Paying Them to Play Along

By
eric
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47
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Why does the car industry continue to pretend there’s a “market” for the battery-powered devices that aren’t selling? The answer is straightforward:

They’re being paid to pretend.

By the very people – that’s almost all of us – who do not want battery powered devices and for that reason haven’t been buying them, leading to billions of dollars in losses.

Never fear! Biden is here.

The (s)elected autocrat, who has decided we will have battery powered devices whether we buy them (directly) or not, just sluiced another $1.7 billion-plus of our money to the vehicle manufacturers that are losing money manufacturing battery powered devices they can’t sell, except at a loss.

“The Department of Energy (DOE) announced $1.7 billion in planned grants to help fund the conversion of 11 “at risk” plants in eight states to enable the production of 1 million EVs annually, help retain 15,000 existing jobs, and create 3,000 new positions.”

GM will get a check (paid for by us) to the tune of $500 million to convert the Lansing Grand River plant that used to make vehicles into a joint that makes devices “at an unspecified future date.” Stellantis –  the European conglomerate that owns the Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep and Ram brands – will get a check (from us) for about $334 million to convert the idled Belvidere plant that also used to make vehicles into a joint where government mandated devices will be manufactured. A spokesman for Stellantis crooned approvingly that this constitutes “an important step in continuing to expand our electrified vehicle offerings.” 

You know – the “offerings” people have made it clear they aren’t interested in. Never mind. Vorwarts!

 

The question is rarely asked – channeling The Chimp – why are these plants “at risk”? And why is it necessary to force taxpayers to finance their conversion into joints devoted to making batteries for devices? If, as the old man insists – Glasgow smiling as he does so – that devices are what people want then why must people be made to finance what they obviously don’t want?

Never mind that.

Devices are the future! (This would sound much better in German.)

Including those on two wheels. Hardley Ableson will get $89 million to manufacture devices and Cummins – which used to make diesel engines that didn’t require the government to force people to pay for them – will get $75 million to convert its plant in Indiana to device-making. Just the ticket for people who need equipment that works rather than costs – time and money.

Volvo and Hyundai – which aren’t even American brands – will also get checks.

The Reich Minister of Energy, Jennifer Granholm – who has made a lot of money off of energy policies, especially her own – says that all this sluicing of money toward Most Favored Industries are the “hallmark of the Biden administration’s industrial strategy,” which is absolutely true. This is an administration that sees itself as the arbiter of industry; what industry is allowed to do and paid to do. She is the eery incarnation of Wesley Mouch, a character in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged – which was once fiction and now a kind of real-time script of current events. 

Mouch – in the novel – is the Coordinator at the Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources, who (in the novel) cripples the economy with regulation that are always for the “public good,” as defined by Mouch and paid for by everyone else.

Granholm plays his part in the actuality.

The auto industry is being transitioned into a state industry that manufacturers what the state says it must – and must not – produce. One that regards the government not only as its primary customer but its benefactor. It no longer resists the government because it is paid not to resist it.

The Coordinator at the Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources – whoops, the secretary of energy – says that it “had become clear more than a decade ago” that – to “embrace the future”- the automobile industry “needed a federal partner” and “that’s what this massive investment is all about.” 

Indeed, it is.

The technical term for such “partnerships” is fascism. This is not a pejorative. It is descriptive. The Left likes to hurl this word at people who disagree with it, including over – ironically enough – this business of the state “partnering” with big business, which is precisely the thing that defines fascism.

Yet by some truly astounding inversion of etymology, “fascism” has transitioned into a term of abuse hurled at those who oppose fascism. It’s enough to make one reach for the bottle. Or to shrug, as the exasperated heroes in Rand’s novel did. When the productive people – in the novel – finally had enough of the destructive people, they went on strike. They stopped producing because it finally occurred to them that if they stopped producing, the destructive people who cannot produce would no longer have the power to continue destroying what they were producing.

And so they did. And then the engine of the world stopped. When it did, so did everything else. And people wondered why, all of a sudden, things they’d taken for granted had become scarce and things that used to work no longer did.

“Who is John Galt?”

They’d ask this as a question that expressed their resignation. Only a few people understood why the world seemed to have come to a screeching halt, like a machine run dry of oil on purpose until it seized up and worked no more.

. . .

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Related posts:
  1. Maybe You Haven’t Wrecked – But You’ll Still be Paying For It
  2. Better Than Paying it Forward
  3. Paying for Electric Cars… Twice
  4. Paying the Pipers
  5. Paying for Your New EV . . . Even if You Don’t Own One

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47 COMMENTS

  1. The Vampire Squid is going to get us all.

    Maybe the auto companies will be able to manufacture vehicles they know will sell, dot gov will become a gentle giant after Trump is elected president.

    He’s lucky to be alive. One tough critter there.

    Might be some food for thought, the Vaccinator-in-Chief almost got vaccinated the old fashioned way.

    Things seem to be devolving out there. Biden is toast now.

    The left seems to be trigger happy. Terrorizing everybody with one shot as it happens, you can achieve the pariah status rather quickly, dead too. When somebody opens fire on you, you have a right to defend yourself. A leftist opened fire at a ball game a few years ago.

    Democrats should be ashamed of themselves.

    • Read that, thanks. It’s amazing that right now it’s as if the plandemic never happened. The last line in the article states there are plans to do it again. Detention camps in all 50 states for Americans, that’s what I’m hearing.

  3. Off topic: Mike Adams interviews Ashton Forbes on MH370. Whether you buy any of it or not, it’s very intriguing. You’re talking anti-gravity and time travel. And a gigantic CIA coverup.

    • Also, scalar weapons, super conductor chips, wormholes… Might be nuts, but then again, all the stuff the we though was BS that turned out to be true.

  6. The problem with Biden passing out money, other people’s money, is he thinks he is morally righteous and correct about the future of vehicles. But what he has really done is subvert the market – which is millions of individual choices, and 100% for sure that money will be wasted – a huge malinvestment.

    When Biden is done, his EV investments will be just like his floating pier he built on the Palestinian coast, falling apart, and a complete disaster.

    Libertarians, like Murray Rothbard and Ayn Rand, have written much how this plays out – and it will not end well. But it is worse than you think, the 1.7 billion is literally a drop in the bucket what Biden has already passed out to Ukraine (over 200 billion) and Israel (at least 20 billion) for illegal and immoral wars that have killed millions.

    Both wars are genocidal. Zelensky is genociding the white boys of Ukraine, and BTW no Jew has to serve, they are exempt. Jews always get the Goyim to do their wet work. Biden is assisting in two genocides, and is legally culpable. But the world bodies are run by corrupt faggot imbeciles, lacking any real spine to call out the Jews and Zionists.

    The new estimate for Gazans killed is now 178,000. At least 500,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed. News out of Poland this week – Polish soldiers shot dead Ukrainians trying to flee into Poland for asylum. There are at least 2.6 million wounded Ukes and over 15 million left the nation altogether. Ukraine is now a failed state and is only functional with your tax dollars. All Uke pensions are now being paid by the US Treasury.

    So be sure to pay your taxes.

    It was alsp reported this week that 279,000 Ukes came to the USA since the war started and Biden put them on Social Security – even though they never paid a cent into it, and are not even citizens. The illegal immigrants get on average $2200 a month, and the WSJ reported that in 2023 the illegals cost the USA $451 billion. That is whopping shit ton of money for people who shouldn’t even be here.

    Now that is some vote buying for ya. Biden is spending a whole lot of money, your money, to literally import and bribe new demonrat voters.

    The US Senate specified $200 million in funds for Ukraine border security – which is meant to stop any Ukrainians from fleeing their nation and war run by the gay Jew demon Zelensky, who is lovers with butt boy Macron, who married a man, Brigitte Macron was born Jean-Michel Trogneux. and there is good evidence that person is also the biological father of Emmanuel Macron. That means Macron married his pedo dad. And Macron is all gung ho for more war, and has sent many French soldiers into Ukraine – many captured or killed reported by Sputnik and South Front.

    The point is the malinvestment in EVs is huge, but may pale in comparison to the “investments” in Israel and Ukraine. At least the EV monies are not designed to kill you, unless you drive a Tesla and get burned alive as it autocombusts and locks you in.

    So here is the question, who are you going to vote for when all candidates are bribed whores. Should you vote for Ziowhore A or Ziowhore B? If Trump gets in (if they allow him) then Zelensky vows to kill him, because Trump wants to cut funds to Ukraine. But pussy Trump, will cave, and never be a real leader and have the CIA liquidate Zelensky or Netanyahu. Trump is just like Biden, a complete fail. Faux leaders.

    There is a way to end the wars, just kill the leaders who keep the war going. And you don’t even have to risk a single soldier’s life – you just send in the Predator Drones with Hellfire missiles and whack them while they are in a staff meeting. It is a real mystery to me why Russia allows Zelensky to live, this week Russian nuclear plant was hit by drones.

    All I can say is Putin must be in on it with the west.

    • After driving Hyundais I refuse to even consider them any more for various reasons, and this is another excellent reason not to drive them. Very corrupt.

  9. I truly did go Gault on the auto industry. Former automotive engineer. Had to leave about 10 years before my career would have naturally ended.

    I cannot in good conscience continue to work on things that the customer doesn’t want (EV’s, assisted driving, etc.) and which is being demanded by world governments.

    Now, if only I could invent the motor Gault did. Gotta keep working on that one. lol!

    • There is this engine developed by Robert Bourke, which supposedly has cool exhaust – which means it must be thermally efficient. I wrote an article on it:

      https://www.veteranstodayarchives.com/2013/08/19/the-bourke-engine-could-revolutionize-private-aviation/

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvuSMjPFYzs

      As Eric can tell you, a 10 horsepower 2 cycle engine is far lighter and smaller than a 10 hp 4 cycle engine. Well a Bourke engine is a 1 cycle engine, and it would be perfect for aviation.

      I got one of those new fangled engine monitoring gadgets called Scan Gauge 3 (SG3) available on Amazon. You plug it into the OBD2 and mount it on the dash with a suction cup. It tells you everything, I mean everything. My Civic only uses 8-12 hp while cruising. So why in the hell do you need 200 hp? Theoretically, why do you need a 4 cylinder 1.5 liter engine in a Prius? Why not have a 200 cc engine charging all of the time?

      The problem with hybrids is that they are attempting to fix a ICE car. What you want is an electric vehicle with a small generator, but big enough to power cruising speeds. So you need an engine generator that puts out enough juice so the battery doesn’t drain as you cruise down the highway. When you pull over at the rest stop you do NOT need to find a charging cord, because the onboard generator is already whizzing away charging the battery. I believe this type of hybrid is coming.

      The best ICE engine is only 25% thermally efficient, which means 75% of the fuel burned turns into heat – not work. If you could make an ICE engine 50% efficient it would change the world. I have seen proposals to cover a ICE engine with Peltier thermalcouples – to transform the waste heat into voltage. I can imagine a hybrid car with a small ICE engine that runs all the time charging the battery, all the waste heat turns into electrons charging the battery.

      When I lived in the backwoods of Idaho, we ran wood stoves, and a few people I knew were trying to tap the heat to charge their batteries for their 12 volt home lighting and laptops. These were off the grid solar homes – but in the winter with cloud cover the solar panel output was nil.

      I developed a home water heating system, it took a few tries but I got it to work very well. My all electric home only used about $12 of electric per month, I ran a cast iron pipe through the bottom of the woodstove and thermosiphoned it to the regular hot water pre-heater – which fed a regular electirc water heater – and it never turned on in the winter. I had my own home built ammeter to measure the watt hours – I got some free analog home meters and made a case for them and measured every device in my home separately. Hot water is 90% of the total electrical usage.

      This is the one that works:
      https://i.pinimg.com/originals/07/db/e3/07dbe350d4e3b4efb24bef85018f24ef.png

      Peltier fans placed on top of wood stoves are common in Idaho – the hotter the stove gets the faster the fan blows. Off the grid wonder when you see it the first time.

    • One of my favorite lines in a movie. Think the Russians might do it for us. Babylon is fallen… In one hour. And then there’s Apophis on Friday April 13, 2029 to finish everything off with a big shebang.

  11. Seems like the end game for Fedgov is to force force automakers to only make EV’s, as Eric has postulated here many times. Hopefully now that everyone has seen that Emperor Biden has no clothes (or brain) the transition – that word loved by the PTB – into full blown communism will be halted. Going to be an interesting few months ahead, get out the popcorn and watch the Demonrats try to gaslight the country.

  12. Like nearly all FedGov actions, or perhaps all of them, yet another attempt to make something out of nothing. Financed with fake money. To satisfy a non-existent demand.
    They are so disconnected from reality, they have no idea most people are struggling to eat and sleep indoors, much less buy a car, and even much lesser an EV.
    But then they do live in a world where that is of no consequence. The only struggle they face is people realizing what a bunch of sociopathic serial killers they are.

  13. There’s an article that covers why EV math doesn’t work.

    https://realclearwire.com/articles/2024/07/08/ev_boosters_cannot_do_math_1043078.html

    The problem with it is that the people who would read the article already know it, those that don’t will never read it. It’s the same with having to subsidize what people don’t want to sell it, case in point the Colorado Nissan dealers discounted Leaf give away.

    If people wanted them they could overcharge for them and they would still sell. As for Hardley Ableson getting $89 million to build e-bikes? Their last one had less than 100 miles of range and I go much further than that on a single ride and the battery would be running low for my shorter rides. Maybe if the put one of those Franzionic exhaust systems like Dodge is putting on the e-charger they might sell. 😉

  14. It’s not just automobile manufacturers that the government is throwing money at to make EVs that nobody wants. The government is also giving LOTS of money to Big Pharma. In yet ANOTHER example of fascism, the government (under the Biden Thing) awarded Moderna a $176 MILLION contract for making bird flu vaccines…..it will be interesting to see how many people say “Hell no!” to taking any bird flu vaccines for themselves or livestock they raise……

    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/us-government-awards-moderna-176-million-bird-flu-vaccine-contract

    Will the Biden Thing also give MILLIONS or perhaps even BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars to the military-industrial complex for making weapons to ship to Keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeev!? Oh wait, it’s possible they already did that via the BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars they sent to Keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeev!

  15. Everyone is looking at the defense industry and salivating at the opportunity to produce what the government is buying. The small drone industry is quickly becoming the “first responders and military” drone industry, as the government pushes out the low-cost market leader, DJI. DJI happens to be a Chinese company, and all the sudden is a threat to national security.

    DJI did some shady things early on, and I’m certain that CCP party members were early backers, but they’ve moved ahead and ran with an industry that wasn’t worth the time of the American aerospace industry. Now that they’re 75% of the market the Americans are noticing. And lobbying.

  16. Yes, the U.S. is a corporatist, fascist state, But it has been since the 1930s when Congress started assumed dictatorial powers over business, including prices.

    It got worse during World War II when the entire American economy was basically commandeered by the government. The precedent was set.

    Truman tried to commandeer the steel mills in Youngstown, OH when the union went on strike, claiming it was necessary for the (undeclared) Korean War. The Supreme Court put the kibosh on that so the government began to resort to less aggressive means — regulation and bribery — to control industry.

    But the corporatist state had nonetheless been established.

    Interestingly, our fascist dictator, FDR, was in power from 1933-1945 — the exact same years as another, ELECTED fascist leader…

      • Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor on January 30, 1933. FDR, having been elected in a landslide the prior November, was inaugurated on March 4, 1933. FDR, already a dying man, passed on April 12, 1945, in the arms of his mistress. Hitler, along with his WIFE, Eva, with the Soviet Army only about 800 yards distant, committed suicide in the parlor of his command bunker, she by taking a cyanide capsule, he by shooting himself in the mouth as he bit on a cyanide capsule.

        One is lauded as a great “hero”, the other as evil personified. I fail to see much difference between then

  17. Thanks Eric, best article I’ve read on the USG behemoth and the economy, and I suck up a lot of alternative news. Every day’s a new revelation. The fake news ate Biden alive at his big boy presser so you know the lying gaffer is going down one way or another. Get ready.

  18. One of the great bait-and-switch moves the left made is repurposing “fascist” as an insult to conservatives.

    Fascism = private ownership of means of production with state control
    Communism = state ownership of means of production with state control
    Capitalism = private ownership of means of production with private control

    The USA clearly isn’t capitalist nor communist (yet). We are in fact a fascist system within a dying empire.

    • It has aspects of all 3, but I have come to the sad belief that capitalism is the worship of mammon. It is one thing to promote and practice free trade and free speech, both things that todays capitalists despise. But for some time modern capitalism has broken free from moral restraint and has become as destructive as communism and fascism. They are all false religions.

      • Agreed Ernie (and with X below). I’m done defending the word capitalism. The capitalists, or oligarchs as I prefer, aren’t going to be using their capital or private property or means of production to better or protect me. As 2020 finally taught me, they will, in fact, use their capital and private property and means of production to enslave, maim, and/or kill me.

        Whatever someone wants to call the slave system we live under now, I won’t be wasting any more energy or intellect defending it. That would be like giving someone the rope they’ll use to hang me.

    • Correct. But what makes it unique and different is that it is fascist corporatism placed in the service of communistic, egalitarian ideals, unlike the fascism of the 1930s, which was placed in the service of the ethnic people of the national state.

      Our fascist government forces corporations to give jobs to gays, blacks, women, foreign illegal aliens, and generally empowers people who hate the traditional, patriotic, white working class.

      It is, as Jonah Goldberg termed it, “Liberal Fascism.”

  19. ‘The Department of Energy (DOE) announced $1.7 billion in planned grants to help fund the conversion of 11 “at risk” plants.’ — quoted by eric

    ‘At risk’ intentionally mimics the term ‘at-risk children,’ a euphemism for underprivileged kids who suffer from various social pathologies.

    Listen up, Jenny G: business assets inherently are ‘at risk.’ If they don’t carry their weight, they get liquidated and repurposed. Keeping money-losing plants open to produce money-losing EeeVees is a formula for creating zombie companies — hopelessly indebted, but with just enough cash flow to service the interest as they carry on racking up losses.

    Which perfectly describes the US fedgov, a zombie state. Last month it spent $140 billion on debt service … which was 30 percent of its revenues. The fuse is lit on an exponential blowout. Neither wing of the Uniparty has any plan to do anything other than continue recklessly borrowing two to three trillion a year, which soon will become five, then ten.

    Let’s stop pretending: Harvard Jenny is a communist. Her industrial policy is a case of deja vu: Stalin’s first five year plan was created in order to initiate rapid and large-scale industrialization across the Soviet Union, beginning on October 1, 1928. Here’s how that worked out:

    ‘People are killing their children because they have nothing for them to eat, and no clothes (Sep 1, 1930). Millions would ultimately perish from starvation.’

    https://uwaterloo.ca/library/special-collections-archives/first-five-year-plan

    We are not merely discussing policy wonkery. The brutal fact is that communists kill without compunction. Commie Jenny is a direct threat to our survival. Burn, witch, burn.

  20. The Chrysler plant at Belvidere, Illinois, has been “troubled” it’s entire existence. It will continue to be so due to this taxpayer handout.

    It’s too bad for the employees there, but Chrysler should have thrown in the towel a long time ago on that location. They should sell it, not keep throwing more money at it. It should have never been built to begin with.

    On another subject, Granholm was probably the worst governor Michigan had until the present one came into office……

  21. “The auto industry is being transitioned into a state industry that manufacturers what the state says it must – and must not – produce. One that regards the government not only as its primary customer but its benefactor. It no longer resists the government because it is paid not to resist it.”

    That’s it in a nutshell. The US is not capitalistic in the least. It’s on the fast route to communism. The holy grail of all money is now government money. Government money never ends and is printed out of thin air. All industries/corporations/people know this and the goal is now to get as much government money as possible in a continual stream that never ends. Government disability/welfare/retirement payments are now considered more worthy than private salaries/savings for banks when considering whether a customer is credit-worthy. Government subsidies are now considered more worthy than attracting customers for products. With government subsidies, companies no longer need to produce a product at all. Just sit back and cash the checks.

    I see this communistic takeover in my own neck of the woods. Micron (the foreign chip “mfg”) is sitting back and taking, taking, taking fed/state/local government subsidy after government subsidy without building a damn thing. The local propaganda rags take the advertising money from Micron, which comes from the government subsidies, and lies to the taxpayers that jobs, jobs, jobs!!!!!!!! are coming. Not one frigging job WILL EVER BE CREATED in Syracuse NY. Are you kidding? It is impossible to do any capitalistic/market business in NYS. Micron knows this and is just out for the government money.

    I swear, nobody, except you Eric, sees the communist takeover happening before our very eyes.

    • Thanks, Pug –

      I have had a front row seat (as far as the car biz) for nigh going on 30 years now. I’ve been “in the room” with Wesley Mouch and co. I have seen how it all works.

    • ‘Not one frigging job WILL EVER BE CREATED in Syracuse NY. ‘ — Pug

      TESTIFY, bro!

      Moreover, ever since chip fabs were first identified as a high-tech growth industry in the 1980s, statist New York has been floating pie-in-the-sky, gov-financed plans to make Albany, Schenectady and now Syracuse, into an East Coast Silicon Valley.

      They fantasized that old-tech stalwarts of the day like IBM, GE and Xerox could make this happen. Forty years on, nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare the lone and level Hudson stretches far away.

      Empire State Plaza — four gigantic, soulless monoliths that loom over the Albany skyline — was the idea of Governor Nelson Rockefeller. It was built between 1965 and 1976 at a cost of about two billion dollars.

      Like any epic vanity project — Nicolae Ceausescu’s Palace of the Parliament in Romania comes to mind — Empire State Plaza arguably marked the state’s high tide. As it neared completion, New York City flirted with bankruptcy (‘Ford to City: Drop Dead’) and had to be rescued with — what else — a massive debt flotation.

      The late urbanist Jane Jacobs called these transactions of decline.

      • I went to that plaza once. That’s the one with the “egg” monstrosity. I didn’t think it was possible but that plaza and the whole city of Albany has a more depressing feel than any picture of Romania during its communism period.

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