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US Puts Tariff On Chinese Solar Panels
retroworks writes "Two stories in Digitimes make a puzzle of economic policy. U.S. and European tax incentives and stimulus increase steady demand for solar panels. The Chinese government subsidizes production of solar panels to meet this growing demand. The U.S. and EU complain, and place tariffs on Chinese solar panels. Do allegations that China has used government funding to subsidize the production trump our desire for cheaper solar power? Subsidizing demand led to subsidized production. In other words, one market interference (subsidized demand for solar) leads to its counterpoint, government tariff and taxation of the same product."
A (rare) moment of US/EU strategic and economic briliance?
... is domestic production of solar panels? Which isn't going to happen because it's far more cost-effective to make them in China, regardless of subsidies.
Oh, noes! The Chi-coms are subsidizing their solar panel industry production!!! We can't have that. We must impose trade sanctions on them. What has the world come to!
It's not like the Obama regime could possibly ever, ever, have their cronies in the Dept. of Energy dump billions of taxpayer dollars into solar panel manufacturers run by their fat-cat campaign donors, companies like Solyndra ...oh wait.
The US gives money to people who buy solar panels, while adding an import tariff on the same solar panels that will be tacked on to the end user price. What was the point of the exercise?
The demand subsidy for solar is not the first subsidy in the chain. Solar would not require a subsidy if it competed on a level playing field. But there are massive subsidies to the oil and nuclear industries that prevent wind and solar from being fully competitive. So if you want to back out the subsidies, start with the Price-Anderson Act that subsidizes risk insurance for nuclear plants. And stop the tax subsidies to the massively profitable oil industry.
China has cheap workforce and huge rare earth production, they will make the panels regardless of subsidies or tariffs.
Then 1/2 the US market is 'wrong' too. If it makes it cheaper, for us in the US to buy their goods who cares? I dont.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Is sort of like calling House/Congress Useful. too little to mean anything
Begun the Solar War has.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
That petition alleges that the Chinese government unfairly subsidizes crystalline silicon photovoltaic solar cells and modules by providing cash grants, tax rebates, cheap loans, and other benefits designed to artificially suppress Chinese export prices and drive U.S. competitors out of the market.
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/03/15/445193/us-decision-chinese-solar-panel-imports-tariffs-partial-solution/?mobile=nc
Why was the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge built in China?
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/business/global/26bridge.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
Why is American infrastructure in general being built by Chinese?
http://americanmanufacturing.org/blog/why-are-chinese-firms-building-americas-bridges-and-roads
Why are these jobs subsidizing China?
Because we can't find welders,
Watch the video.
http://americanmanufacturing.org/blog/why-are-chinese-firms-building-americas-bridges-and-roads
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
We subsidize corn production and then sell it round the world. But it's okay when we do it; not okay when China does it (with solar). Double standard.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
A very common practice. Here's a link to the last accusation of steel dumping:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1893784,00.html
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
The whole reason Solyndra went bankrupt was that their whole business model depended on a higher price for solar panels. They were totally caught off guard by the cheapness of Chinese panels. Yet another area of tension between the relatively privileged life we enjoy in the use and the rise of cheap yet adequately skilled label in East Asia.
Why not does the US put a tariff on OIL from countries with suppresive regimes like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
There's a larger game afoot here than just price. This is about what happens in the long-term when a country unfairly supports a domestic industry and artificially lowers the cost of that industry's products on the marketplace. What results from this is the failure of producers of that good in other countries, which in turn results in a monopoly, or at the very least, market share dominance. Then, the prices can go back up, leaving other countries with less competition and a strategic disadvantage. In this case, that disadvantage also includes an energy source, so there's a double-risk.
And yes, I know...they can always just start up new companies, right? Wrong...it's not that easy. Because in the meanwhile, the surviving companies have been able to invest in R&D, and further lower costs, improve manufacturing processes, and innovate, all of which raise the barrier to entry in the market. And even if a company elsewhere comes onto the market and starts competing effectively...China would only have to start subsidizing their own industry again to put them at a disadvantage, and the cycle repeats itself.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
thirty years pushing manufacturing and technology jobs overseas to china under the guise of economic sense and prosperity for america, you dont get to turn around and cry foul when you get exactly what you asked for. namely, cheap foreign slave labor subsidized by a dictatorial ruling class operating under the guise of a communism it hasnt practiced in almost 40 years.
tarrifs are okay. you use them to incense corporations to reconsider employing local labour, but they wont work in americas revolving door government where capitalism and legislation are essentially the same. and while the economic cost of producing solar technology in china may be cheaper, the environmental and social costs are never worth it in my opinion.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I'm all for placing tariffs on all Chinese imports. Yes, that raises prices on our end with respect to imports from China. China has a history of dumping (look up the term). The US needs to place tariffs on Chinese products to reduce the impact of its dumping procedures.
Tariffs on solar panels from China are not inconsistent with subsidies on solar panels. Why? Because while subsidies (artificially) increase demand in a good; tariffs (artificially) decrease demand in a good. The combined affect gently nudges people to purchase solar panels not produced in China.
And that, my friends, is how tariffs and subsidies can apply to the same market.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
The US gives money to people who buy solar panels, while adding an import tariff on the same solar panels that will be tacked on to the end user price. What was the point of the exercise?
The point is plainly obvious: Equalize the manufacturing playfield. Solar panel production is not a static industry. It is a growth industry.
Subsidizing production in one nation hurts development of the industry in another. In contract, subsidizing use in one country helps production in all countries.
However if you subsize production in one, then a use subsidiy amplifies the problem.
The US just fixed that.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
They should've done this before Solyndra went bankrupt and took $500M of tax payer money with them.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
And what's wrong with China subsidizing panels? WE subsidize our products (hybrid cars, corn, sugar, banks, mortgage companies, solar companies like Solyndra, etc) . So it's wrong when China does it, but okay when the EU/US do it? Hypocrites.
Nothing is WRONG with a govt subsidizing an industry per se. But the appropriate response is to apply tarrifs.
If you subsidize an industry this may make sense inside the country where the subsidies reside. There it is a level playing field because all companies have access. It may be good for the country because they want to build up that industry and overcome an economic hump, meet a national strategy like oil security, create employment, or just to satisty internal political harmony.
But when you sell the products internationally it hurts companies outside. The remedy is tarrifs.
Other countries should fee free to (and do) apply tarrifs to goods from outside that harm domestic industry.
There's no Hypocrisy at all. It's exactly the right thing to do. However 5% is too low.
The only reason this does not happen more is that tarrifs can launch a cycle of retribution when thought punitive. It's easier to let it slide usually. The places you care about dumping are in rapidly growing industries. There the early mover advantage can be too big to ignore.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The subsidizes are to promote solar panels usage (generally a good thing) while the tariff is to counteract China's subsidies (dumping). Note, this is purely for China and not for solar panels made in other countries, especially those made locally. Letting China have such a large advantage due to China's subsidies would only hurt the US in the long term (see situation with rare earth metal as an reference). If you are complaining about the free market, well it's not already free due to China's subsidies and this would only level the playing field.
but since the market isn't rational, it makes perfect sense. We're not dealing with rational abstract entities operating in some clear frictionless metaphysical space. We are dealing with thugs and gangsters seeking advantage over each other. If something works for a short sighted but politically expedient goal, then it's golden, and classical economics can go fuck itself. And while that may seem harsh, it has actually always been true. When times are good, the man behind the curtain is invisible, but times get rough, the curtains come down and the guns come out and the real becomes material in practice.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
The genius of talk radio is that their average listener is content to make judgements on policy based on at most two pieces of information, e.g.
1. US government is subsidizing purchases of solar panels
2. US government has just slapped import tax on solar panels
3. ?? (start of another five minute rant on "libs", Pelosi, Holder, Obama, birth certificates, etc.)
4. Slashdot: +5 Insightful
Apparently there is not enough cognitive room for additional relevant information:
1. US government is subsidizing purchases of solar panels
2. Chinese solar panel manufacturers are subsidized, so they can undersell the US manufacturers
3. US government has just slapped import tax on solar panels
4. Hey, that makes sense! (but it doesn't move Viagra, hair restoration, or debt mitigation services)
This is more complicated with longer term ramifications than the mere notion that US/EU policy seems to be self contradictory. It is not self contradictory. By subsidizing **DEMAND but taxing **PRODUCTION by only one nation, the US and EU are promoting **CONSUMPTION of solar panels made in places other than China. This is not self contradiction, it is a broader and more complicated plan than the summary above elicits and connotes.
There are three distinct concepts at play: 1) demand, 2) production, 3) consumption. Analyze this situation as to how it affects each of these three concepts.
Just my dos cents.
The tariffs are so miniscule they'll have no effect. This is a publicity stunt. And a typical Obama move - trying to make each side happy, but really doing nothing positive. This is the same guy that said that increasing the supply of oil would have no effect on its price. He may be well intentioned, but he's just plain dumb. His only skill is reading a teleprompter.
Too bad they did this after Solyndra was on the rocks, and then needed a bailout, and then failed anyways.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
There certainly is something else you can do. The US can revoke China's status as a Most Favored Nation trading partner. The abuses of Chinese laborers show that President Clinton was wrong to say that granting China MFN would improve human rights conditions in China http://tech.mit.edu/V114/N27/china.27w.html.
Revoking MFN is also not subject to sanctions against the US by international trade courts.
This is the Opening Salvo by the U.S. against China in their Rare Earths Suit involving the WTO. China has restricted exports of rare earths to the U.S. Japan and Europe that is impacting the ability of our industry to produce, EV's, Wind Generators and many other products that depend upon them. There is also the issue of the strategic metals part of those rare earths and explains part of the reasoning behind the reopening of the Mesa California Rare Earth mine.
Others have pointed out that this is also due to China Dumping cheap solar panels on the market with the express purpose of killing our own industry. The only way I can see to level the playing field against China is to revoke their most favored trading partner status that Bush Jr. Gave them. This will simulateously send the Chinese government a signal that America is no longer going to be their bitch and increase the cost of Chinese goods in the States while encouraging those American Businesses that still exist to increase their marketing. Of course, without nailing some CEO's to the wall and hitting their wallets for the destruction of companies (violating their fiduciary responsibilities) the cost of goods from China wont materialy increase. A side note here
Recently, ABC World News Tonight with Diane Sawyer ran a series on Made In America that showed many U.S. Companies selling products for the same price as Chinese manufactered junk with higher quality. So why in hell do you want to buy Chinese crap and send our work to them?
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
Subsidizing demand led to subsidized production. In other words, one market interference (subsidized demand for solar) leads to its counterpoint, government tariff and taxation of the same product.
This is muddled logic. There's no reason for subsidized demand to lead to subsidized production if demand is subsidized to the point where producers can make a profit. Well, no reason other than to make sure jobs get created in your country instead of somewhere else.
Subsidizing demand anywhere does not favour any manufacturer. Subsidizing suppliers in China disadvantages suppliers anywhere else, perhaps to the point of driving them out of business and leaving the Chinese infrastructure in place who can then charge whatever they want.
But theirs seems to work!
It is very unfortunate that these dumping and subsidy accusations have taken ground on slashdot and in general. So many people swallow these accusations as fact simply because they are reported allowing the entire anti-China hysteria to continue to grow. These tariffs are a only temporary injustice compared to the totally corrupt "dumping" ruling that will come. Where is the proof of any of this? The firms singled out have all their financials available and they all have positive gross margins. Why is a Chinese subsidy anti-competitive while American subsidies are not? How can people so easily swallow this nonsense?
There are a lot of valid complaints against the Chinese solar industry, but these are not it. This is crony capitalism by politically well-connected minority of mostly anonymous US/German firms. That is all. Chinese companies make cheap solar panels totally above the board, "dumping" is due to small Chinese firms going BANKRUPT by new and successful PV firms. There are Chinese causalities to this revolution too! a.k.a. Destructive capitalism. You can also buy "dumped" Evergreen Solar (a bankrupt US solar firm) at below industry ASP. Where's the outrage? The big Chinese players (the ones specifically, by name targeted with these tarrifs) are taking over and putting American and German firms out of business via well executed competitive capitalism. They spent the last 5 years building modern high-quality poly silicon plants that produce poly at 20$kg, way cheaper existing than US and NORWAY. Their poly plants sit right next to their wafer, cell, and module facilities, which all use the fanciest, newest US and German manufacturing equipment. The Chinese firms are aggressively pursuing vertical strategies, executing efficiency improvements throughout the entire product chain, and reducing cost via a hugely competitive free market, recycling the nasties instead of dumping them because its cheaper! The strongest firms are manufacturing and selling modules at under a dollar at 7-14% gross margin. AKA *not* dumping. They are all operating on a loss due to fast declining module ASPS, awesome competition, and reletively high OPEX due to expansion, R&D, and debt. We know this because these companies are listed on American exchanges where they comply with GAAP accounting standards, file this info in their quarterly 10K and have American firms auditing them. The basis of these dumping and subsidy accusations are so obviously fradulent, it is really insulting. China is executing a brilliant strategy, mostly above the board, and now the the US politburo is attempting to penalize them. It won't work, we'll just fall further behind.
China Development Bank has given out loan guarantees much like the US Department of Energy (e.g Solandra, First Solar). Ironically, the Chinese firms have barely even tapped this credit. They have mostly been successful raising money on the securities and bond markets in the US and Hong Kong, aka private investors. Chinese provinces have given out awesome tax and energy rebates to manufacturers just like US States (e.g.MA,CA,CO). Where's the beef? The whole anti-Chinese bandwagon is utterly disgusting. It so clearly displays the hypocrisy behind the agendas that drive capitalism and globalization that I can barely stomach it.... It's all a complete farce.
On the other hand, PV is clearly part of a massive strategy for Chinese energy independence. In fact, they have probably passed the tipping point. They are mostly through the development of a several hundred GW/yr PV industry. They will continue grow their production on the backs of western countries mandates and private financing from western markets. Brilliant! the west is paying China to develop what will be the most cost effective, ubiquitous and potentially largest industry on earth. We Americans see this well-executed strategy and our response is to protect a minor portion of our own solar industry (at the expense of our solar equipment exporters, which fyi give us the NET solar exports, and downstream solar firms). This is about the most incompetent response I could possibly imagine. We are losers.
It was Preident Clinton who granted MFN status to China http://articles.cnn.com/1998-06-03/politics/china.trade_1_mfn-trade-status-chinese-trade-chinas?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS.
The green "carpet baggers" are still trying to keep their heads above water. The "gold rush" of American solar panel manufacturers has been severely damaged by financial losses. The losses have stemmed from less market demand than expected, increased competition from the myriad of panel manufacturers at home and abroad, declining panel prices due to normal market pressures...
The likes of Solyndra and other less shady(ooh a pun) companies have been suffering huge losses and going out of business, taking the American jerbs with them. Then there is the issue of Chinese competition and allegations of dumping causing even greater losses. For politicians, this is an unacceptable position, especially in an election year. They are compelled to act, even if it is incorrectly.
The tariffs are intended to lessen the Chinese impact on the domestic market with the misguided attempt to prop up the sales and profits of domestic companies manufacturing solar panels. This is an age old political "solution" to an economic problem. Another attempt by government to control the market.
What will happen, is the same as has happened in the past. American companies that should go by the wayside will, for a short period, stay alive on the artificially inflated profits. But, as the same market pressures impact the domestic market, American companies will reduce costs by moving the manufacturing abroad. First Mexico and other South or Central American countries and eventually right back to China.
The whole tedious process is just a speed bump on the road to the inevitable. The final destination, a very few massively profitable companies(think GE) who get their products manufactured by the cheapest labor force available(presently China perhaps India in the future.) The American people will still be fleeced and their jobs will still be going overseas.
Been there. Done that. Three times in my lifetime.
Turnabout is fair play. I can just their their faces twisted in paroxyms of rage, as the white round-eyes DARED to play as dirty as they have for decades.
Those white RACISTS!!!
I refuse to read an article where the summary leads me to believe that the writer doesn't understand what subsides and import taxes are for, which is, to promote local development in detriment to imports.
http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
In China, the government owns the banking system.
In the U.S., the banking system owns the government.
The Chinese government gives basically interest-free loans, through the state's bank, to the industrial sectors of their economy. The U.S. government guaranteed Solyndra's loans, meaning the government was on the hook for the interest payments to Wall Street when Solyndra couldn't make enough off their solar panels to both cover the costs of manufacturing and their interest-heavy loan payments.
If Solyndra's guarantee had been properly structured, the U.S. Government would now own a fully-functional photovoltaic factory. The government's factory should be cranking out as many watt-hours of "solar tubes" as possible, and installing these on government buildings in sunny locations. They'd get the solar tubes for cost (as the new owners of the plant), decrease energy prices for everyone, and save a ton of money.
Oh well.
Ellen Brown has a nice take on the difference in China's economic strategy.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
You are very short sighted. Governments shouldn't be in the business of picking winners and losers. That is how you end up with zombie banks sucking the life force out of the economy dragging us down into an unending depression.
Thank you so much for pointing out that it's the tail that wags the dog. Seriously, I thought it was the other way round, that the banks first lobbied for deregulation and then, when their irresponsible betting threatened to collapse the entire system, they effectively held the fate of the financial system to ransom until the government agreed to bail them out. And no, you can't nationalize the banks: that would interfere with the sacred operation of the Free Market!
Now I know I got it completely wrong. How naive of me. How short sighted. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
So we are supposed to stop using oil and coal, and Obama has done litterally everything in his power (and some outside resulting in contempt of court) to kill those industries. So we are supposed to use solar panels instead, which doesn't get me to work. So the cheapest source of solar panels is now going to be artifically priced higher by the same guy wanting us to use it.
Why? Because Obama's policies have been a complete failure at every step and for some reason he thinks this will fix them. This is the guy who just made a speech saying its not approprate for people to make fun of his energy policies, then his next sentence he is calling the GOP members of the "Flat Earth Society". So are making joke ok or not? He called them that because they don't support subsidies on the failing US solar panel industry, but then again in his next sentence he says the GOP is equally responsible for Solyndra. So is the GOP for or against solar panels? He just made both claims
This is what you get when you put a complete incompetent in the White House. He hates the working middle class and thinks you are using too much energy, how dare you drive to work every day. Don't worry, he flys on Air Force 1 on a whim and will send his wife or dog on a sepeart jumbo jet so they don't have to wait an extra 3 hours for him. But you better not DARE make an extra trip to the grocery story in a pickup and he will make sure of that by declining evey oil project in the US.
Complete failure.
It's great reading the pro-communism capitalists rush to defend China, because they hate the current president.
Plenty of people (myself included) dislike the growing "nanny state" - yet we're able to reason that as long as we're forced, by law, to keep funding such initiatives while we work, we may as well take advantage of their benefits if the situation arises where we qualify for them.
Just because I'd opt to get something back for the money I was forced to pay into such a program doesn't mean I advocate the program itself.
In fact, even Ayn Rand did this.
Where I live the solar insolation is about 8 watts per square meter. That is, the total amount of energy coming from the sun is 8 watts per square meter. Install a second sun and it would go to 16 watts per square meter. But 8 watts is a maximum. There are a lot of things that kill it off, such as clouds, or rain or snow, or night time. Oh, and panels are about 10-12% efficient, so you only get about 0.8 watts per square meter (maximum, when its sunny, not cloudy, and during the day, not at night). Solar panels are very nice as a tertiary power source, but wind is much more concentrated. I think nuclear (modern nuclear i.e. molten salt, not the old uranium style nuclear) is the best energy source. Tokamaks are only 20 years out, just like 20 years ago. Wind is practical now. I own 4 solar panels. I charge batteries for the tv remote control with them, but sometimes I have to resort to charging the batteries from mains power. Even a small wind charger could power the tv. A small nuclear plant would power the neighbourhood.
your naivete is quite embarrassing. you apparently didn't even bother to read the parents explanation of how allowing their subsidies in the rare earth marked to mess things up now. Instead, like such a six year old, short term benefits are all you can think about, even though it means that everyone will be suffering in the future.
Everyone can't work for minimum wage and America survive. This is not to knock minimum wage jobs, but everyone can't work at Wal-Mart and McDonalds. When you make minimum wage, you spend it all on housing/rent, gas, and food. There is no money left over for anything else. If you have a consumer-based economy, and nobody has any money to spend, what is going to happen to your economy.
We can't send all the real jobs overseas and expect everyone here to work at a shop in the mall. Who are you going to sell stuff to?
If we don't bring real, productive jobs back to America, we have had it. We can't rely on IP, intangibles, copyright lawsuits, and royalties to keep us afloat. It's real jobs, producing real products, or we have had it.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
"Do allegations that China has used government funding to subsidize the production trump our desire for cheaper solar power?"
Silly question.
How about: Does the fact China is flooding the market with cheap products trump the need for a level playing field???
Everybody is buying CHEAP. Our companies need to compete on the same footing as anyone else.
This is all so economics 101.
Cehap trick.
Now that attempt of the West to use China as a source of cheap labour has failed, they are removing oponent off the martket that was created by pure politics.
All that he is left to do is to mandate use of "green sources" as Germany has pushed for in EU and his sponsors have secured perpetual source of income.
Who cares whether solar works or not if you ar forced to buy that crap ?
No bodies? No wrecked population centers? And no collasped governments? It's like what Wal-Mart does? Only with the image of Ho-Che-Min smiling.
China recognized that solar is one of the ways to go with future energy, and is trying to take over the market by starving foreing manufacturers. They aren't just trying to provide jobs to their workers, they're fighting for dominance of the solar panel production. USA and the EU have correctly recognized this as a threat to their future energy independece (we'd be importing solar panels, just like now we're importing oil) and are trying to help producers in USA and EU to survive this chinsese government-sponsored war.
Let us penalize imports of cheap Chinese solar panels in order to free ourselves from the influence of fossil fuels oil.... Good thinking !!!! I stand in absolute awe of these politicians and business people who come up with brilliant ideas like this...
MS, ALS, Aphasia ? http://globability.org - Me http://einarpetersen.com
It's only 'protectionism' when they do it...
The U.S. applied these "anti dumping" tariffs on Chinese solar panels on the same day Saudi Arabia announced plans for a massive dump of oil to drive down prices. Isn't it obvious that Mideast oil dumps have done far more harm to U.S. alternative energy industry, including solar, than a handful of fledgling Chinese photovoltaic companies ever did?
With the exception of a few wildcat oil well companies in the late 90s, the U.S. has never complained of mideast oil dumping. And the U.S. actually complains when China stops dumping Rare Earths. Bush era steel tariffs might have saved a handful of remaining domestic steel jobs at the cost of the thousands of jobs lost with the near demise of the domestic auto industry. 1980s and 90s tariffs on Chinese and Japanese chips did nothing but move manufacturing to Philippines and Central America and Solar tariffs will cost thousands of U.S. jobs by denying U.S. consumers and corporations access to inexpensive clean energy the rest of the world will have. Looking at the history of U.S. WTO trade policy, you'd swear that it was being dictated by policies designed to crush our economy and continue our addiction to oil.
This doesn't surprise me one bit actually.
I've always suspected that the primary reason that solar is being subsidized by the U.S. government was to appease lobbyists who worked for the solar industry in the U.S.
So, once there is outside competition, those same companies would obviously be up in arms as they watched their market margins decreasing and customers going elsewhere using the same money they lobbied for.
Anyone that actually believed the U.S. government was subsidizing the solar industry for altruistic reasons has been greenwashed beyond salvation at this point.
or can't understand that the US wants to subsidize solar production in the US.
It's not that we hate the Chinese, it's just that they keep trying to poison our children with lead, so we'd rather those jobs go to US citizens.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
BTW - it's not GNU/Linux
Then what's a shorter word for a non-embedded non-Android Linux environment? I've been distinguishing among three kinds of Linux environment by who makes their C standard library: Android uses Google Bionic, embedded usually uses Newlib or uClibc, and just about everything else uses GNU libc.
I'm OK with this.
Furries make the internet go.
Isn't that a part of any economic model. There are always start up cost in getting innovation geared up to become economically viable?
One thing I like to point out is Microsoft Windows. Win 1 was a failure. Win 2 was a failure. Win 3 was a failure. Win3.1 was a success!
wow, this is super stupid.
obviously the economy of every country needs electricity
to work. an abundant source is the sun. even creating solar-panels themselves
requires raw material and electricity.
so what better investment could there be to buy cheap (subsidized)
solar panels from another country and then use them to make your own -and- run
the economy?
By doing nothing, you are effectively subsidizing coal (since plant operators do not pay for the cost of their pollution).
You could charge them full freight for that, but the most efficient solution is to tax it part way and use those funds to promote the alternatives.
Solar, wind and all these other so-called 'Green' energy projects will never replace the powerhouse stores of energy contained within the Big 3.
Coal, Oil & Gas, which are natural products of planet Earth. They are far more uses for fossil fuels than the romanticized fantasy of clean green energy. The Greenies will always fail. The Sun doesn't always shine, and the wind is not always blowing.
I am not surprised, as this comes from the same country (New Jersey stat) that put a tax on small cars for the simple reason they were not buying enough gas from the pump (being fuel economical)...so you get taxed if you buy a big car that uses lots of gas, and when you buy a car the saves gas, you still have to pay tax....what a scam|!!!. This is just more of the same mentality