Slashdot Mirror
How Elon Musk's Growing Empire is Fueled By Government Subsidies
theodp writes: By the Los Angeles Times' reckoning, Elon Musk's Tesla Motors, SolarCity, and SpaceX together have benefited from an estimated $4.9 billion in government support. The figure compiled by The Times, explains reporter Jerry Hirsch, comprises a variety of government incentives, including grants, tax breaks, factory construction, discounted loans and environmental credits that Tesla can sell. It also includes tax credits and rebates to buyers of solar panels and electric cars. "He definitely goes where there is government money," said an equity research analyst. "Musk and his companies' investors enjoy most of the financial upside of the government support, while taxpayers shoulder the cost," Hirsch adds. "The payoff for the public would come in the form of major pollution reductions, but only if solar panels and electric cars break through as viable mass-market products. For now, both remain niche products for mostly well-heeled customers." And as Musk moves into a new industry — battery-based home energy storage — Hirsch notes Tesla has already secured a commitment of $126 million in California subsidies to companies developing energy storage technology.
Employing mainly Americans, manufacturing in America.
"Because that's where the money is."
Duh....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
They forgot the benefit that it gets us out of the Middle East. That sandtrap is a massive waste of resources that I hate is being subsidized.
I can think of no more capable force of dissolving the DMV before the medium.com predicted end of intelligent life!!!
So we have a brilliant industrialist creating new pathways that we will all benefit from. In this case I hope the government gives him even more money. We need these technologies and a support system to actually conquer some of the issues that now confront us.
A grant, yes, but not a tax break. Just because you are getting fucked by taxes doesn't mean the other guy who isn't is being subsidized.
Big companies get subsidies in the form of tax breaks all the time.
They bitch about taxes, get a deal, then they bitch because the schools aren't churning out worker robots with the necessary skills- schools that would be funded by the taxes the big corps aren't paying.
Governments should support future growth business. It promotes the economy and improves mankind. If Musk is taking advantage of that and taking on the risk of being the first; that to me sounds like good business. Good for Musk, good for the globe.
do the exact same thing when conservatives favored companies do this. ... unless you are looking at it solely with political partisan hatred
Not a big deal
And I'm sure the railroad barons felt the same way.
We want him to succeed. That's why those incentives exist.
If you want to complain about government largess to corporate America, there is no shortage of other, far more dubious, targets...
Yes, and the moon landing was actually filmed in a Hollywood studio and directed by Stanley Kubrick. The flag was waving! That's the kind of dog and bullshit show that you put out when your demonstration isn't ready and you find out that the Moon is a part of the Martian empire.
If the people pass laws to promote businesses investing in developing new capabilities (e.g. space flight) then we WANT companies to do that work and thus get those grants, tax breaks, etc. That's how the airline industry got launched in the US, for example - huge government subsidies (airports, air traffic control system) and contracts (for mail delivery) that jump started the US airline industry, which was IMO a brilliant investment, because transportation doesn't just benefit the company providing transportation, it benefits everyone who uses transportation. Highways were another brilliant investment, funding construction companies and thus jobs, and creating a national road system that everyone benefits from.
The subsidies/grants/tax breaks that I object to are the ones that go to mature, profitable industries that don't need any support because they should be able to survive on their own. Oil companies and sports teams are just the most blatant examples. Agri-business corporations don't need subsidies, either - the farming grants should be reserved for the few percent of farmers who are independent, small family farms, and right now the money all goes to huge, profitable corporations that have huge resources and don't need the money, and relatively little to the small farms that need the support to survive the ups-and-downs of farming.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
The oil industry periodically requires wars to secure its supplies, and a lot of its profits accrue to countries with interests inimical to those of the U.S. To give you an idea, Operation Desert Storm cost $104 billion in nominal 2014 dollars. From a strictly cost/benefit perspective, the U.S. is underfunding these companies.
Stop learning! Only you can prevent esoterrorism.
Loans that were fully paid back (e.g. the one Tesla got). Space launches for the government that are *cheaper* than the other launch services the government is using. You can't call it a subsidy when they are selling the government a service.
Most of the other clean tax subsidies are given to the clients (e.g. SolarCity, Tesla) not to Musk's companies directly. If they are that rich, as the author claims they are, I think they would still buy the cars to make a kind of fashion statement even if there was no tax break at all.
As for the tax breaks he gets for building that factory its no different from what any other company doing a similar activity would get. Yes I know its crap but its the world goes.
Rather spending that type of money on the bazillions pointless DOD contract where it doens't trickle down but simply trickles away, it goes to a guy and his various crews that actually get shit done. And manufactures mostly domestically. I don't see a problem here.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Those tax breaks and subsidies were set up to encourage advancement in those areas by offering an economic incentive. Musk just did exactly what the government was handing out money for people to do... advance those areas.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
In at least one way or another, the vast majority of private companies pushing ground-breaking technologies have relied on a higher than typical level of government support because, sorry, the free market just can't solve these sorts of hard problems on its own. This is how things are *supposed* to work--let both government and private enterprise play their role. Musk is always really transparent about this.
However perhaps one good thing about articles like this is that they should quiet down the libertarian types that are trying to co-opt Musk's successes as some sort of shining example of their ideology.
... who of course spurn all governement subsidies and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.
Yeah. Right.
Yeah, right. Installation is done in India, right?
Meanwhile, What about Microsoft? Exxon? All foreign workers employed, taxes avoided and shit like that?
With trillions a year paid in to help the fossil fuel industries and fuck all employement in the USA from it, this isn't worth noting.
But some non-fossil fuel help for an industry that environmentalists support and that's sufficient for you to come out with the hate.
In a 2008 blog post, Musk laid out a plan: After the sports car, Tesla would produce a sedan costing "half the $89k price point of the Tesla Roadster and the third model will be even more affordable."
In fact, the second model now typically sells for $100,000, and the much-delayed third model, the Model X sport utility, is expected to sell for a similar price. Timing on a less expensive model — maybe $35,000 or $40,000, after subsidies — remains uncertain.
The Roaster cost more than $89k. That was the value without subsidies. The article is comparing the price of the cheapest model of the Roaster (with subsidies) to the price of the most expensive Model S (without subsidies). Well DUH.
The Model X isn't the third model Musk was talking about. The third model SEDAN is supposedly to be called the Model 3 and unlike what the author said it's planned to be launch in 2017. YMMW. They need the battery factory to be finished so they'll have batteries cheap enough for the Model 3.
OK, I bet there is an image of a crowd of thousands of men with their lunch pails all walking into their shift at the plant who then jump on the line and build cars.
No.
At best it's a couple of dozen people working in the back office and some techs to walk around and monitor the automated plant.
Tesla has 6000 employees
But go ahead and keep undermining your arguments with such unnecessary hyperbole, mister Anonymous Coward.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
Taking from the unrich to give to the rich. Well done, dude.
At best it's a couple of dozen people working in the back office and some techs to walk around and monitor the automated plant.
A quick look at Wikipedia says Tesla had 10,000 employees in November of 2014 and SpaceX had 3,500 employees in April of 2015.
You didn't even bother with that much fact checking about what you 'know', though, did you. Your entire post is a demonstration of idiocy in action.
If you're so sure, why don't you rent a Tesla and try out the nice little "fake" battery swap station?
Oh, right, because that would go against your theory.
SourceForge, the code repository site owned by Slashdot Media, has apparently seized control of the account hosting GIMP for Windows on the service, according to e-mails and discussions amongst members of the GIMP community—locking out GIMP's lead Windows developer. And now anyone downloading the Windows version of the open source image editing tool from SourceForge gets the software wrapped in an installer replete with advertisements.
Link to original source
The GIMP developers aren't happy at all about this. They say that Sourceforge impersonated the GIMP developers, and abused the trademarks owned by the GNOME foundation
Elon Musk poored in 180 million until he couldn't afford his appartment to
start things up. He got NO subsidies in the beginnning, and only marginal
ones later on which he payed back way before it was needed.
Besides that many of the tax breaks for EV where there explicitly for him to use.
He wants to go as fast as possible, and just start looking at the help the car
industry has had for decades now! Billions for nothing!
This is the second open attack on him in three weeks, the earlier was about
him being harsh to an employee. all in all, who cares, he inspres people.
How large were the bail outs to failures such as LTCM and recently to the all banks and car companies after the last financial crash?
Tritium
Compared to the shenanigans of the coal and oil businesses, even if it is true, this 5 billion is nothing. But most likely it is a hit piece commissioned by the same people who brought you the Iraq war. That one was expansion attempt. Now they are defending the home turf, public utilities using gas and coal. Entrenched monopolies who have never faced competition, lightly regulated by revolving door politicians, lobbyists and company men.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
That makes a lot of sense. I've always wondered why Tesla likes to spend so much money on technologies that are Tesla-specific and have only fleeting usefulness...if they can turn them into government credits, they suddenly make sense.
I wouldn't be surprised if the battery swap stations do indeed work, but I'm sure the demand for them is tiny now and will be nonexistent in a few years.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
So, it turns out that John Galt is kind of a moocher.
Who could have guessed?
You are welcome on my lawn.
I'd bet the useful public return on public funds spent for the money he takes is much better than most everything else Washington spends.
Tesla has opened their patents up. So, no, these are not Tesla-specific and not of fleeting usefulness.
How funny.
Tesla employed over 6000 full-time last sept. That does not include ppl working on gigafactory.My guess is that with model X gearing up that it will jump to 10,000 by Jan.
Solar city employs full time over 8000 as of Dec, 2014. And they doubled last year They are still hiring like mad. Again, that does not include those working on the new 1gw/year solar plantS. On a side note , it turns out that solar employs more ppl than coal.
spacex employed more than 3000 last summer when they cleaned house of 150. In addition, they said that they would be at 3600 by 2015.
So, musk employs conservatily, 25,000 ppl and it is growing very fast. OTOH, the fossil fuel industry is subsidized more than 8b PER year in America. In fact, we pay 1 B / year to cover coal miners health. I would suggest that we look to kill a number of subsidies, esp in the fossil fuel arena.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
At best it's a couple of dozen people working in the back office and some techs to walk around and monitor the automated plant.
Yeah, just look at all those technicians sitting around in a back room. I think you're mistaking the unibody assemby as representing the assembly of the entire car. It's standard for that to be mostly automated because of all the welding. But after it's painted, assembly is still mostly a well choreographed manual exercise. It just doesn't look as sexy on TV because people don't appreciate the organizational precision involved.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
On the contrary - SolarCity retains the tax breaks and the subsidies. They even counsel against the "buy it outright" option because "you'll need an accountant specializing in energy credits and taxes". (Read "our business model is based on being an unregulated utility and utterly depends on monthly cashflow from leases".)
The rich should be rallying to fix this considering they're going to be the first ones up against the wall when the revolution comes. The people will only continue to tolerate this for so long before they wake up and realize that all this time they've been getting fucked and no one even kissed them first. Until that day, we will continue to be dazzled by the spectacle of increasingly obviously bought and paid for politicians running this country into the ground, and people stupidly reelecting them over and over again because they've bought into the Great Lie of American politics that a vote for anyone other than A is as good as a vote for B, and vice-versa.
so the early auto producers managed to get the US to redo all of it's roads.
Early auto producers exploited the decades of lobbying already done by cyclists.
http://www.theguardian.com/env...
Carlton Reid
19th century cyclists paved the way for modern motorists' roads
Car drivers assume the roads were built for them, but it was cyclists who first lobbied for flat roads more than 100 years ago
Wooden hobbyhorses evolved into velocipedes; velocipedes evolved into safety bicycles; safety bicycles evolved into automobiles.
It's well known that the automotive industry grew from seeds planted in the fertile soil that was the late 19th century bicycle market. And to many motorists it's back in the 19th century that bicycles belong. Cars are deemed to be modern; bicycles are Victorian.
Many motorists also assume that roads were built for them. In fact, cars are the johnny-come-latelies of highways.
The hard, flat road surfaces we take for granted are relatively new. Asphalt surfaces weren't widespread until the 1930s. So, are motorists to thank for this smoothness?
No. The improvement of roads was first lobbied for - and paid for - by cycling organisations.
In the UK and the US, cyclists lobbied for better road surfaces for a full 30 years before motoring organisations did the same. Cyclists were ahead of their time.
When railways took off from the 1840s, the coaching trade died, leaving roads almost unused and in poor condition. Cyclists were the first vehicle operators in a generation to go on long journeys, town to town. Cyclists helped save many roads from being grubbed up.
Roads in towns were sometimes well surfaced. Poor areas were cobbled; upmarket areas were covered in granite setts (what many localities call cobbles). Pretty much every other road was left unsurfaced and would be the colour of the local stone. Many 19th century authors waxed lyrical about the varied and beautiful colours of British roads.
Cyclists' organisations, such as Cyclists' Touring Club in the UK and League of American Wheelmen (LAW) in the US, lobbied county surveyors and politicians to build better roads. The US Good Roads movement, set up by LAW, was highly influential. LAW once had the then US president turn up at its annual general meeting.
The CTC individual in charge of the UK version of the Good Roads movement, William Rees Jeffreys, organised asphalt trials before cars became common. He took the reins of the Roads Improvement Association (RIA) in 1890, while working for the CTC.
He later became an arch motorist and the RIA morphed into a motoring organisation. Rees Jeffreys called for motorways in Britain 50 years prior to their introduction. But he never forgot his roots. In a 1949 book, Rees Jeffreys - described by former prime minister David Lloyd George as "the greatest authority on roads in the United Kingdom and one of the greatest in the whole world" â" wrote that cyclists paved the way, as it were, for motorists. Without the efforts of cyclists, he said, motorists would not have had as many roads to drive on. Lots of other authors in the early days of motoring said the same but this debt owed to cyclists by motorists is long forgotten.
The CTC created the RIA in 1885 and, in 1886, organised the first ever Roads Conference in Britain. With patronage - and cash - from aristocrats and royals, the CTC published influential pamphlets on road design and how to create better road surfaces. In some areas, county surveyors took this on board (some were CTC members) and started to improve their local roads.
Even though it was started and paid for by cyclists, the RIA stressed from its foundation that it was lobbying for better roads to be used by all, not just cyclists.
However, in 1896 everything changed. Motoring big-wigs lobbied for the Locomotives Amendment Act to be repeal
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
... is that there's so many to choose from. Noam Chomsky even makes a pretty plausivle case that big business in US depends on the government $$$ since, like, forever. Without comparing subsidies and their spread over various industries, this article ranges from stating the obvious to a hit piece .
Your calling a guy who has companies that:
1) Are pushing the state of the art of electric cars forward at a pretty nice pace. (Electric cars are the future. There is no doubt of that.)
2) Is pushing the solar technology needed to get off of fossil fuels as well, which the electric cars do as well. Even if your a nut case denialist about global warming, well the fossil fuels are going to run out, and it is not as if you can trust the average corp to run a nuclear plant without cutting too many corners.
3) Is also pushing the battery tech we desperately need for (1) and (2)
an arse.
Somehow I don't think that word means what you think it means...
There is no issue here. Businesses enjoy benefits written into the law or lobby for them if possible. Taking money from party A and giving some of it to party B is what government subsidies do. Unless you think that governments shouldn't intervene then you should be all suportive because in this case looks like the right guy got the money.
And that comes to what, over $360,000 per employee?
Here is the problem. Most of this subsidy money is not given to anyone or any companies. It is a waiver of future costs that wouldn't likely be collected anyways. Some is in the format of direct payment but those are generally to share the costs of getting people and companies to do what they wouldn't do already. So its pointless to really argue about it outside of whether we want someone or companies to act in certain ways while remaining free people.
Actually, Apple, Microsoft, and Google have taken billions in money from the feds.
In addition:
1) Solar City is only everybody's buildings. Also, we should stop the Solar subsidies since many companies no longer need them. Far better is to simply require that all new buildings below 6 stories to have enough on-site AE to equal their HVAC's energy usage.
2) SpaceX is the cheapest launch system going. Bar none. And they are about to be even cheaper. So far, SpaceX has actually SAVED the feds more money than it has costs them.
3) Tesla's Model S and X is currently for the upper middle class to wealthy. Probably it is the upper 1/3 that affords these. OTOH, in about 2 years, it will be the upper 2/3 that affords them.
Finally, claiming that it is the POOR that pay for these subsidies is a joke. Right now, in America, the bottom 50% pay NOTHING in the federal taxes. So, like the rest of your post, total BS.
And it would be irresponsible for Musk to NOT take the subsidies. Where the real problem is, that gov, feds and states, are giving these out. Hell, the fossil fuel industry gets 8B / year. That should be stopped NOW.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Subsidies are policy implementation devices. When people take the subsidies under the condition the subsidies are offered the result is that something the government wants to happen happens. Theoretically its an inexpensive way to get things done without the government doing it and assuring private investment in the outcome. (so there's vested interest in successes and usually commercialization).
Just because one guy happens to feed at the trough isn't a problem neccessarily. It could be. But that's why you have oversight.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
You are free to start your own argument instead of complaining that there is no "legitimate debate."
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
Another way to descript this would be:
Elon Musk structures his businesses to support government priorities.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
And too many hatebois too, it would seem. Don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out.
And this is a problem how? Don't those subsidies exist precisely to encourage the development of these sorts of technologies? The government (and theoretically, by extension: the people) decided that to encourage the development of greener technologies and/or space technologies, they would provide various bits of assistance to companies, as well as consumers buying into said technologies. Musk appears to be successful in developing these technologies. Now people are complaining that he got government subsidies? Bah. We, the people get the benefit of these new emerging technologies, and Musk gets to make some money doing it so that these emerging technologies exist. Win-win scenario. The subsidies will go away at some point as the technologies become more mainstream.
Its a sad fact that most businesses receive "subsidies" (IE less taxes) for behavior desired by the government, the larger the business the more "subsidies" they can usually take advantage of. Take this how you will, but its less an issue of those who are actually utilizing their rights under the law and more about a government that employs such a convoluted tax law to begin with.
Under a Republican administrator, Elon Musk will find himself under indictment and his corporate empire will crumble.
This article is laying the groundwork for that.
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
...he fossil fuel industry is subsidized more than 8b PER year in America...
Not to mention that the Internet was started by the government. And companies like Lockheed Martin rely almost completely on government military subsidies. This article was a hit piece. The American media really is shockingly corrupt.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
I'm gonna lay this out really clearly: $360k per employee over the entire life of a company that isn't finished growing and has the potential to transform an entire economic sector isn't a lot of money.
So all of Elon's companies get $5b in subsidies? The oil industry in the US get $37.5 billion in subsidies a year, including $21 billion for production and exploration. That's a far worse proposition for this country.
----- obSig
unfettered capitalism is all about?
So many ppl are polarized about him. They either hate him because he is successful, or they love him because he is innovative. Look at how fast these postings have jumped.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Anyone who takes government subsidies is on welfare - like Musk.
If you cannot make money without government subsidies, then you have no business being in business.
This is an example of government stealing money from the middle class and giving it to the billionaires.
Even with the job "creation" paid for by the taxpayer, Musk gets the profits and added wealth.
These are subsidies that gov offers. He has not stolen anything.
In addition, Kock broths get more than that EACH YEAR. Do you think that the neo-cons are going after them? And no, the tea-party will not be going after Musk OR kock brothers. As such, the GOP will be split on this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
At least Musk is doing something semi-important. We can start hating him when he replaces workeers with H1-B visa workers.
Lol.. if that was all, you might have a point. Why do you believe the subsidies have stopped and no more will occure over the life of the company?
fuck your crack whore mother
A truly brilliant riposte. The wit astounds!
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Who's that?
It's no different than what the other car companies are doing. They get tax breaks and investments from various levels of governments to build factories, retool a line, or even just keep a shift. I think that the money would be better invested in giving the employees training and loans for starting their own companies instead of giving the money to the Big 3 auto makers.
But I think the biggest offenders are the sports teams that threaten to leave to another city unless they get a new stadium or arena built for them. I say let them leave. Spend the money on programs that will help people that are starving instead of a game.
1. Requiring all new buildings to pay for solar that costs 60 cents/kw is an indirect tax.
2. Agreed on SpaceX, but its because engineers are put in control rather than MBA.
3. Tesla is for the Lower Upper Class. That won't change. Future promises are marketing (lies, lies, and more lies).
The poor pay a lot to society - sales tax, lack of education and safety investment, etc.
The middle class is an endangered species.
The upper class is where more and more business focus is. The other is government.
People who benefit from solar panel rebates are contractors who charge outrageous rates for installation.
The end user would always pay what is economically reasonable. If there were no government rebates, this economically reasonable amount would still be the same, it would only be split differently between the panel producer (probably about the same as before) and the installer (who would get less money).
That bottom 50% not paying anything in taxes is understandable if you look at the amount of wealth it represents in this country.
Loans that Musk's business would not get if he had to raise them on the capital markets, and probably at cheaper rates, aren't subsidies? What happened to the Ayn Randian 'bootstrap yourself' ideal of Slashdot? Or are subsidies bad only when they are paid to people you don't like? How about Tesla Motors, which is mostly kept afloat by the zero emissions 'battery replacement by invite' scam? There used to be a bit of critical thinking on Slashdot, but that was a long time ago.
The parasitic rent-seekers are being shown up by his companies actually being productive, and are throwing a hissy-fit. That seems to be the most likely explanation for why the recent wave of bile has started coming out of the MSM.
"the bottom 50% pay NOTHING in the federal taxes"
That is a lie.
It is as if they could not hate multiple things but opt to discuss this because it is, specifically, the topic at hand... No, they must list all the things they hate. Every.Thing.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
This.
When you consider that there are now over 1600 billionaires, how many of them are "using their powers for good" to the degree that Musk does? Sure there's the Gates Foundation, and other philanthropic efforts, there's the Tata Motors guy in India... some VC guys like Khosla... But out of 1600 people, what a tiny percentage of them even show up on the radar screen, let alone those who are doing "cool stuff" with their immense wealth and power.
If every billionaire used his wealth like Musk does, I wouldn't mind this staggering inequality so much. Sadly, Musk is more an exception than the rule.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Hm... not sure how that link got mangled... here's the right one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Motors
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
If you're so sure, why don't you rent a Tesla and try out the nice little "fake" battery swap station?
Because it's been "about to open" for over a year?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Government exists by confiscating money earned by others. This is supposed to be "for the public good," or so we are led to believe. And government taxes to exert public policy objectives. For example, it taxes tobacco and liquor because "they're bad" and gives tax "breaks" in the form of deductions for home owner interest because "owning a house is good." Pick your own examples. Insofar as taxes work, such as when government uses taxes to build roads, it's not an unreasonable system. But that part of government is relatively rare. Most of the time government confiscates our money to give to someone else government has decided is more deserving or needs it more. And the one thing government itself needs more is money for itself because government always has another "program" that needs funding, including its own bureaucracy.
Basically government is a huge confiscation scheme designed to bleed as much wealth from its citizens as it can without killing them and thus stopping the flow of wealth from private hands where it is created into public hands which, more often than not, wastes it on dubious programs.
The interesting part is the way the public perceives all this and gets upset when it is discovered that government is stealing less money from one part than another. Rather than say, "That's a good start" we say, "That's not fair!" meaning we think the government should be confiscating more from companies such as Musk's, which are doing well, and (just a minor point) promoting those policies and technologies the government wants promoted.
So where is the collective outrage over the billions spent by this administration on "shovel ready" jobs that provided a few dozen? Where is the outrage when the government subsidized a "solar business" to much hoopla and coverage only to see them go bankrupt a few months later because, of all things, cost of production exceeded revenue? (Government is such an astute student of proper business practices, after all.)
But when Musk shows how to run a business properly the media gets all upset and says the public is shouldering all the costs. Not really. It's just a matter of disparate confiscation assuming government ought to steal the same amount (or percentage, or whatever) from everyone.
I, for one, am quite happy to "bear this burden" for something that hopes to increase my own independence and wealth in contrast to government taking a trillion dollars a year from us only to redistribute down a rat hole that doesn't work anyway.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
You say out of one side of your mouth that you want all this environmental stuff... this space program... the batteries... US manufacturing... etc.
And then when someone actually does it, you bitch about the government subsidies.
This forgets that the Chinese heavily subsidize their own industry and that most of what Musk is doing is semi experimental and environmental jazz.
So... leave him alone. Do you honestly think the US federal government is going to spend that money on something else that is better?
Get real.
They lost 46 billion on the US postal service from 2007. What exactly did that accomplish? This is the 21st century. We don't need a DAILY postal service that is subsidized by the US tax payer.
First, you could reduce deliveries to one a week. Tell me why you need more deliveries to your house than once a week? If you need to get your mail faster, than get your fat ass over to the postal office and pick up your mail. The vast majority of what people get in the mail is bills that are on billpay anyway and fucking junk mail. There is very little else in it.
Second, for those that want daily service or even more frequent service than that... have them pay a fee for that. Fed Ex and UPS will check your place of business every day if you pay them for it.
Third, encourage the postal service to start using a digitization service. That is, when mail is scanned in at location X, have it flag certain recipients as preferring a digital service. Mail thus flagged, is digitized on reception by the postal service and uploaded to a cloud database where it can be accessed without further shipping or delivery. Here someone will say "but what if there is something in a letter that you don't want the post man to look at... then don't sign up for this service. Or have something people can write on an envelope that exempts it.
The point is that we do a lot of things that waste money. If you ACTUALLY care about saving money... then there is a great deal we can look at. The Last thing I'd fuck with is ruining Musk's empire. That is good for America. Not bad.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Finally, claiming that it is the POOR that pay for these subsidies is a joke. Right now, in America, the bottom 50% pay NOTHING in the federal taxes. So, like the rest of your post, total BS.
I don't think that's the argument. I think the argument is that it could be feeding poor people instead, or giving poor people a home, or something like that. Because, you know, we must be giving all of the money to the poor.
Though in reality the poor people are already fed and already have a place to live if they even put in a tiny amount of effort to get one. I was just talking to a recovering addict who told me that he knows of homeless people that get $1,200 disability checks for drug induced schizophrenia, and then just use the money to buy more drugs, and couldn't care less about paying rent.
That bottom 50% not paying anything in taxes is understandable if you look at the amount of wealth it represents in this country.
Graph here:
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesa...
"It is widely believed that taxes are highly progressive and, furthermore, that the top several percent of income earners pay most of the taxes received by the federal government. Both ideas are wrong because they focus on official, rather than "effective" tax rates and ignore payroll taxes, which are mostly paid by those with incomes below $100,000 per year."
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesa...
Wealth, Income, and Power
by G. William Domhoff
Do Taxes Redistribute Income?
Adam Smith, who wrote Wealth of Nations, said that those who have benefited more from society should pay a greater proportion of their income for the costs of running that society. In other words, Smith advocated progressive taxes.
...he fossil fuel industry is subsidized more than 8b PER year in America...
Not to mention that the Internet was started by the government.
Not according to Gordon Crovitz, the Wall Street Journal editorial page writer who wrote that the Internet was actually created by free-market entrepreneurs in the private sector, and made a fool of himself when the people who actually created the Internet wrote to the WSJ saying that he was all wrong.
The article almost (?) seemed to imply that Elon targets industries where he can get government money. This seems to be a classic confusion of correlation VS causation. The reason he is in these industries is that he is a big thinker who is drawn to what he views are the most important problems that face humanity. And yes, those are also industries where, not surprisingly, there are subsidies.
Yes, and the moon landing was actually filmed in a Hollywood studio and directed by Stanley Kubrick. The flag was waving!
The difference is, Musk did not show you a battery swap. He didn't show you anything that could be faked, because he didn't show you anything.
If you had a salient objection to my argument, you would have made it, instead of posting that bullshit anonymously.
It's actually not even my argument, I got it off John McElroy at Autoline, and who knows where he first heard it. Maybe it's bullshit. But if there really are adhesives holding in the battery pack in at least some of the cars out there, that would explain why customers are going to have to make an appointment to make a battery swap for the foreseeable future. They've got to check your serial number and figure out if your battery swap is going to take thirty seconds, or three hours.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I was on vacation this past week and at the hotel, they got great reception of Fox News. Just a preamble so you can ignore the rest of this :P
Anyways, there was a pretty good debate there on college tuition with some of panel saying it is a free market because it is based on supply and demand and another panel member saying it can't be a free market because of the subsidies. The cost would not be as high if there were no subsidies because the payout of the college degree is not that high for everyone...
Anyways, it got me thinking of where we are. In pretty much every industry today, you don't have anything that resembles a 'free market'. But you do have a lot of 'markets'.
Almost everywhere you look, you see heavy government involvement from direct subsidies, to investments, to laws, to regulations... that heavily distort any notion of a free market.
I'm not saying this is right or wrong, I'm simply saying what it is.
But then what surprises me is the outrage people get when it comes to subsidies to industries that make things.
I see this all the time. Even in Canada. Suddenly we turn all free-market when it comes to industries that make things. Oh god forbid Nortel or BlackBerry get direct subsidies. These engineers have to operate in the global free market. Meanwhile probably something like 70% of GDP is subsidy based (real estate, healthcare, education, finance...)
Alright, let's take it all at face value. Musk's companies have 5 billion dollars in subsidies. Seems like he is delivering with real jobs and real products.
Meanwhile, hundreds of billions and trillions are spent every year subsidizing the military, healthcare, education, real estate, finance, public sector...
I don't care which side of the fence you stand on. Free market or socialism, why complain about Musk? You want to complain about socialism, let's talk healthcare and education and military and finance and real estate first. That's the big money in socialism.
There never was a middle class. Never has been. It's always just been a line that politicians and pundits have artificially drawn in order to make talking points in order to name and shame their enemies so that they can rally more followers, but there's no mathematical or any other basis for it.
Watch this commentary on it by a physics professor at 18:12
http://www.dailymotion.com/vid...
Having rich and poor is an inevitable feature of any civilization that has ever existed or ever will exist. The societies that try to eliminate it (namely, communists) end up destabilizing quickly.
Tesla has opened their patents up. So, no, these are not Tesla-specific and not of fleeting usefulness.
It has been argued by many that the reason Tesla has opened their patents up is that they realize they can never dominate the car market, and if you use Tesla's patented technology without substantial reworking you're going to be strongly motivated to buy your batteries from Musk's gigafactory. It's also been suggested that he didn't open up any patents that were truly ground-breaking; every major player has competing technologies. What he did was add incentive to standardize on the technologies he did release, which would be good for everyone — but mostly for him. I'm not shaking my fist, or anything, but let's not imagine that he did this out of the goodness of his heart. He's trying to run profitable corporations here.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Right now, in America, the bottom 50% pay NOTHING in the federal taxes.
I don't know much about America, probably just borrows or prints money to make up for tax shortages. In Canada the way it works is we get low income taxes but the governments , both federal and provincial, make up the tax shortages by having large other taxes and fees, eg gas tax, unemployment payments, pension plan payments and numerous fees that are mostly capped so someone making $70,000 and someone making anything higher pays the same and all the excess money brought in goes into general revenue (and unemployment benefits have been clawed right back even with the huge surplus). It actually works out to the poor paying a larger percent of their income to the government then the wealthy when federal and provincial government taxes/fees are taken into account, at least here in BC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
...is that funding promising but currently expensive technology that can have big payoffs in the future for society is far different than corn or oil subsidies.
Or military subsidies.
Inflammatory article is inflammatory.
--
BMO
P.S. I was going to use "nascent" as the word up there but didn't like it so I used a thesaurus. Pubescent is a synonym. That would have made the sentence far more interesting.
Lol! Compare to trident or F35 or any military budget and pork barrel subsidy!
How about the BS that MS demand, hmm? Per employee, a third of a million is pretty much what they demand. Then avoid taxes by pretending they're in Ireland...
You all supported creating these idiotic subsidy programs to encourage businesses to do certain behaviors. Then you act shocked that certain businesses do certain behaviors in order to take advantage of the subsidies? And have some underlying tone implying there is something nefarious about this? #REF!
November 2016 will be the beginning of the end for Tesla and Musk. Better be out of all Tesla stock holding by January 2017.
You useless asshole. Anybody that actually pays taxes should know there are other taxes besides the federal income tax. And the further down the income scale you are, the harder you get fucked by many of them.
The American media really is shockingly Breaking news!
Are all the subsidies going to employees? That doesn't seem realistic, at a glance.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
Depends on how far back that wealth goes. For many wealthy, their first priority is to maintain the wealth in perpetuity for themselves and their family. It's no different then the priorities of typical royalty. Musk and Jobs were nouveau riche, were they not? If so, that would explain how their idealism carried over once they acquired the financial means to carry through.
Life is not for the lazy.
"Quite frankly, government subsidies for these are a waste until the fundamentals line up."
Are you suggesting that the government should only be subsidizing mature industries?
I am not a fan of any subsidies . . . especially for mature industries. If the economics do not line up for a mature industry then the industry creates a net economic drag on the economy and should not be subsidized.
The entire point of a subsidy should be to test and support the viability of new ideas that have the potential to create large economic benefits in the future. Instead what we have is a 100 years of subsidies for a handful of companies while pointing the finger at peanuts that should fundamentally change the world if allowed to compete on a level playing field.
-rd
Picking on Musk when in fact government being involevd deeply in business, R&D and particularly areas like space and solar is the real problem. This is bunk. Elon Musk is one of the greatest engineering and business heroes of our age. To ignore the context is vastly unjust.
How is it 'growing'? Tesla's factory runs under capacity and has been doing so since 2012.
With trillions a year paid in to help the fossil fuel industries and fuck all employement in the USA from it, this isn't worth noting.
This. Sounds like this article is just a massive troll on the part of oil interests.
you honestly think SpaceX costs more than Lockheed Martin and Boeing to run?
This.
When you consider that there are now over 1600 billionaires, how many of them are "using their powers for good" to the degree that Musk does? Sure there's the Gates Foundation, and other philanthropic efforts, there's the Tata Motors guy in India... some VC guys like Khosla... But out of 1600 people, what a tiny percentage of them even show up on the radar screen, let alone those who are doing "cool stuff" with their immense wealth and power.
If every billionaire used his wealth like Musk does, I wouldn't mind this staggering inequality so much. Sadly, Musk is more an exception than the rule.
and we must rule the exception.
atlas shrugged
However, two points:
Without money funneled to Musk by Obama, Musk's "Ironman" Industries will look like Humpty Dumpty on the sidewalk. Likely Musk will start moving cash out of his companies banks starting in July in small amounts to avoid IRS detection. In late October 2016 Musk will relinquish the USA side of his dual citizenship and become Icelander Musk to avoid IRS taxation altogether.
Ha ha What a carpet bagger this Musk.
Interesting. . You justify waste by pointing out waste. I bet your household budget is all rosey and you actually believe buying something you will never use because it's 30% off is saving you money.
Sure it does. The cost of the employees is not limited to their salaries. They would not be employed if the business didn't make some sort of economic sense and have work to do and that seems to be reliant on the subsidies.
"solar panels and electric cars . . . . remain niche products for mostly well-heeled customers." I'd agree that might be accurate for Musk's cars, but for EVs and solar panels in general it's at least misleading if not flatly false. The people I know who drive electrics aren't particularly wealthy. Other than Teslas, EVs now sell, after the rebate, at roughly the average price for a new car in the US, about $30,000. Decent used ones can be had for $12-15,000. Plenty of middle-class families manage to come up with that much and more for a car, so the implication that EVs are out of reach of the masses is just wrong. And unlike many tax breaks, the EV credit doesn't increase just because you're in a higher tax bracket, everybody gets the same $7500. A solar panel array actually costs less than the average cost of a new car, even before the tax rebate. And, both EVs and panels actually save the purchaser money in the long run. If they skew toward wealthier folks, it's probably because highly educated people are buying them. As far as states bidding for manufacturing facilities with millions in subsidies, that's now pretty much standard procedure. With China and others subsidizing manufacturing, we have to do it too, or else cede all production to others. When the US went for free trade and let China into the WTO, that's what we were committing ourselves to.
I wouldn't trust the authority of a physics professor on statements that are completely external to his field. Economics and sociology are autonomous disciplines. As a physics professor, he's probably very smart, but that doesn't mean he can be trusted with, say, prescribing drugs against cancer.
There's nothing like $HOME
funding isn't what we need, Washington DC spends $31k/student, and has some of the dumbest kids in existence.
I remember reading of Warren Buffet pointing out, as an anomaly, that his personal secretary pays proportionally more taxes than he does - and he wasn't even factoring in sales tax, iirc.
There's nothing like $HOME
ForceScourge
Yes, the definition of 'middle class' is somewhat arbitrary, but the percentile distibution curve of wealth is not.
There's always rich and poor, but it's the proportions.
If the top 1% rich people own 99% of the country, then there's rich and... serfs; and there's a 99% chance you're in the latter category.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Even if SpaceX was to completely fizzle it would have saved money. The fear of SpaceX has forced Ariane and ULA to undertake programs to bring down their launch costs. Similarly, Tesla Motors has changed the image of the electric car from a toy nobody would actually want to drive to something almost everyone would want to have if they could afford it. This image change, more than anything else, guarantees that an electric car is in your future. Finally, solar city is changing the way people and utilities think about renewable power. Most of us live in cities which have too high a density to be powered by local renewable sources. If we are ever to make more than token use of renewable power, electric power utilities will have to make their money by storing and transmitting energy, not by generating it. At some level this was always obvious. But we've managed to ignore it and put off any action. Solar city and Tesla's battery gigaplant have forced this into our consciousness now. Again, even if Musk fails miserably he will be responsible for pushing us ahead years or maybe even a decade. There hasn't been a prod to progress and the imagination like Musk's projects since the space race. As a taxpayer I say: MONEY WELL SPENT!
Having rich and poor is an inevitable feature of any civilization that has ever existed or ever will exist. The societies that try to eliminate it (namely, communists) end up destabilizing quickly.
You mean, like Canada, that slum-ridden cesspit to the North?
Try dialing down the dogma a fraction, and accept that there are reasonable compromises that provide reasonable mitigation to the worst aspects of any economic system. You might find that it is indeed possible for sober public investment in private enterprise not only to work, but to work well. There's a whole sub-discipline in economics devoted to the study of it. Yes, there are downsides to Public/Private Partnerships (it even has a name!!), but with the proper checks, they can sometimes work better than either a purely public or a purely private undertaking.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Wonder why no comparisons where made to other companies that go after subsidies? Oh, because then it wouldn't be hit piece! Tesla's a company, I only trust any company so far, but this sort of "journalism" I trust even less.
As the posts here show:
If you like him and what they (he and the politicians) are doing, then subsidizing space travel and electric automobiles is laudatory.
If you don't like him or what they are doing, then looting the taxpayers is corrupt crony capitalism.
And just pointing this out will be problematic for most here.
You have to be kidding.
Tesla has a supercharger that charges 80% in 40 minutes or less. Likewise, their batteries are not only, the cheapest per KW, but also lasting the longest of any li-ion in vehicles.
Spacex is working towards landing first stage as well as the capsule and re-using it quickly. Nobody had a pusher abort system that can be used for landing on earth as well as mars and the moon. In addition, nobody has done a full stage methane engine, but Tesla is testing theirs now.
now, we have solar city. At this time, I would not call them innovative, but that could change.
So, musk companies are adding massively to american economy, while others continue to outsource, while killing off R&D.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
> The cost of the employees is not limited to their salaries.
The company is not just the sum of employee costs. Have some integrity. Expanding on the definition of "spending on employees" is redundant and only serves to weaken the premise (subsidy/employees = huge effective salaries).
> They would not be employed if the business didn't make some sort of economic sense and have work to do and that seems to be reliant on the subsidies.
This is not logical. There are plenty of positions (like the janitors and lawyers) that are not dependent on the specific business model to have jobs. Some of the employees may be able to get different jobs. I'm not sure someone who is an expert on Tesla batteries couldn't manage to get a contractor's license.
After scrutinizing your comments, I'm going to say you failed to reasonably explain why the subsidies would result in $360,000+ per employee. Employees are not the only cost (as you've implied), so maybe you need to look into their facility costs and taxes and debts (like equipment leases)...you know the costs that go into running a company. This was my only point, to which you had a truly strange response.
Maybe you'll realize it, maybe you'll just keep trying to argue the articulation of a knee-jerk thought you had.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
The oil industry are subsidized too, throught the army budget and the lives of american citizens who invaded oil countries
....but let's face it, right now it's a market for the well-healed.
I find it ironic that these cars only sell when there are subsidies, and that those subsidies (and tax writeoffs) to to precisely the folks who need it least--the well off.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
How is it 'growing'? Tesla's factory runs under capacity and has been doing so since 2012.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
"In December 2012, Tesla employed almost 3,000 full-time employees.[3][26] By January 2014, this number had grown to 6,000 employees."
"Number of employees - 10,000 (Nov 2014)"
3000 to 6000 to 10000. Nope, that certainly doesn't sound like growth. But just in case any of those words were too big for you, here's a graphic:
http://www.statista.com/statis...
" In August 2014 the company announced it, in conjunction with Panasonic, would establish a "gigafactory" battery manufacturing plant in the Southwest or Western United States by 2020. The US$5 billion plant would employ 6,500 people, and reduce Tesla's battery costs by 30 percent."
So in additional to however many other employees they add over the next 5 years, they will then add another 60+% of today's employee count, and in doing so be able to greatly decrease the cost for the most expensive part of their car...the one part that is MOST responsible for pushing Tesla cars out of the price range of the average person. But I'm sure that won't result in any growth, either.
That's all execution.
Tesla battery = bunch of AA batteries (NCR18650 if you argue irrelevant details) with clever parallel electricity flow.
SpaceX = Letting the engineers do what they can rather than marketers negotiate contracts.
SolarCity = bigger company with good execution and better marketing.
Don't get me wrong, I wish there were 1k Elon Musks running businesses. But its a business (think Costco, Google, Southwest). He's not out there doing something that'll earn a Nobel Prize - the underlying basis that advances humanity.
Does Musk add to the economy? Certainly not massively. Take a look at the percentage of visas and such. Plenty of oursourcing.
Are you comlaining about the Government investing in future technology or are you complaining about the Government giving a visionary money to make the future a better place?
I suspect you're actually complaining to make a provoking story to get ad revenue.
That 50% number is (a) wrong and (b) only purported to be about Federal *income* tax. There are plenty of other taxes you pay in that bracket, both local (e.g. sales tax) and Federal (e.g. payroll tax).
That there there exist some mentally ill people addicted to drugs who, surprisingly, use money badly is supposed to be an argument about the living conditions of the fifth of the US population below the poverty line and proper policy in relation to these people?
Lol.. what you miss could fill a novel.
First, no one said the company was the sum of employee cost. If the company doesn't turn a profit, there will be no employee cost because it will not be in business. If the subsidies are the reason the company is making a profit and still open, then it is entirely reasonable to connect the subsidies to their pay.
Second the only thing not logical is your thinking. Sure they could get a job somewhere else. But that ignores the fact that they wouldn't be working for that company. It also ignores the fact that unemployment is not zero. Their reemployment elsewhere would either displace another worker if all things otherwise was the same or some other company would expand due to that company no longer being in business. That means they are not employed or the subsidies are depressing other businesses.
The rest of your post misses the fact that if all other costs caused them to not be profitable enough to stay in business without the subsidies, the jobs would only exist because of the subsidies. Again it is completely reasonable to connect them.
It is not a complicated process at all. If the company can not make money without the subsidies, it no longer exists. Those jobs no longer exist if they were even created in the first place. You can try to hide or ignore that all you want but it doesn't change anything.
Apologies for that link to the graphic that doesn't work. It works fine when it was linked from the google search results, but otherwise seems to require a paid account to see it. I hate crap websites that game google that way
Just going to throw this out there - Tesla uses off the shelf 18650 Lithium-Ion NCR batteries. As someone who uses a vape (e-cig), I've see what happens when Tesla switches brands. First the VCT-4/VCT-5 Sony batteries just disappeared off the market, then the MNKY Oranges disappeared, but it appears they switched to some Panasonic ones, and nobody uses those for vapes.
Actually that would be ignorance in action to be technical. But close enough for slashdot.
You all supported creating these idiotic subsidy programs to encourage businesses to do certain behaviors. Then you act shocked that certain businesses do certain behaviors in order to take advantage of the subsidies?
Slashdot is not homogeneous. Anyone can submit a story, and the editors will post anything which looks like effective clickbait.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Oh My God, what if we do all this and make a better world for our children's children and it all tunes out to be a scam?
So goes the current anti-think.
and they go out of their way to hire veterans: http://www.military.com/vetera...
And they doing their best to insure that most of the battery production in the world will be done in the U.S. in the future: http://www.teslamotors.com/gig...
And oh by the way they are the future of the car industry... and perhaps getting the U.S. energy independent in a sustainable way...
But yah, let's bitch about giving them tax breaks... because we need to save those for more worthy industries (sarcasm).
Pat
A sovereign state decide to spend taxpayers money to promote some activity. Someone engages in this activity and is therefore eligible to get the money. What is wrong?
The only concern we can have is whether our representants were right when they decided to spend money on something. We can ask for such a decision to be reversed, this is the democratic process.
>> Are all the subsidies going to employees? That doesn't seem realistic, at a glance. -- Jack9
>> Sure it does. -- sumdumass
Since you can't reconcile your own assertions, there's nothing more to intelligently discuss. Have a nice day.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
Since we are on the subject of subsidies, can we talk about corn?
I reconciled it just fine. I'm not sure how many more ways it can be said; if the job would not exist without the subsidies, they are all going to the employees. You have failed to counter that and just mentioned that the employees could be employed somewhere else.
You are correct though. There is nothing more to intelligently discuss as it's already been said. Your deviations serve nothing but trying to hide reality.
Five billion dollars translates to roughly 1% of global fossil fuel subsidies. Give Elon another couple of percent if you ask me.
I think it's a bit unfair to conflate ALL the money he gets together - a quite a lot of that is just the same general corporate welfare every other business gets as well, and the subsidy part is way less than the subsidies enjoyed by oil companies for example.
It's probably not an unsupportable position to say there should be no subsidies for him - but ONLY if you hold hte position that there should be no subsidies for any business, ever.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
And Apple didn't invent the MP3 player. A Slashdot tradition lives on!
I suppose you are technically correct, if you consider taxes on gasoline and other hidden taxes. But that hardly invalidates his point, as the amount the bottom 50% of the population earns less annually than the lower limit on federal income tax
Agreed. Not to mention, most people don't realize how even automation requires human supervision. Someone has to be there to handle general maintenance, develop optimized layouts, handle specific deviations, etc, etc.
They hire plenty of Americans, pay plenty of taxes...
The federal government subsidizes the solar industry completely:
Basic research
Production/manufacturing
Purchase of solar panels
Installation of solar panels (gov't training of installers)
The entire solar industry is propped up by government subsidies.
The 'trillions' you say the government gives to the oil companies are what is called tax credits for research and development, the same as every other industry... And your 'trillions' number is way, way off. The credits Exxon/Mobil gets are a fraction of the taxes paid by Exxon/Mobil.
As noted above, what you call 'some help' is propping up an entire industry on the backs of every tax payer AND every electric utility customer that underwrites the excessive rates utility companies are forced to pay for surplus electricity generated by solar panels.
Ken
if the job would not exist without the subsidies, they are all going to the employees.
I'm glad you restated this in such a way to make the logical fallacy obvious.
The correct statement would be, if the job would not exist without the subsidies, that job is supported by subsidies.
Now, instead of further arguing this or some other random point, why don't you go look up what these "subsidies" actually consist of.
First, I never said Solar. I said AE. It COULD be Solar, but it can also be wind, hydro, whatever. More importantly, HVACs use 1/2 to 2/3 of a buildings energy. By requiring a NEW building to have on-site AE energy equal to HVAC's energy, it allows builders to choose between:
1) insulating better ( R-30 in the walls aerogel based windows, etc),
2) using better forms of HVAC such as geo-thermal heatpumps,
3) using large amounts of AE,
4) OR various combinations within.
And since this is replacing the energy/money that would go out, this is NOT a tax, but simply requiring that ppl live cleaner, and pay up-front.
Secondly, I mostly agree about SpaceX, HOWEVER, the fact is, that they are doing INNOVATIVE work such as landing and re-use of the equipment. More importantly, spaceX's REAL innovation, like Tesla's and Solar Cities, is NOT seen. It is in their manufacturing.
3) Before the roadster came out, ppl said that Tesla would NEVER get off the ground like Musk promised.
Then when Roadster hit the market, they said that the Model S would NEVER go for under 100K like Musk promised. Now, ppl say that it will NEVER be down to the 35K like Musk promises.
If you are SO sure about your beliefs, then please short Tesla (and Solar City). Ideally, you should short Tesla in the next 2 weeks if you have any real belief and want to avoid being a hypocrite.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Fossil fuels and fossil fuel using cars to a greater extent than most.
Just look at the lease rates for use of government lands for fossil fuel extraction.
Only an idiot disarms when his competition is armed to the teeth with government cheese.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
He's an engineer. Do you think he doesn't know how to maximize ROI? Good business sense and solving problems more efficiently than other providers at the government trough.
That is NOT execution. That is INNOVATION.
Hell, Tesla Opensources and others do not take it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Since Tesla's first loans were repaid early and in full per DOE. I have no problem with them investing in new Technology.
Does any billion dollar company get that big without government support? Microsoft's original MS-DOS contract, IBM's slaes to every agency, Apple's presumed security backdoor, GM's Hummer sales, Ford Aerospace, etc, etc.
The complex relations among government agencies and large corporations is endemic. Elon Musk is no exception.
Exactly... and never mind that the auto industry, telecom industry, most of our current computing technology, plastics, and so on are also directly the result of government money, mostly in the form of either grants or the space program.
Plus, many the same companies that got their start using government money but no longer need it because they are sustainably profitable, continue to collect subsidies... while funneling profit money into purchasing lobbyists and politicians. THAT should be earning the ire of anyone complaining about companies receiving government subsidies, rather than companies that are creating new industries with government subsidies... because the latter are using the subsidies for what they're meant for.
So what if it takes 3 guys to maintain 50 machines?
You're one of those guys who touts the 'job creation' 10,000 jobs managing/building the robots but hides the fact that 100,000 jobs were automated out of existence...
Do you think they don't invest in things? Just because they aren't hyper-extroverted narcissists who have a pressing need to hold press conferences, doesn't mean they aren't funding or supporting "cool" things. Or even "uncool" things that you need more than you want...
+++OK ATH
FICA taxes, including the ludicrously named "employer's share", take a large chunk of the working poor's spending power.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You didn't even bother with that much fact checking about what you 'know', though, did you. Your entire post is a demonstration of idiocy in action.
Of course they didn't. It's an AC and pure trolling.
At least it's a private company that utilizes the scientific method to accomplish goals and achieve measurable success.
NASA and the DoD both use rigorous planning and oversight to insure that every task has a mission statement, milestones, and progress.
Contrast that with the rest of the Democratic Party's legacy centralized government. For the past 100 years, they've loaded the tax code with giveaways, we're up to 4,000,000 words of tax code that even the IRS says is no longer fair or enforceable. Wealth inequality very likely begins with tax inequality.
We have a mass of government employees -- it's practically a ratio of four taxpayers per government worker. The public school systems are drenched in national socialism and political correctness -- spending based on feelings and beliefs, as opposed to issue tracking, efficacy, and measurable solutions.
The soviet union and china reformed their central governments, the USA has not. Britain is down to six liberal democrat seats in parliament, apparently their people have realized that voting on emotional reasoning and vote-buying schemes is an ineffective waste.
It's not that the Republicans are all that much better of a choice, being a religious party, but they do make occasional squeaky noises about reform. They did work with Bill Clinton to establish PAYGO and Workfare, although both are largely bypassed or ignored today.
minimum wage 40hrs x 50 weeks is over $18,000 / year but the minimum you have to earn to pay federal taxes is $9,500 / year (about half that). True, many employers keep low earners below 30 or 35 hours a week to avoid paying benefits or treating workers as "full time" but still, they're well above the minimum federal income tax limit.
In most states anyone working over about 1,000 hours/year (even at minimum wage) will most likely have to pay federal income tax.
But he could certainly change that by restructuring his finances so they are classified as "regular" income instead of capital gains. As far as I know, he's never done that since making the statement about his secretary.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
most of those "subsidies" are just tax breaks that are available to all companies, including Musk's. It is funny to see fan-boys reaction to exposing the extent he benefits from cronyism.
Requiring all new buildings to pay for solar that costs 60 cents/kw is an indirect tax.
So requiring all buildings be built to basic safety standards is a tax as well.
Learn to love Alaska
Finally, claiming that it is the POOR that pay for these subsidies is a joke. Right now, in America, the bottom 50% pay NOTHING in the federal taxes.
Hilarious. The SS-hating conservatives tell us daily that SS is a tax for the general federal budget, not a trust fund. But when hating on the poor, the SS taxes are ignored.
If Social Security taxes are taxes, then the poor are taxed. It's a shame that they can't get rebated on the SS tax through income tax.
Learn to love Alaska
That, and the numbers are all lies.
To make the bottom line look good, the State of Alaska "sells" oil to the oil companies at $0 per barrel removed from the ground. Then the state taxes the "free" oil. BP counts it as a "tax" on their books, which has better benefits to their books than calling it an expense. And the people that bash stupid government moves call the "free" oil a subsidy to the industry. The real subsidy is there, but lost in the accounting. The treatment of the exchange allows BP to claim tax credits, and that's a federal tax credit that's not counted by anyone as it's too complex to describe to the average American.
Learn to love Alaska
Wait, what do you mean? The government simply buying a product at an agreed upon price (e.g. weapons) is not a subsidy.
("Like" above is used as "for example".)
I like Khosla, but some people, including a judge, didn't agree with him doing what he wanted with his property:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinod_Khosla#Martin.27s_Beach_dispute
Government subsides for an oil lobby that makes buttloads of money off of outdated technology? I'm not for it.
Government subsidies for corporate-welfare defense contractors that make planes that only shoot a shot in anger because congresspeople need to justify their existence? I'm not for it.
Government subsidies for actual forward-looking technology development? Yeah, let's do it!
our military machine and our murderous forays into other nations. 5 billion isn't squat.
the fossil fuel industry is subsidized more than 8b PER year in America.
But that's hidden and confusing. Like the subisdy for coal miners health. It's not a direct payment to the mine owners, so it's not like the cash payments around renewables. And the 8B is mostly a lie. If you count Alaska, the oil pumped out of the ground is a "gift" from Alaska to the oil companies, and treated like a subsidy by oil haters. But then taxed by Alaska, and treated like a non-subsidy payment to the government by the oil-lovers.
So every number you see on the situation is a lie. The truth is better or much worse than whoever you are talking to says.
Learn to love Alaska
1. Name large business that isnt getting gov $ from in the government in some way .... waiting... crickets... pin drops.. NONE
2. You use variable math. A tax break is not a subsidy. (yes i know you can argue a tax reduction is a subsidy) -- "a sum of money granted by the government or a public body to assist an industry or business so that the price of a commodity or service may remain low or competitive." Getting a tax break is keeping the money earned. If I work hard and make $100k and the tax rate is reduced, you didn’t GIVE me money you just took less of what I earned. A subsidy is when you ADD cash; ie. Invest in new ideas that can make America better, investing through grants for startup sand such. Someone gave the Internet as an example of a good government investment - and I agree, I would throw in the original function of the EPA - stopping rivers from burning, and would also through in the moonshot as a technology kickstarter.
3. It seems one group/entity receiving huge government tax breaks/subsidies or zero interest loans is OK. But another group getting similar breaks/loans/subsidies is 'bad'. My guy is ok to get $ but your guy is not (and vice versa).
4. Letting the government pick winners and losers will eventually go bad. A fair open process is critical. Blacklisting either liberals/conservatives, dems/repubs or tagging based on sex or religion is a slippery slope that will not end well (based on repeated historical patterns).
Finally yes people are rich. Ie the Koch brothers - and they donate a huge amount. Not much different than George Soros (he donates to things I think are abhorrent and I suspect people believe that the things the Koch brothers donate to might be considered absorbent to others). Individuals influence based on their beliefs – which is constitutionally protected. I like our system, it was a genius design, and I believe the original design was actually even better than what we have tweaked to get where we are.
It doesn't matter what the subsidies consist of. I already know anyways which is obvious from my initial post in this thread.
There is no logical fallacy either. If company would not exist without subsidies, employees of that company would not exist either. You seem to think that somehow they would.
Oh and nice try pretending you somehow became confused and thought comments about subsidies and employees of a company meant all employees everywhere or something. My first thought after reading that was if you were really that stupid. Then i remembered that this is slashdot so its entirety possible you are but it is more likely you are a pedantic troll. Give it a rest. Any idiot knows what was said and the context it was said in. Your argument fails any reasonable examination.
It is the typical thing you see in any field where the ideology has even the most infinitesimal chance of taking even the most infinitesimal amount of profit from big oil. There are attacks launched at the persons behind the ideology. It is only a matter of time before we realize that oil is a really inefficient power source. Mr. Musk is just a person in the right place at the right time, oh and he happens to be a very wealthy genius. Huff Puff how dare he breeze past big oil in his efficient vehicle???? The very nerve of some people. So they attack. What a bunch of whinny little babies. No matter that they are literally rolling in profits they banked at the expense of the taxpayers. It is AOKAY for big oil to get buckets erm...truckloads....erm wait we need a tanker ship for that ...tanker ships full of money in subsidies, written off fines, government money to clean up their messes, and oh let's call in a few more tanker ships to haul about the money that the government spent on infrastructure to support big oil, gotta keep building those gas guzzlers right?? Last but not least, the huge amount of money that goes into attacking any and all alternative energy plans. So yeah, it is not if you support Mr. Musk or not; it is if you know that there is going to be a future and if you would like it to be a good one.
Math is HARD. $9k credit loss =/= 20-30k increase. Haters gonna hate.
Wow you are really giving your name a bad rap.
How about the government subsidy of low paid employees the world over? All companies benefit from the governments topping up employee wages. I work in a university as a magnetic resonance spectroscopist. The government pays me about 160 a month in benefit as my wage isn't enough to live on.
I'm sure the government subsidy of large employers such as Tesco and Walmart is huge; this is saving these companies money on their wage bills.
Exactly! Won't somebody please think of the buggy-whip makers!
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
Tesla didn't replace 100,000 manufacturing jobs. They *added* 6,000 jobs that simply weren't there before. You're throwing up a very flawed strawman.
Furthermore, some company had to make those machines that Tesla operates. Tesla helped keep some of that company's employees employed.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
Yeah, the companies are all desperate to pay them more at any opportunity. /sarc
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
There's yet to be any truly communist government that actually attempts to eliminate that.
Actually the original Marx driven Paris Commune tried it. So did the Icarians, and a long list of others who didn't reach the scale of an entire nation.
Granted the Paris commune found external pressure, the other communes didn't (such as the Icarians.) However those other communes always ended up the same: Started out with a motivated few that literally gave away all of their possessions, and eventually people got tired of working for nothing, production gradually declined, new rules were forced to make up for it (in the case of the Icarians, they later had rules like no talking while working) and people got fed up with it and disbanded.
Try dialing down the dogma a fraction, and accept that there are reasonable compromises that provide reasonable mitigation to the worst aspects of any economic system.
I didn't claim there wasn't. However this whole "war on the 1%" theme is a load of crap. There will always be a 1%. Furthermore, not only is the 1% a very arbitrary figure (what about the top 2%? Or the top 0.5%? Or the top 30%? Why are they just pegging the number one?) but a lot of these so called "evil 1%ers" are doing a MUCH greater job helping the poor than the poor do. Take Bill Gates for example, working his ass off to help people that are so low on the socioeconomic ladder that occupy wall street doesn't even give a shit about them.
no, I was commenting on the outrage over musk, who is actually doing something significant with the subsidies. you don't hear outrage over the other folk
also musk isn't a hyper-extroverted narcissist, have you heard him talk? he's a total loser
Instead of giving subsidies for businesses they like, the government should simply do less stuff and lower the tax rate so much that internationalizing businesses will move back (on purpose). Then we'll have similarly exciting developments in all business fields, not just those that are politically correct or approved.
Also, the government doesn't "give subsidies" when it allows a tax break, it's just refraining from using its guns to threaten and imprison people over money less than it usually does.
Wait, what do you mean? The government simply buying a product at an agreed upon price (e.g. weapons) is not a subsidy.
When the contract is overly favorable to the company, I do count it as a subsidy. Many contracts Lockheed Martin makes with the government are "cost plus" contracts, meaning that the government pays the costs of the project plus a guaranteed profit margin of, say, 20%. The problem is that this gives an incentive for the contractor to inflate the costs, to over-design, to hire too many managers.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
There never was a middle class. Never has been. It's always just been a line that politicians and pundits have artificially drawn in order to make talking points in order to name and shame their enemies so that they can rally more followers, but there's no mathematical or any other basis for it.
Watch this commentary on it by a physics professor at 18:12
http://www.dailymotion.com/vid...
Having rich and poor is an inevitable feature of any civilization that has ever existed or ever will exist. The societies that try to eliminate it (namely, communists) end up destabilizing quickly.
This needs a South Park-style movie montage like with Scientologists and Mormons: "THIS IS WHAT AMERICANS ACTUALLY BELIEVE". It's beyond ignorant for well, anyone from, say Europe. Where we have educations. And societies that has tried to eliminate these things since way before you were even enemies with these "communists".