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Should Taxpayers Back Cars Only the Rich Can Afford?
theodp writes "The NY Times questions the $400M in low-interest federal loans requested by Tesla Motors as part of the $25B loan package for the auto industry passed by Congress last year. 'The program is intended to encourage automakers to improve fuel efficiency, but should it be used for a purpose like this, as the 2008 Bailout of Very, Very High-Net-Worth Individuals Who Invested in Tesla Motors Act?' Tesla says it is assembling about 15 cars a week and has delivered about 80 of its $109,000 base-price Roadsters to date, many of which have gone to the Valley's billionaires and centimillionaires who are Tesla investors as well as early customers. We discussed the company's financial difficulties last month."
Well since the top 5% pay %80 of the taxes - they are really just getting their money back.
My business partner and I both reserved '09 Tesla Roadsters. Why? Not because it's a hot car, or it drives like a rocket, but because we want to see electric car research pushed faster. And it was the next best thing to investing in the company. It drives me nuts when some fool comes out and says "Tesla can have help when their car is priced for the average person". They won't need help by than. They need help getting to that point.
No, they don't. If they want to survive then they need to price cars at a profitable level; even if it means very expensive. Just because they are "greener" tan an Aston doesn't mean they deserve help. Either their biz plan works or it doesn't - the government ought not pick winners and losers in the marketplace.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Contemporary libertarians remind me of children who never learned to share. Or more on point, people who never learned the difference between possession and ownership.
That sounds like a post from someone who has nothing, and only has himself to blame for it. It sounds like a post from the type of person who would rather vote himself a pay raise, rather than studying, learning, and working harder and smarter.
I suppose that on the receiving end if the gravy train, it probably makes you feel much better if you call it "sharing".
So you believe taxation as such is immoral?
That qualifies as a lot of things, like -1 idiot, -1 troll, -1 offtopic.. and what do you get?
+5 insightful.
How embarrassing being part of a group with members that dense.
And yes, I'm aware this post deserves just as many -1 mods.
Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
Contemporary libertarians remind me of children who never learned to share.
You sound to me like someone whose deepest desire is to wield power over others. It doesn't get any more selfish than that.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Greed, defn:
...
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1) Socialist: Greed is bad. Greed is you keeping what you earn to do with as you desire instead of giving it to me to do with as I desire. See defn for Kumbaya
2) Capitalist: See Gecko, Gordon under famous speeches
Obama is our leader. Pray to Him.
That's not socialism that's evidence of fascism
OMFG Hitler was a vegetarian???!!!! PETA are fascists!!!oneoneslashslash?!
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
That was stupid on so many levels it's hard to know where to start.
I'll point out first and foremost, however, that free and fair elections were part of the constitution of the Soviet Union. If you're going to quote principles from political documents as if you gullibly believe everything politicians publicly advocate, the USSR were really nice guys. OTOH, if you understand that documents like this are intended to mislead people, you'd have to be stupid to quote them as examples of what Hitler or any facist is really all about. So... which is it, are you horribly gullible or just horribly stupid? (If you weren't either, you wouldn't have made the post to begin with, knowing that there's no point in quoting the text in question as an example of anything.)
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
That is beautiful. One of the most eloquent pieces of political discourse I've seen on slashdot in a while. As a bonus, you didn't even use the word "Obama". Wow, thanks.