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How Car Dealership Lobbyists Successfully Banned Tesla Motors From Texas
Funksaw writes "In a political op-ed on his blog, long time Slashdot reader and contributor Brian Boyko (the guy who did that animated Windows 8 video) — now a candidate for state representative — explains how lobbyists from car dealerships successfully banned Tesla Motors from selling cars in Texas. From the article: 'Tesla Motors doesn't just present a case study of why a lack of campaign finance reform blocks meaningful reform on the issues that Democrats care about, like climate change and health care. A lack of campaign finance reform blocks reforms on both the Left and the Right. Here's the big elephant in the room I'd like to point out to all the "elephants" in the room: With a Republican-controlled legislature, a Republican executive, and many conservatives in our judiciary, why the hell don't we have free markets in Texas? Isn't it the very core of economic-conservative theory that the invisible hand of the free market determines who gets what resources? Doesn't the free market have the ability to direct resources to where they can most efficiently be used? I'm not saying the conservatives are right in these assumptions; but I am saying that our broken campaign finance system makes a mockery of them.'"
They don't want a Free Market, they want a Free For Them Market, screw everyone else.
Also, with how I saw Red McCombs screwing around San Antonio while I lived in Texas, it doesn't surprise me one bit.
Texas doesn't want electric cars because it goes against their oil industry, which pretty much runs the state.
Yep. Anyone can describe a utopian economic system ("Under communism, everyone will work together for the common good!" "Under capitalism, competition and individual choice will lead to the greatest possible efficiency!") but in the real world, they all tend toward cronyism and corruption. Every single time.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Ever see the shirt with the outline of an elephant humping the outline of a donkey? Republicans have NO desire for free market. They push corporatism. Demoncrats have NO desire for free market. They push socialism.
Simple, apt explanation. Are you stuck in primary school, Funksaw? This is sort of common-knowledge these days.
Republicans don't want free-market.
Democrats don't want free-market.
They both want different lobbys to pay them (in campaign donations) for the "privilege" of not being encumbered by regulations of the other party.
Libertarians (both big "L" and little "l") generally want free-markets.
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Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I think it's cute that the synopsis above thinks Texas has a lot of conservatives in its government. Republicans != conservatives, at least not universially.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
It's hard for me to have sympathy for tesla when every article claims that X state or Y state is ZOMG BANNING TESLA. No one is banning Tesla. It's intellectually dishonest. Tesla is whining that they don't like the rules, so they're just going to take their ball and go home. Look. It's the law. Want to sell cars? Get dealerships. Don't like the law? Lobby to change it. I would be a lot more interested in what Tesla and their supporters have to say if they would just present the facts honestly. It strikes me as a lot of whining and crying "unfair," when changing the law specifically for Tesla strikes me as less fair (however inevitable and necessary for that to happen *in due time*).
Republicans aren't free market libertarians, they are corporatists. Corporatists go complaining to the government when their long standing business model is challenged. Look throughout US history and you'll see examples going all the way back to the decline of the railroad empires.
It wasn't a new law that kept Tesla out of Texas. The law that car makers couldn't sell direct to consumers in the state has been there for years. Tesla can sell all the cars he wants in Texas. He just has to get someone to open dealerships just like GM, Ford, Toyota and all the others.
Exactly the same thing can be said about Democrats. Don't play partisan politics. They are both the same.
Tesla could probably sell their cars just fine if they contracted with the local dealerships. Why they don't... I do not know.
$$$$$$$
Dealerships don't work for free. They would either need to add at least $3k to the price of a bottom-end Model S or Tesla would have to eat that cost.
Also, I wouldn't rule out the dealers saying no to electrics on the basis of the lack of maintenance revenue. The stealerships wouldn't be able to charge Tesla drivers obscene rates for oil changes and such.
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But Democrats don't sell themselves as wanting completely free and unregulated markets. That's not to say they are hypocrites about other things but in this case it is more about Republicans.
I can imagine someone arguing this is the free market working. Lobbying and representation is a product, and those with the most money are purchasing it.
OK, RTFA.
EXISTING laws proscribe direct sale to the consumers. Argue if you want about how those laws cam into existence, but they are in fact, the law and predate Tesla.
Tesla wanted the laws changed. So they were actually the ones lobbying for a special exemption.
Texas didn't ban Tesla cars, they didn't change the existing laws to accommodate Tesla's sales model. You can argue about that being smart or not, but Telas's cars are NOT banned.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Neither party wants a free market. The difference is one of those parties makes a lot of speeches about wanting a free market.
There are two kinds of Libertarians.
Idiots who are too naive to understand that libertarianism leads to monopolism and vulture capitalism, and
Monopolist Vulture Capitalists.
If Exxon is going to have the privileges of a person I'd be perfectly willing to let Exxon vote. One vote. The other side of the deal would be that they would also have to accept the responsibilities of a person. Including the death penalty for their many acts of premeditated murder.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Most Slashdotters can understand that being a Liberal does not necessarily make one a Socialist or Communist. Why then do we accept the pigeonholing of all Libertarians as Anarchists/Anarcho-Capitalists? Those among the political right who cast the diverse group we know as Liberals into Socialist/Communist box are mocked for their ignorance -- and rightfully so. Yet, those among the political left who cast the diverse group we know as Libertarians into the Anarchist/Anarcho-Capitalist box are applauded, rewarded as is the case here through moderation.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Because the basic assumptions of Libertarianism are flawed. Libertarianism as expressed by Rand, and economic theories based on or expounded by Libertarianism are flawed from the beginning because it assumes people will always act rationally and without fraud. Hence the ACposter was right, there are 2 kinds of Libertarians.
That is not to say that elements of Libertarian philosophy aren't useful in tempering over-reach by government regulators. For example, I think regulations strictly designed to limit competition such as limits on taxi vehicles should be reduced or eliminated. I think regulations that create undo barriers to entry for trades are unnecessary. For example, the state where I reside wants people who do hair weaving to be licensed as barbers which requires extensive training and apprenticeships. I think beyond the reasonable expectation that persons doing tasks that require "intimate" contact with people should be competent and not be a health hazard, the other requirements are designed as a barrier to entry and result in protected markets that do not function well.
But Libertarians these days spend their time demonizing government on all levels, and not recognizing the role that government does and should play in our society. They do not recognize economic terms like "public good" "excludability" "Rivalrous" to distinguish between markets that can only be public and non-exploitable. Everything to them should be privatized. That is a flawed understanding of economics.
Also, a system corrupted by cronyism should not be confused with free market capitalism and should not be considered the natural end of free market capitalism -- it's simply a system corrupted by cronyism.
Thank you for illustrating my point so neatly. Just as die-hard communists insist that real communism looks nothing like was practiced in the USSR, so do free-market fundamentalists insist that real capitalism looks nothing like what we have in the US ... both groups neatly ignoring the fact that in the real world, this is how their preferred system behaves. You can talk all you want about how it should work, or how you think it would work if certain conditions were met, but it doesn't make a damned bit of difference to how it actually works.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
"""Classic libertarianism asks "how can we do that with a little government as possible"."""
Some issues here.
First, it is Classic Liberalism. For the lack of a better description Classic Liberalism waned as a political force as implementation of its policies led to the Victorian workhouses. This led to Liberalism gaining a more social approach, leading to Social Liberalism which became the leading faction of Liberalism in the 20th century.
It is Libertarianism (ie. Neo-Classical Liberalism) that is concerned with minimalising government intervention. Libertarianism is basically Classical Liberalism in new clothing.
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leads to monopolism and vulture capitalism
What's the case for your claim that libertarianism leads to "monopolism"? The ideology deliberately weaken government which is the both the most powerful sort of monopoly out there and the principal creator of monopolies historically.
And what's supposed to be wrong with vulture capitalism? Capitalism has always been fairly good at disposing of dying businesses and obsolete capital. I think part of the problem here is arbitrary moral rules that don't actually help anyone.
There is an old business adage: "Nothing Succeeds like Success". It breeds corollaries such as "Nobody got fired for buying IBM". (Microsoft, for the younger generation).
A successful business breeds a positive feedback process just as failing businesses tend to nosedive. As a business becomes more and more successful, it attracts more and more customers. It also can afford to negotiate for favorable supply contracts, buy up smaller competitors, and do other things that accelerate the growth curve even more by diving it an edge on the competition. Eventually, it gets so big that it can buy government on its own terms.
It doesn't need government to get there. Government - with the sometimes exception of local government - actually prefers to avoid dealing with smaller businesses, so you have to be well on your way towards monopoly before you can even start getting governmental favors.
And "moral rules" generally do help people. Otherwise they wouldn't exist. Even (or perhaps, especially) the ones that seem anti-common-sense. One of the most dangerous business fallacies is the pseudo-Darwinistic conceit that only the strong and the nasty survive. In the natural world which Darwin formulated his theories on, we have cute fluffy bunnies, delicate pretty butterflies and ape tribes which prosper because some members take care of others progeny instead of breeding themselves.
If you are a corporatist it does not mean you want *every* corporation to control the government. It just means you want to be part of the group of corporations that does. In fact it is important that most corporations are losers to concentrate wealth at the top.
A warlord doesn't want democracy. A warlord wants the world to be ruled by warlords. This doesn't mean he wants every warlord to succeed. He wants most to fail, so he can be as near to the top of the food chain as possible.
He's talking about the only two kinds that ever existed though.
In a libertarian system they end up being the defacto government and effectively use their intervention to stifle competition. It's feudalism once a generation has passed and social mobility based on merit would cease to happen. Have you got your patron lined up?
When the rich have nothing to stop them creating barriers to entry for those that threaten to take away their riches it's only human nature for them to protect the livelihood of themselves and their families. Unchecked and you end up with feudalism.
I really don't understand why so many Americans want to throw away what George Washington and others fought to give them. I suppose it's a good old American style confidence trick to hide such a thing under a name with "liberty" in it.