Or maybe you're just disagreeing with them? They have pretty evenly been conservative leaning in their opinions for a long time. Lately, they HAVE been bandying around the opinion that the state of the US is pretty stupid, and they've been naming blame.
Perhaps you don't like who they're blaming? Lately, it's been the conservatives.
Out of curiousity, what decline in quality are you noticing? Can you give some more information? They seem just as informative and fact presenting as they've always been to me.
I'll third this. I like the Economist. I don't always AGREE with them, but they clearly do their homework, they are decently good at seperating their opinion from the facts, and reading them makes me more informed. It probably does help that they are Brits. I enjoy their take on the US news.
Tony
First, China is hardly a socialist country. They've been embracing significant capitalistic practices for over a decade now. You can tell, because of all the rich chinese factory owners.
You buy from people that poison you ALL THE TIME. People shop at WalMart, despite the evils they do. I bet all of your clothing is made in China right now. I bet the car you drove to work was probably chinese made. If it was assembled here, the PARTS surely were made in China. And every time you do so, you KILL American manufacturing, the American wage, the American worker..... Did you eat fast food recently? The meat's from South America, where the rain forest is being slashed to grow cows for McDonalds. Did you bike to work? No? You drove? You probably used Middle Eastern oil to do it. Your house is probably heated with natural gas(fracking) or electricity(generated with nuke, natural gas, or coal burning).
Take your libertarian pipe dream somewhere else. People poison themselves all the time, and they LOVE IT. Where they DON'T love it, they're probably stuck in a monopoly or the companies are in collusion to avoid competition. How much do you REALLY love your cable company? You're free to leave.... Oh wait, you only have maybe one other choice, if you're lucky.
Yeah. go take more economics classes. Your econ101 mindset isn't going to cut it in the real world. The real world is full of collusion, monopolies, outsourcing, trade practices, corruption, etc. And there's not a DAMN THING you can do about it by yourself, and the people next to you are too comfortable or brainwashed to care.
For one, that attitude is what led us to justify torturing people. They weren't Americans, so who cares right? Other people don't have rights. We can do whatever we want to other people.
No.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
It doesn't say "for Americans only". Nowhere in the bill of rights or the constitution does it say "for americans only".
I'm going to second that "In their NRA fuled wet dreams". I laugh whenever I hear the conservatives I know rambling on about citizen militias and standing up to the government...
If the US military (which is NOT allowed to carry arms inside the US, the National guard is) ever REALLY came for the gun nuts, it would be sooooo unevenly matched. Consider the situation overseas. They practically give AK47s out like candy in the middle east. Rocket launchers, grenades, automatic weapons... No Problem. What does that get them? A drone overhead and a missile strike. The same would be done here.
No. Many of our citizens are NOT better armed than our military. Nor are they better trained. Or better supported. Don't kid yourself.
Man, I can hear them whine now... "but, but... but what about rag tag rebellion like in Red Dawn?! What about guerilla warfare? We can take 'em!" My answer would be "What do you think our armed forces have been training and fighting against for the last ten years? They've gotten a LOT better at it than Joe Bob has at asymmetric warfare tactics"
Gay IS a widely used synonym for "bad". But of course, it is also used to describe sexual orientation. We all know this, and all the arguing about it is silly.
What is NOT silly is determining if we're going to let this continue. We all understand that using the word Niggerdly in polite company is rather gauche. Niggerdly has a meaning, and it's not very flattering. It's not a good word to use. Gay needs to become like that.
Lets find a new word for Bad/Stupid. We all have friends/coworkers that are gay. Lets show them some basic respect.
Funny, I can't. It does not mention citizens vs. not. It simply says "The right of the People". Weird.
And the declaration of independence specifically says "all men". Granted, women and black people don't count on that one, we had to fix that later. Sigh. Yes, I know the Declaration is NOT the constitution.
Point is, this whole thing about the laws not counting against non americans is Crap.
Lots of people were trying to create groups to fight Obama, 'cause he's a socialist (or whatever). And frankly, the rules on 501.4 groups is pretty stupid and NEEDS more oversight. This IS a drummed up issue. Nothing to see here.
Never ascribe to malice that which can be blamed on stupidity.
I live in Oregon. That's as west as you can get.:D Does that mean I'm a rugged individualist? Does that mean Texas is full of Help Me People?
Maybe we should stop stereotyping. Maybe you need to talk to a hippy and see what they have the government just as much as you, and probably for much better (and much more real) reasons.
Maybe these crowds of "Help me, I'm being picked on" people are just a stereotype that's been fed to you, so you dismiss lefties as whiners. Maybe because if lefties and righties got together and realized that they all hate what's being done in their name.... something would get done.
Sorry, I'm being unfair here. I'm a little peeved. I spent last night listening to lefties talk(at a political meeting) about surveilance state, politics, the problems with our systems, and how Obama is continuing Bush policies if not making them worse. They're pissed off. And this morning, I endure a rant from a righty about how all lefties do is lick Obama's ass.... while he sat on the couch doing nothing but whining.... It has me a little annoyed, and your post prodded that.
1. It's interesting how many posts here assume that this well written and thoughtful article was written by a man. She's a woman. Oh, and you should read her OTHER article on the same website. It's interesting.
2. It's also interesting how many people didn't talk about the article and just used the basic idea to ramble on about their own pet peeves. It's the Government's fault! (we could argue about that, but that's not what the article is about). People today are selfish and they suck! (Volunteerism is at an all time high. People are awesome and caring. Also, people tend to see other people as being just like them, so I worry about all those people that assume everyone ELSE is selfish and greedy.)
3. It's also interesting how a lot of posts seem to say "well yeah, everyone just wants to make money!" I actually read the article, and you might notice she specifically says that lots of people are LEAVING Wall Street (and I'd assume their high paying jobs) to go be entrepreneurs. The problem is that they're focusing on the Wrong Areas.
So, basically... Pretty much all of the replies here missed the point and used the time and space to just rant about their own already concieved perceptions. That's kind of lame. This was a really neat read.
In response to her, I'd say that people tend to do what they know. When you're a programmer, you want to program away the problems, and you focus on the easily programmed problems... Perhaps a solution is to take all those entrepreneurs and have them sit down with Joe and Jane Shmoe and talk about what could help them. Bah. Who needs market research! ( I kid! I kid!)
As a budding entrepreneur, I found this( and her other article) to be very though provoking. Thanks Mrs? Nnaemeka!
There's always a tech bubble. You'll constantly have to update your skills. Accept that.
Work on your non programming skills. Take some engineering classes, learn how to engineer something instead of hacking something together. If your future boss plonks something on your desk and says "do it", you should be the person who thinks about it, writes out the requirements, does some math, uses that to look for a solution, writes the documentation, etc... and THEN programs the thing.
Be that person, and you'll always get hired, because you'll do good work.... Hopefully.:D You'll still do better than the schlub that just hacks out a quickie solution. It will break. Or it will be too slow. Or it will not take future constraints into consideration. Or it will be poorly documented. etc etc etc.
You can already program. Make sure you can engineer.
"The success of Texas is a sore tooth to those on the "left". "
I'm a liberal. I don't care about Texas at all. Be successful. Whatever. It matters zero in my day to day life. I really don't walk around thinking "Damnit, Texas is doing so much better than Oregon. I'm so bothered!"
Also, if you don't want the "Left" to rely on ad-hominem attacks and mischaracterization, perhaps you shouldn't be lumping all of the "Left" together inside some quotes. It's quite diverse over here. And a little Wacky. Please don't put us all inside the same set of quotes. We like our philosophical elbow room.
Well, i'm Tony, and I speak for ALL liberals. I asked, they're OK with me speaking for them.
We're NOT ok with Obama's continuing of the warrantless wiretapping, and we're NOT ok with the whole "assassinate Americans without a trial" (robots or no). We're actually pretty pissed about it. If you listened to us at all, you'd have noticed that.
Actually, I'm pretty pissed at the Democratic party. I can count on my fingers the number of representatives that I consider to be liberal. The rest are just... well look, you have the same thing over there. There's often a big difference from the stances the Republican Party holds and the stances of an actual real conservative person.
Remember, we're people too. Not stereotypes. You Hick.:P
I'm a crappy coder. I could use a way to find people who wanted small coding jobs. I pay them, they code for me.
I just got a new laptop. The wireless card doesn't work with Linux yet. (Damnit Realtek!) I could use a website that would tell me who's working on that, and what they need to succeed. Actually, I really like this one. I have a piece of hardware. I want to make sure it works.... Just match up the hardware IDs (obda:0127) with the real world name, and if it has a working driver. Simple, but I don't think it exists... If it does, someone please tell me! I could go into the store, look at the hardware, hit your database on my phone, and know if the stupid thing would work for me or not. If it doesn't work, tell me who's working on it, and what they need. I would gladly donate time, money, pizza, hardware, etc to the right people that were working on my problem. I just don't know who they are.
Go man, go!
There's more to being a web dev than coding. You have to know now to get along with coworkers. You have to work as a team. You have to learn HOW to build complex projects.
A computer science degree will hopefully tell you how to engineer something, not just build something. There is a HUGE difference.
I get that school is expensive, and it may do nothing more than prepare you to work for The Man for 30 years... If you want to go the entrepreneur route, then go for it. You'll fail, just expect that a few times, and eventually you'll succeed. maybe.:D
" Provide an environment where it's cheaper and more efficient for US companies to manufacture products, you won't need to subsidize to compete"
I agree. In order to create that environment, we'll have to get rid of all our labor laws and environmental regs. Once the companies can pay us all nothing and dump their industrial waste in the nearby river to pollute everything and give us all health problems, we won't need subsidies. We'll finally be able to compete with Chinese companies. Hooray!
Perhaps we shouldn't allow subsidies for ANY industry, as you say.... but that magical world died a long time ago. We subsidize EVERYTHING now.
And I agree that there was no chance for Solyndra to outcompete Chinese manufacturers. I'm just saying that's the very reason we NEED to subsidize that industry. We WANT to manufacture here. We want the tech, the jobs, the infrastructure, etc. You seem stuck on the idea that the company was all buddy buddy with the government. You might want to consider also that perhaps our government is actually trying to kick start an entire industrial base HERE in the US, and that's a good thing. We want that. And that costs money. And in this case, the squeaky wheel got the grease. Everyone does it. EVERYONE. There's not a single large business in the US that doesn't lobby/donate for the influence it gives them.
We want solar manufacturing in the U.S. We can never outcompete Chinese manufacturers due to our labor and environmental regs(which are good and needed). We HAVE to subsidize, or we won't be building those here. We'll be paying the Chinese. They'll get the jobs, they'll get all the extra side benefits of industry. They'll get the contractoring jobs, They'll get a skilled work force, they'll be able to build better schools, they'll spend on roads to move products. They'll get a better country because they realize the benefit of spending public dollars on industry and infrastructure.
People whine about a few hundred million spent on our own industrial base and energy security. Meanwhile our defense budget outspends the next 14 countries PUT TOGETHER (Many of them our allies). It's $1,740ish Billon a year. Go ask if the defense industry has a problem with kickbacks and too cozy relationships.
Oh, and I'm sick of people saying "well, if we didn't subsidize anything" or "If the government didn't intrude, the free market would fix everything" or other nonsense. Sure. May even be true. But we don't live in that world. That world has never existed, doesn't exist, and will never exist, in all of (developed) human history.
Solyndra made solar panels. A123 did good battery research. I had to look the others up. It sounds like Beacon Power made flywheels for power storage in the grid, Abound Solar manufactured solar panels and had a newer and cheaper construction method, and Ener1 made fancy batteries.
To answer your question, yes, I am tired of having money taken from me and wasted on bad decisions. I think we differ on what constitutes a bad decision. I consider the Iraq war to be a very costly and bad decision. I don't know about some of these companies. Perhaps they are too. But lets examine the scale of the problem and the cost of the these decisions..... I'm done. Please spend my money on research and development of alternative power technologies. Please spend it on something that can help all of us. Please don't spend it on stupid wars.
You're complaining about government waste. Go after the TSA for being useless. Go after a bloated department of homeland security that does the same job that the FBI and the CIA do. (really, the FBI spies on us, the CIA spies on everyone else. Why do we need a department of homeland security?) Go after a bloated defense budget that doesn't make us any safer. I'm all for getting rid of government bloat. So lets make a pareto chart and tackle the top 2...
I love how this seems to work. One company failed (Solyndra). And it was allowed to fail, not propped up endlessly (which I think is how this stuff should work). The poster was all for using government subsidy to jump start a newish industry. But now that ONE company failed, it magically gets extended to all of them, and it's government fraud, and we should stop everything.
One company fails = "As for direct investment into "Green" companies the government shouldn't be trusted on that ever again."
A few points:
I highly doubt ANY governement subsidies are provided without fraud. This is no different. That being said, The Solyndra deal WAS hinky and someone should get in trouble.
THAT being said, YES Solyndra was not in good financial order. We don't subsidize companies that DON'T need help. We subsidize industries that DO need help. That's kind of the point.
Solyndra made solar panels, not energy.
The Chinese are subsidizing the ever loving crud out of their panel industry. It's impossible for anyone(including the germans) to compete with that. That's kind of why we SHOULD be subsidizing our own solar companies.
" they closed the deal before the end of the year to avoid higher taxes. I thought democrats wanted higher taxes on the wealthy?"
The deal closed after the new year. Gore will pay higher taxes. You're either wrong, or lying.
" [] a muslim, foreign nation's state owned media apparatus broadcasting into other nations"
What's wrong with muslims? We can talk about who's controlling the strings, and if that's good or not, but you busted out Muslim as a bad thing all by itself.
You should perhaps consider that you're an uninformed racist, at best.
1 Billion wasted, but remember people, those entitlement programs need to be cut! They're a waste of money! Private insurance companies have overheads of 20% while the government insurance has around 4%, but lets gut entitlements anyway....
I wish we lived in a data driven world....
Or, here's a chart.
http://www.usfederalbudget.us/welfare_budget_2012_4.html
Looks like Defense is twice as big as the welfare budget.
It took me 2 minutes to actually look at the data. I guess the two trolls never bothered to look into their own positions. Shame.
While I'm at it... From Wikipedia
CBO's preliminary estimates indicate the federal government spent $3.54 trillion on a budget or cash basis during fiscal year (FY) 2012 or 22.6% GDP, down 1.6% vs. FY2011 spending of $3.60 trillion. Spending fell across all major categories except Social Security and Medicare.[20]
Yup, Obama is out of control! Face it, Republicans blow up the deficit, democrats fix it. Republicans whining about fiscal responsibility are lying. They're the ones that have blown up the federal deficit with stupid unneeded tax cuts and huge military expenditures. Look at a fancy graph of federal deficits against presidencies.... It's freak'in obvious. Conservatives hate facts...
"Drone strikes are working in eliminating terrorist leaders"
Sure they are. We've killed the number two guy like a couple of hundred times.... Meanwhile we keep hitting civilians. Magically there are more "terrorists" opposed to us. Seems like there's more terrorists opposed to us just about every time we hit a bunch of civilians. Weird how that works. It's almost like we're creating the very problem we're trying to fix.
Weird.....
Slashdot Mirror
Or maybe you're just disagreeing with them? They have pretty evenly been conservative leaning in their opinions for a long time. Lately, they HAVE been bandying around the opinion that the state of the US is pretty stupid, and they've been naming blame.
Perhaps you don't like who they're blaming? Lately, it's been the conservatives.
Out of curiousity, what decline in quality are you noticing? Can you give some more information? They seem just as informative and fact presenting as they've always been to me.
Tony
I'll third this. I like the Economist. I don't always AGREE with them, but they clearly do their homework, they are decently good at seperating their opinion from the facts, and reading them makes me more informed. It probably does help that they are Brits. I enjoy their take on the US news. Tony
bwaaaahahahahah!
First, China is hardly a socialist country. They've been embracing significant capitalistic practices for over a decade now. You can tell, because of all the rich chinese factory owners.
You buy from people that poison you ALL THE TIME. People shop at WalMart, despite the evils they do. I bet all of your clothing is made in China right now. I bet the car you drove to work was probably chinese made. If it was assembled here, the PARTS surely were made in China. And every time you do so, you KILL American manufacturing, the American wage, the American worker..... Did you eat fast food recently? The meat's from South America, where the rain forest is being slashed to grow cows for McDonalds. Did you bike to work? No? You drove? You probably used Middle Eastern oil to do it. Your house is probably heated with natural gas(fracking) or electricity(generated with nuke, natural gas, or coal burning).
Take your libertarian pipe dream somewhere else. People poison themselves all the time, and they LOVE IT. Where they DON'T love it, they're probably stuck in a monopoly or the companies are in collusion to avoid competition. How much do you REALLY love your cable company? You're free to leave.... Oh wait, you only have maybe one other choice, if you're lucky.
Yeah. go take more economics classes. Your econ101 mindset isn't going to cut it in the real world. The real world is full of collusion, monopolies, outsourcing, trade practices, corruption, etc. And there's not a DAMN THING you can do about it by yourself, and the people next to you are too comfortable or brainwashed to care.
I hate that attitude.
For one, that attitude is what led us to justify torturing people. They weren't Americans, so who cares right? Other people don't have rights. We can do whatever we want to other people.
No.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
It doesn't say "for Americans only". Nowhere in the bill of rights or the constitution does it say "for americans only".
I hate that attitude. Go !@#$ yourself.
I'm going to second that "In their NRA fuled wet dreams". I laugh whenever I hear the conservatives I know rambling on about citizen militias and standing up to the government...
If the US military (which is NOT allowed to carry arms inside the US, the National guard is) ever REALLY came for the gun nuts, it would be sooooo unevenly matched. Consider the situation overseas. They practically give AK47s out like candy in the middle east. Rocket launchers, grenades, automatic weapons... No Problem. What does that get them? A drone overhead and a missile strike. The same would be done here.
No. Many of our citizens are NOT better armed than our military. Nor are they better trained. Or better supported. Don't kid yourself.
Man, I can hear them whine now... "but, but... but what about rag tag rebellion like in Red Dawn?! What about guerilla warfare? We can take 'em!" My answer would be "What do you think our armed forces have been training and fighting against for the last ten years? They've gotten a LOT better at it than Joe Bob has at asymmetric warfare tactics"
Gay IS a widely used synonym for "bad". But of course, it is also used to describe sexual orientation. We all know this, and all the arguing about it is silly.
What is NOT silly is determining if we're going to let this continue. We all understand that using the word Niggerdly in polite company is rather gauche. Niggerdly has a meaning, and it's not very flattering. It's not a good word to use. Gay needs to become like that.
Lets find a new word for Bad/Stupid. We all have friends/coworkers that are gay. Lets show them some basic respect.
Funny, I can't. It does not mention citizens vs. not. It simply says "The right of the People". Weird.
And the declaration of independence specifically says "all men". Granted, women and black people don't count on that one, we had to fix that later. Sigh. Yes, I know the Declaration is NOT the constitution.
Point is, this whole thing about the laws not counting against non americans is Crap.
TD
Ding Ding!
Lots of people were trying to create groups to fight Obama, 'cause he's a socialist (or whatever). And frankly, the rules on 501.4 groups is pretty stupid and NEEDS more oversight. This IS a drummed up issue. Nothing to see here.
Never ascribe to malice that which can be blamed on stupidity.
Tony
I live in Oregon. That's as west as you can get. :D Does that mean I'm a rugged individualist? Does that mean Texas is full of Help Me People?
Maybe we should stop stereotyping. Maybe you need to talk to a hippy and see what they have the government just as much as you, and probably for much better (and much more real) reasons.
Maybe these crowds of "Help me, I'm being picked on" people are just a stereotype that's been fed to you, so you dismiss lefties as whiners. Maybe because if lefties and righties got together and realized that they all hate what's being done in their name.... something would get done.
Sorry, I'm being unfair here. I'm a little peeved. I spent last night listening to lefties talk(at a political meeting) about surveilance state, politics, the problems with our systems, and how Obama is continuing Bush policies if not making them worse. They're pissed off. And this morning, I endure a rant from a righty about how all lefties do is lick Obama's ass.... while he sat on the couch doing nothing but whining.... It has me a little annoyed, and your post prodded that.
And that's all I need. I think once you get past a certain number of apps, does it really matter any more?
Tony
It does? In what way does evolution show that she's wrong? I don't think evolution is what you think it is....
1. It's interesting how many posts here assume that this well written and thoughtful article was written by a man. She's a woman. Oh, and you should read her OTHER article on the same website. It's interesting.
2. It's also interesting how many people didn't talk about the article and just used the basic idea to ramble on about their own pet peeves. It's the Government's fault! (we could argue about that, but that's not what the article is about). People today are selfish and they suck! (Volunteerism is at an all time high. People are awesome and caring. Also, people tend to see other people as being just like them, so I worry about all those people that assume everyone ELSE is selfish and greedy.)
3. It's also interesting how a lot of posts seem to say "well yeah, everyone just wants to make money!" I actually read the article, and you might notice she specifically says that lots of people are LEAVING Wall Street (and I'd assume their high paying jobs) to go be entrepreneurs. The problem is that they're focusing on the Wrong Areas.
So, basically... Pretty much all of the replies here missed the point and used the time and space to just rant about their own already concieved perceptions. That's kind of lame. This was a really neat read.
In response to her, I'd say that people tend to do what they know. When you're a programmer, you want to program away the problems, and you focus on the easily programmed problems... Perhaps a solution is to take all those entrepreneurs and have them sit down with Joe and Jane Shmoe and talk about what could help them. Bah. Who needs market research! ( I kid! I kid!)
As a budding entrepreneur, I found this( and her other article) to be very though provoking. Thanks Mrs? Nnaemeka!
Tony
There's always a tech bubble. You'll constantly have to update your skills. Accept that.
Work on your non programming skills. Take some engineering classes, learn how to engineer something instead of hacking something together. If your future boss plonks something on your desk and says "do it", you should be the person who thinks about it, writes out the requirements, does some math, uses that to look for a solution, writes the documentation, etc... and THEN programs the thing.
Be that person, and you'll always get hired, because you'll do good work.... Hopefully. :D You'll still do better than the schlub that just hacks out a quickie solution. It will break. Or it will be too slow. Or it will not take future constraints into consideration. Or it will be poorly documented. etc etc etc.
You can already program. Make sure you can engineer.
Someone wants to tap my communications? Go get a warrant. Show probable cause...
"The success of Texas is a sore tooth to those on the "left". "
I'm a liberal. I don't care about Texas at all. Be successful. Whatever. It matters zero in my day to day life. I really don't walk around thinking "Damnit, Texas is doing so much better than Oregon. I'm so bothered!"
Also, if you don't want the "Left" to rely on ad-hominem attacks and mischaracterization, perhaps you shouldn't be lumping all of the "Left" together inside some quotes. It's quite diverse over here. And a little Wacky. Please don't put us all inside the same set of quotes. We like our philosophical elbow room.
......you "Hick". :P
Well, i'm Tony, and I speak for ALL liberals. I asked, they're OK with me speaking for them.
We're NOT ok with Obama's continuing of the warrantless wiretapping, and we're NOT ok with the whole "assassinate Americans without a trial" (robots or no). We're actually pretty pissed about it. If you listened to us at all, you'd have noticed that.
Actually, I'm pretty pissed at the Democratic party. I can count on my fingers the number of representatives that I consider to be liberal. The rest are just... well look, you have the same thing over there. There's often a big difference from the stances the Republican Party holds and the stances of an actual real conservative person.
Remember, we're people too. Not stereotypes. You Hick. :P
I'm a crappy coder. I could use a way to find people who wanted small coding jobs. I pay them, they code for me. I just got a new laptop. The wireless card doesn't work with Linux yet. (Damnit Realtek!) I could use a website that would tell me who's working on that, and what they need to succeed. Actually, I really like this one. I have a piece of hardware. I want to make sure it works.... Just match up the hardware IDs (obda:0127) with the real world name, and if it has a working driver. Simple, but I don't think it exists... If it does, someone please tell me! I could go into the store, look at the hardware, hit your database on my phone, and know if the stupid thing would work for me or not. If it doesn't work, tell me who's working on it, and what they need. I would gladly donate time, money, pizza, hardware, etc to the right people that were working on my problem. I just don't know who they are. Go man, go!
There's more to being a web dev than coding. You have to know now to get along with coworkers. You have to work as a team. You have to learn HOW to build complex projects. A computer science degree will hopefully tell you how to engineer something, not just build something. There is a HUGE difference. I get that school is expensive, and it may do nothing more than prepare you to work for The Man for 30 years... If you want to go the entrepreneur route, then go for it. You'll fail, just expect that a few times, and eventually you'll succeed. maybe. :D
" Provide an environment where it's cheaper and more efficient for US companies to manufacture products, you won't need to subsidize to compete"
I agree. In order to create that environment, we'll have to get rid of all our labor laws and environmental regs. Once the companies can pay us all nothing and dump their industrial waste in the nearby river to pollute everything and give us all health problems, we won't need subsidies. We'll finally be able to compete with Chinese companies. Hooray!
Perhaps we shouldn't allow subsidies for ANY industry, as you say.... but that magical world died a long time ago. We subsidize EVERYTHING now.
And I agree that there was no chance for Solyndra to outcompete Chinese manufacturers. I'm just saying that's the very reason we NEED to subsidize that industry. We WANT to manufacture here. We want the tech, the jobs, the infrastructure, etc. You seem stuck on the idea that the company was all buddy buddy with the government. You might want to consider also that perhaps our government is actually trying to kick start an entire industrial base HERE in the US, and that's a good thing. We want that. And that costs money. And in this case, the squeaky wheel got the grease. Everyone does it. EVERYONE. There's not a single large business in the US that doesn't lobby/donate for the influence it gives them.
We want solar manufacturing in the U.S. We can never outcompete Chinese manufacturers due to our labor and environmental regs(which are good and needed). We HAVE to subsidize, or we won't be building those here. We'll be paying the Chinese. They'll get the jobs, they'll get all the extra side benefits of industry. They'll get the contractoring jobs, They'll get a skilled work force, they'll be able to build better schools, they'll spend on roads to move products. They'll get a better country because they realize the benefit of spending public dollars on industry and infrastructure.
People whine about a few hundred million spent on our own industrial base and energy security. Meanwhile our defense budget outspends the next 14 countries PUT TOGETHER (Many of them our allies). It's $1,740ish Billon a year. Go ask if the defense industry has a problem with kickbacks and too cozy relationships.
Oh, and I'm sick of people saying "well, if we didn't subsidize anything" or "If the government didn't intrude, the free market would fix everything" or other nonsense. Sure. May even be true. But we don't live in that world. That world has never existed, doesn't exist, and will never exist, in all of (developed) human history.
Solyndra made solar panels. A123 did good battery research. I had to look the others up. It sounds like Beacon Power made flywheels for power storage in the grid, Abound Solar manufactured solar panels and had a newer and cheaper construction method, and Ener1 made fancy batteries.
To answer your question, yes, I am tired of having money taken from me and wasted on bad decisions. I think we differ on what constitutes a bad decision. I consider the Iraq war to be a very costly and bad decision. I don't know about some of these companies. Perhaps they are too. But lets examine the scale of the problem and the cost of the these decisions..... I'm done. Please spend my money on research and development of alternative power technologies. Please spend it on something that can help all of us. Please don't spend it on stupid wars.
You're complaining about government waste. Go after the TSA for being useless. Go after a bloated department of homeland security that does the same job that the FBI and the CIA do. (really, the FBI spies on us, the CIA spies on everyone else. Why do we need a department of homeland security?) Go after a bloated defense budget that doesn't make us any safer. I'm all for getting rid of government bloat. So lets make a pareto chart and tackle the top 2...
I love how this seems to work. One company failed (Solyndra). And it was allowed to fail, not propped up endlessly (which I think is how this stuff should work). The poster was all for using government subsidy to jump start a newish industry. But now that ONE company failed, it magically gets extended to all of them, and it's government fraud, and we should stop everything.
One company fails = "As for direct investment into "Green" companies the government shouldn't be trusted on that ever again."
A few points:
The deal closed after the new year. Gore will pay higher taxes. You're either wrong, or lying.
" [] a muslim, foreign nation's state owned media apparatus broadcasting into other nations"
What's wrong with muslims? We can talk about who's controlling the strings, and if that's good or not, but you busted out Muslim as a bad thing all by itself.
You should perhaps consider that you're an uninformed racist, at best.
1 Billion wasted, but remember people, those entitlement programs need to be cut! They're a waste of money! Private insurance companies have overheads of 20% while the government insurance has around 4%, but lets gut entitlements anyway.... I wish we lived in a data driven world....
I'm actually responding to the two anonymous trolls that tried to say that welfare was more than the military budget.
Ahem... Military budget for 2010. 683.7 billion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States
Or, here's a chart.
http://www.usfederalbudget.us/welfare_budget_2012_4.html
Looks like Defense is twice as big as the welfare budget.
It took me 2 minutes to actually look at the data. I guess the two trolls never bothered to look into their own positions. Shame.
While I'm at it... From Wikipedia
CBO's preliminary estimates indicate the federal government spent $3.54 trillion on a budget or cash basis during fiscal year (FY) 2012 or 22.6% GDP, down 1.6% vs. FY2011 spending of $3.60 trillion. Spending fell across all major categories except Social Security and Medicare.[20]
Yup, Obama is out of control! Face it, Republicans blow up the deficit, democrats fix it. Republicans whining about fiscal responsibility are lying. They're the ones that have blown up the federal deficit with stupid unneeded tax cuts and huge military expenditures. Look at a fancy graph of federal deficits against presidencies.... It's freak'in obvious. Conservatives hate facts...
"Drone strikes are working in eliminating terrorist leaders" Sure they are. We've killed the number two guy like a couple of hundred times.... Meanwhile we keep hitting civilians. Magically there are more "terrorists" opposed to us. Seems like there's more terrorists opposed to us just about every time we hit a bunch of civilians. Weird how that works. It's almost like we're creating the very problem we're trying to fix. Weird.....