum to support that change. The fascist Government hell bent on controlling production convinced OEMs to retool with the promise that the market “will be there”. Not being saps these companies demanded “investments” of tax payer money and proof the market “will be there”. So our government used tax dollars as subsidies to invest in “jobs” and “social” engineering. This is where it gets real ugly, in exchange the government demanded CRT and DEI pushed at all levels of these corporations. Covid provided perfect cover mandates were implemented and the public accepted them, EV mandates too. Cynically the companies took part of there subsidies and asked the Government to redistribute wealth I mean the subsidies to buyers of EVs to create the appearance of a discount to stimulate sales. The more sales the greater the momentum to create infrastructure that was equally subsidized. The money ultimately ended up with the OEMs through tax breaks. The Party of Unintended Consequences only generated sales in the affluent community because the vehicles even with the $7500 give back were too expensive. To boot Covid and shoddy engineering couldn’t produce batteries, chips in number as the supply chain faltered. Oh no, how unforeseen… what to do? Print money in Washington, extend the $7500 forever and amp up subsidies to create battery suppliers (Chinese owned) in the US. Viola! What about the inflation pressure created by the money press? The wool has got to be pulled over the eyes of the masses. First deny inflation exists, check. Next propose a must pass don’t read bill to spend 6 Trillion dollars, print it then stand up some stooges to give the appearance of debate in Washington. Enter Manchin and Sinema. The result is to rename the astronomical green new deal bill to pay for it all as the “Inflation Reduction Act”. UAW wants their cut, strike time. Now living in Michigan and working this industry my whole life I’ve never been a UAW member, I tried but the number one criteria is do you have any family members that are UAW workers. I did not, that was the early 80s when they killed the Ford Tractor plant. Anyway despite the UAW numerous instances with striking UAW workers disallowing me to park my car so I could work my non union job I and my family, no doubt the entire country have benefited eventually from Union demands. Anyone with eyes who can see would have noted the disconnect during NAFTA and subsequent off shoring of jobs the UAW leadership no longer sailed with the workers. They are getting their cut knowing full well all those jobs will leave this Country. Matter of fact that process has evolved since 2000 when all the OEMs started their China design houses. Sometimes you get what you didn’t think you voted for.

  6. Ford has done well with the Mustang, not so well with the Edsel and is losing about $60K for every EV they sell. Or maybe it’s on every EV truck. Not sure. I can remember the kid’s father down the block buying a new Mustang…maybe a 1964 or 1965 model. We went cruising around in that thing when his dad would let him take it out for a spin.

    No one said car companies are always brilliant. They all do stupid things to please the stupid government. EV’s are a flash in the pan much like the entire green energy movement which has no sound bases for existence in the real world (but it works well in Markie’s silly fake digital reality).

    If they want to give me a free EV, I will take it and immediately sell it and pocket whatever some silly fool will give me for it. Whenever governments mandate something, it is because they are following the destructive democrat fascist agenda or are straight out marxists or communists. That is the US government today…take your pick.

  7. Agreed but a bribe isn’t exactly the word, it’s a “disguise” to cover for one’s bad decision. But this EV propaganda and the bold face lies associated with EV’s is much larger than what people even start to understand. Here’s a perfect example. I bought a new 2024 Toyota Highlander it’s the XLE model I wanted an Unlimited Hybrid but that was too popular of a car for my small city Toyota dealer to acquire. Here comes the kicker follow the simple arithmetic. The car’s read out for the mpg reads at 26 average. However, I had 2 tanks of gasoline with the fill up being 15 gallons once the yellow gas pump light came on. When I went through the 2 tanks of gasoline I had 1,018 miles. That’s 500 miles per tank of 15 gallons giving me 33 miles per gallon not the 26 mpg the car’s read out states. Conclusion: I believe the manufactures have to program the mpg read outs in such a way the mpg is knocked down than what it actually is to make EV’s seem like a better choice. The EV’s rabbit hole of depiction runs deep.

    • Note: so there is no misunderstanding I want to explain a bit more to my post above. The dealer filled my tank when I was doing the paperwork for the sale. I ran that tank until the warning low fuel light came on. 15 gallons to fill the tank. I ran that tank of fuel down until the low fuel light came on. It took 15 gallons to fill the tank again, and I noted my mileage to be 1,018. No getting around it, 500 miles per tank of 15 gallons. The car had 4 miles on it and just came in the same morning I bought it. 33 mpg, how sweet it is.

    • You are paying the subsidies out of your taxes whether you buy one or not. When you have Senators like Markey of Massachusetts pushing this, it proves they are idiots. They are watermelons green environmentalists on the outside and red communists on the inside.
      What a waste of our tax money.

      • Our taxes pay for a whole lot worse things. In fact EV are one of the least evil things taxes pay for. Just today on a website PCR did a story on the evils that come from our taxes and said this: “It was Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez who identified the problem in his famous speech to the United Nations General Assembly in 2006. As he stood at the podium, his opening words referring to President George W. Bush, were “yesterday at this very podium stood Satan himself, speaking as if he owned the world. You can still smell the sulfur.”

  8. It’s a good thing that “electric” and “electronic” both start with the same letter, because those battery-powered cars are the electronic type.

    Though there aren’t enough people to really know the difference between those words.

  9. I’m still waiting for cash for clunkers 2.0. I have a grand marquis with frame rot sitting out back that will be a perfect trade in for a free government EV. Naturally I’d never pay any real money for one though.

  10. Idiot socialist Teutons screw the pooch again:

    ‘Last week, as giant earth movers kicked up clouds of dust, Volkswagen executives and local officials gathered near Columbia, S.C., to inaugurate a factory that will build vehicles bearing the Scout badge for the first time since 1980.

    ‘Part of [Volkswagen’s] plan to revive its fortunes here is to lean on a new electric model that resembles the Microbus, the ID.Buzz, and to revive the Scout brand with a line of electric pickups and sport utility vehicles.

    ‘Volkswagen is one of several foreign automakers that see electric cars and the upheaval they are causing as a way to challenge the dominant players in the United States. “This market is turning electric, and everybody’s starting from scratch,” Arno Antlitz, the chief financial officer of Volkswagen, said in an interview. “This is our unique opportunity to grow.” — NYT

    https://archive.ph/LFQcA#selection-693.0-693.194

    ‘This is our unique opportunity to blow,’ ‘Antlitz’ should’ve said.

    Dummkopf! Americans don’t need no stinkin’ EeeVees. And for damned sure, no electric Scout to desecrate the memory of a great ICE vehicle. Cultural appropriation, I cry — j’accuse!

    An electric Scout is like a big-breasted girly man, selling the sizzle. But there’s no steak.

    Hopefully, Volkswagen’s goofball Wokester notion of conquering America with EeeVees will finish it off for good.

    Well, you can keep me painted in a corner
    You can look away, but it’s not over
    You’re jammin’ me

    — Tom Petty, Jammin’ Me

  11. They ruined all the ice street cars…..and they are in the process of ruining all the race cars…..

    F1 cars in 2026 will still have about 1000 HP but 50% of it will come from an electric motor and about 50% from an ice engine……..In 2024 F1 cars have about 1000 HP but 860 HP is from an ice engine….

    They have already ruined the sound of them….they sound terrible compared to the old V12’s, V8’s and V10’s…..Cosworth had a 20,000 rpm V8…..the new F1 V6 turbos only 13,000 rpm…

    They have become bigger, uglier and heavier since they were ice powered only….

    F1 cars since 2021 have also become slower…slower lap times…..

    When all race cars are EV’s…they will be dead… no emotion, no smell, no feeling, no sound…silence…the sound of death…and no flames out the exhaust…..

    https://www.thedrive.com/accelerator/f1s-2026-engine-rules-are-here-quieter-laggier-and-less-ice-power

  12. Forcing slaves into EV’s….it is not going very well….they need to be more forceful…lol…bigger rebates…more banning ice vehicles….

    Currently, it’s estimated that around 1 percent of the 250 million cars, SUVs, and light-duty trucks on American roads are electric.

    To be successful they say a new product has to get past the 16% acceptance level…at 1% after 13 years is a huge fail……they will never get past 16%…ever…

    In the U.S. it is very hard to sell EV’s…too much resistance, people love ice vehicles…..it has one of the lowest adoption rates of EV’s in the world

  13. If anything is fair, the US gov should send everybody a check for 7500 dollars, a rebate, a reparation, and the individual can buy any car they want.

    Leo Wanta set up accounts around the world and bought Russian Rubles for a song, eventually the total became 27.5 trillion dollars. A short blurb about Leo. Could be one reason why Vlad has had it with whatever everything has become.

    Lots of skullduggery out there these days. Sherman Skolnick would have been on it, along with Hunter.

    Everything the US gov does is a bribe, also known as ‘we’re from the government and we’re here to help’ mantra.

    I was selected to a master’s program sponsored by the Peace Corps. I was appointed to be a Peace Corps officer in Zaire somewhere over in Africa. Not gonna do it.

    I was a no show. So were 360,000 draftees during WWI, the Selective Service Act had problems from the beginning. If you listen to Douglas Macgregor, you then know there is real information in this world.

    “Resist much, obey little.” – Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

    • “If anything is fair, the US gov should send everybody a check for 7500 dollars, a rebate, a reparation, and the individual can buy any car they want.”

      Guess what would happen to prices now that everybody magically has $7,500 in their pockets? Yep, they’d go up. The freely printed money handed out through the “Cares Act” illustrated this all too well.

      • If everybody has 7500 dollars in their pockets, they can sell the vehicle they have and not buy, hang on to the 7500 dollars. You’ll be 15,000 dollars richer.

        7500 x 335,000,000=2,512,500,000,000 dollars. The US gov will have no control.

        Not as many enter the market, the wise man will have 7500 dollars in the bank, not about to buy anything. Especially an overpriced used auto. Get real.

        Wait for the crash, don’t have to foolishly spend your windfall. You do have the liberty to not spend any of it.

        Besides, all the government will do is fritter it all out the window in Ukraine and Israel. Might as well be in the right hands, yours.

        The beatings will continue until the morale improves.

        The genocide will continue until you are dead.

  14. It isn’t just EV government subsidies that need to go….credits for solar power and rebates for high efficiency (meaning high end, and high-priced) home appliances also need to end. Also notice that pretty much all of the stuff that qualifies for these rebates (aka our tax dollars) is more expensive, sometimes significantly so, than more basic versions of the same things.
    The revenue of everyone who works and pays taxes, even if they only flip burgers, goes to fund purchases by people who make way more than the minimum wage….

    Funny that the left seems to have hatred for the rich, but, it seems, only for those who make profit from things they hate, like fossil fuels. And they pretend to care for the poor, but they couldn’t care less that money taken from a low wage earner’s paycheck helps some upper crust person buy a Tesla!

    Products need to stand (or fall) on their own merits. No gov’t “help” should ever been needed or given. Back in the 80’s the gov’t had no part in forcing music lovers to abandon cassettes and switch to CDs. Or subsidizing movie lovers to buy DVDs instead of VHS tapes….and of course these days, the move to streaming media.
    Wringer washers went away in the early to mid-20th century. Not because the gov’t banned them, but because companies that made washers came up with a much easier (and less time consuming and dangerous) way to get excess water out of laundry. The CPSC wasn’t around back then, so it was purely consumer reaction that drove the changes.

    It seems that the PTB are finding out the hard way that trying to force consumer choice is a fool’s errand. Sure, anyone who wants an EV will gladly accept the “discount”. But no discount is going to sway those who have no interest in purchasing that sort of vehicle. Imagine if the gov’t decided to subsidize motorcycles (perhaps, on account of them using less fuel…). Sure, Harley fans and fans of other makes of bike would lap it up and probably upgrade to a newer or fancier model. But what about a family of five with young children? Unless they are well off and dad can afford a bike for the weekend, it’s most likely they would just stick to buying a minivan (what few new ones are left) or a large SUV. In other words, they will buy what best suits them. Which also likely won’t be an EV….imagine trying to entertain bored kids while the EV charges! Instead of “are we there yet?” it would be “Is it charged yet?”

  15. This “credit” business is the biggest scam of all time. The only reason Eloon got to be a billionaire was from “selling” carbon credits, which are made of nothing but vaporware, to regular vehicle manufacturers so they could continue their business of making normal cars. Selling the Emperor new clothes on a grand scale.
    Sure wish I could run a business like that.

  16. This EV push reeks of the push for “COVID jabs for all” 3 years ago. Just as millions of Americans didnt want to take any chances on the experimental mRNA COVID jabs 3 years ago, the Biden Thing tried to FORCE them to get vaxxed. With people now saying NO to an EV, I think the Biden Thing will try to FORCE people to get an EV, particularly if the Thing (or whoever might replace him) gets 4 more years.

    • As I have mentioned before, I can see the Biden regime getting desperate, and going so far as to completely shut gasoline and oil (petrol) down, and thus, forcing Americans into EV’s. These people are insane, and will stop at nothing to force their will and agenda down everyone else’s throat.

      • Then what will be president potato’s or orange man’s excuse for occupying Iraq and Syria then? “No blood for oil!” they shouted as president chimp lied us into another stupid war. Is the next rallying cry gonna be “no blood for lithium!”?

        • Mike,

          That’s an interesting thought. Will the same Anti-war types who screeched “No blood for oil!” when W was President be screeching “No blood for lithium!” with Biden? I’m not sure, but many of them did get on board with war for “Keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeev!” & “Demoooooooooooooocracy!” However, I’m not aware of any of them protesting children mining for lithium in third world countries under conditions we’d find unbearable.

  17. In the 1980s, because the cost of a cellular phone was so high, the carriers would “sell” customers the phones of the time at a loss in order to get customers. It was a pain point that the market solved by subsidizing the cost. Most people didn’t really know who made their phone, nor did they care. It got them on the network. It was up to the handset makers to come up with premium phones to get people interested in buying a specific model.

    Some PC manufacturers did the same thing in the 1990s, bundling service software with hardware to reduce the up front cost. It eventually backfired as the amount of “bloatware” that had to be removed before you had a workable machine led to many just formatting the drive and finding a Windows key online.

    In the 00’s we had the rise of Google and “free” network services, given away in order to push doubleclick(dot)net advertising on the sucker… er, customer. This was OK at first but of course went over the top and started the ad-blocker industry. Now it’s a cat-and-mouse battle between the two.

    Where are the electric utilities? Why aren’t they the ones pushing subsidized EVs out there to gain market share over the gas stations? My co-op will hand out a rebate for a tier two charge point. But if you need to upgrade your service panel it won’t come close to covering the cost. And it doesn’t do anything to offset the big cost of the vehicle itself.

    Why aren’t they interested in the massive growth potential that EVs represent? Sure my little co-op is a non-profit, but just down the hill is Xcel Energy, a very much for profit power company. Looking at the web site they have a list of the federal (and Minnesota for some reason) incentives. But they’re not fronting anything themselves. Maybe because the engineers did the cost estimate of how much it will take to replace the amount of energy in a gallon of gasoline with electric generating and distribution capacity and didn’t like the numbers? Maybe they’re just waiting for Uncle to cut ’em a check too?

    Probably both.

    • Hi RK:

      Remember when your Windows computer came with Microsoft Works a free basic office bundle? Now of course you pay annually for a “better” version that does the same thing. Progress!!

      • [Now of course you pay annually for a “better” version that does the same thing. Progress!!] Landru

        MS (Mostly Sucks) junk sold for premium prices back in the day. Now the marks pay a yearly fee. And how much does one pay for virus protection. Windows has more holes than Swiss cheese.
        ‘Smart phones’ are just shiny glitter to keep the mind fogged. I’ve watched people walk out in front of traffic, knock over displays in stores, walk around with that thing against their head zapping what little intelligence is left.
        I loved computers in the 80s and early 90s. Remember Computer Shopper. It was as big as a telephone book, Course many don’t know what a telephone book is today.
        Remember you always carried some change if you might need to make a phone call,,, now people pay many fed bucks for monthly fees. lol
        I worked at the telephone central office and can tell you how funny it was to watch the change over. Look how much the morons will pay for 500 channels and nuttuns on TV today,,, especially the gladiator channels.
        Yeah,,, those shiny lights, noise makers and glitter keep the minds busy these days.

  18. “The cost of all that “defense,” we’re told, is to protect the nation’s supply of oil. ” – Eric Peters

    You are correct, sir. What is amazing is that in no other area of commodities are people who have a commodity are forced, at gunpoint, to sell said commodity.

    Imagine McDonalds, who at one time was the largest purchaser of potatoes, going to a farmer and sticking a gun in his face and forcing him to sell them potatoes. The hydrocarbons that are bubbling out of the earth are a pollutant unless converted to a useful product. On top of that there are thousands if not millions of uses for this “pollutant”. As the largest user of petroleum the U.S. should be catered to and given quantity discounts for all the purchases we can make. But, nooooo, we need to “send in the Marines” to maintain a supply and use billions of barrels of oil to move said troops. This is insanity on a massive scale.

    And Americans, because they are economic dunces, cheer it on.

    Yes, I’ll have a scotch, neat.

    • It is really about making sure those oil trades continue to occur in dollars. We dump dollars into the world, they buy wheat and iPhones (and real estate, stocks and federal debt). Every time a petroleum nation makes noises about trading in something other than dollars the folks in DC send in the wrecking crew.

      One reason why Russia is so hated is because Putin knows the grift and has enough ability to produce that he can avoid the petrodollar and trade direct, like he’s been doing with India and China since the start of the Ukraine conflict. Until they get a Yeltsin-style puppet back in Moscow, Russia is going to remain an “evil” country.

      • Right, RK. And with BRICS+ the erosion of the petro-dollar is only hastening. Gadhafi wanted to trade Libyan oil in gold and it got him a bayonet suppository. But, it opened the floodgates. When the U.S. seized hundreds of millions in Russian assets over Ukraine the rest of the world saw the writing on the wall. The only question is when the collapse will become total. This year? Next? It depends on whom you believe.

    • Hmm, that kind of reminds me what Stalin did during his reign; He forced farmers at gun point to raise food that they themselves would never be allowed to eat. That Stalin’s government would later seize for themselves (Collectivization). As thanks, they got to starve to death. Funny how history repeats itself, and not in a good way.

      • ‘Stalin … forced farmers at gun point to raise food that they themselves would never be allowed to eat.’ — Shadow

        So did Franklin Democrat Roosevelt, in a Supreme Court case styled as Wickard v Filburn (1942). Roscoe Filburn had a pay a penalty for growing excess wheat to feed his own freaking animals. ‘It affects interstate commerce,’ ruled the abject hacks in black.

        Oh, here he is now!

        https://ibb.co/4JR8SsN

  19. ‘Those obliged to sell EVs are dependent on the bribes it takes to get people to buy them.’ — eric

    Those $7,500 tax credit bribes are just the consumer-facing aspect of a vast, subsidized state industry of battery manufacturing. Can you spell ‘white elephant’?

    Moreover, by twisting the language of the statute, the ‘Biden’ cabal managed to authorize dealers to receive the $7,500 tax credit on the spot, including for non-qualifying EeeVees, on lease transactions. Even the author of the law, DemonRat Senator Joe Manchin, claimed that the ‘Biden’ regime enlarged its reach (and cost) way beyond his intentions.

    Given the six-figure income, coastal profile of the typical EeeVee buyer or lessor, these subsidies are one of the more outrageous examples of a reverse Robin Hood policy, in which the working poor are mulcted to aid the jaded rich in acquiring second and third vehicles.

    If re-elected, the Orange Man would stop this janky shit on Day One. Stroke of the pen, bitchez.

  20. It says a lot doesn’t it that people will accept the concept that low wage workers that pay taxes should subsidize high wage earners to buy Evs.

    At one time the free market decided what sold and what wouldn’t but I guess that’s too hard for the “smart” people running the country to understand.

    As always with the EV scam where is all the new power generation to charge them going to come from to power them once the dreaded hydro carbon power plants are demolished?

    That’s a question they can never give a believable answer to.

    • That’s because the real answer is they don’t care. If the infrastructure won’t support everyone having an EV then those on the short end of the stick can move into their “smart cities.”

    • In the Peoples State of New York, native son Donald Trump (who’s promised to end the EeeVee madness) must put up $460 million in cash to appeal the business fraud judgment handed down by the vaguely humanoid ‘Engoron’ entity. Talk about pay to play …

      Arbitrary ruin under color of law used to be a Third World phenomenon. Now under the neo-Soviet lawfare regime of Merrick Beria-Garland, ‘justice’ is a political policy, with designated good guys and bad guys. Verdict first, trial later!

      As the US increasingly comes to resemble Haiti, it is actually at greater risk of a military coup to restore order than generally realized. ‘We are going to have the most diverse and inclusive civilizational collapse in history.’ — Oilfield Rando on X

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here