Chevy Volt: The Car from Atlas Shrugged aka perspective for regulation folks - Page 4

Quote:

Originally Posted by BR 

 

 

Nixon:

 

• Created the EPA
• The Philadelphia Plan (affirmative action)
• Clean Air Act
• OSHA
• Opened relations with Communist China
• Endorsed Equal Rights Amendment
• Set up a cooperative relationship between NASA and the USSR space programs

 

Reagan:

• Opened up a new cabinet level department - Veteran Affairs
• Bailed out Social Security and increased payroll taxes; added federal workers to it AND taxed the upper-income earners on their payouts
• Instituted a gas tax
• Closed tax loopholes for businesses
• Signed largest corporate tax increase in history
• Expanded the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit)...you know, for poor folks...wealth transfer and the like
• Started the drawdown of nuclear weapons
• Clamored for the rich to pay their fair share (you saw the video that started my other thread)
• Gave amnesty to illegal immigrants

 

Obama bailed out businesses but didn't nationalize them like he certainly could have if you claim he has such a socialist streak.  Obama didn't fight hard for a public option, but instead was party to the Republican plan of an individual mandate--a HUGE corporate giveaway to private insurance companies.  And he's the socialist?  Sounds like Obama is just attempting to follow in Reagan's footsteps (but a bit further to the right), with the Republicans blocking him at every turn.

 

 

You're positively, straight-up delusional. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by BR 

Obama bailed out businesses but didn't nationalize them like he certainly could have if you claim he has such a socialist streak.  Obama didn't fight hard for a public option, but instead was party to the Republican plan of an individual mandate--a HUGE corporate giveaway to private insurance companies.  And he's the socialist?  Sounds like Obama is just attempting to follow in Reagan's footsteps (but a bit further to the right), with the Republicans blocking him at every turn.

It's really quite pathetic how you downplay or make excuses Obama's blatant authoritarianism and crony-capitalism, yet amplify Nixon's and Reagan's.

They (Obama, et al.) spent billions upon billions of dollars to bail out failing American car companies with the excuse that it would save thousands of jobs and boost the American economy...only to have them turn around and spend that money to build new factories and create jobs in China.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SDW2001 

 

 

You're positively, straight-up delusional. 

 

 

 

Ah, respond to facts with ad-homs.  I provide evidence, you stick your head in the sand.

I wonder how many Priuses and Volts are just sitting around in warehouses unused.

I saw a Prius the other day with an under-inflated tire. FUCKING HILARIOUS! I jumped on my Ninja (better milage than a Prius) and took off. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frank777 

I wonder how many Priuses and Volts are just sitting around in warehouses unused.

The Volt is dubious. A Prius is pretty decent. You can ship those Priuses to me if no one wants it.

The blatant spin in this article is obvious. But one paragraph of truth stands out amidst the propaganda:

In other words, they still aren't coming close to meeting their targets and are no longer even trying.

"Sales are up!" they proudly proclaim...while their failure is painfully obvious.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jazzguru 

GM's Volt sales rise in June

 

The blatant spin in this article is obvious. But one paragraph of truth stands out amidst the propaganda:

 

 

In other words, they still aren't coming close to meeting their targets and are no longer even trying.

 

"Sales are up!" they proudly proclaim...while their failure is painfully obvious.

Saw that.  Also, I saw one on the road for the first time the other day.  Obviously failed vehicle.  Too expensive, not enough performance, etc.  

I see them on the road all the time but that doesn't count.

Nice biased article. 

The battery things have proven to be nothing more than right-wing propaganda.   The evidence has been presented (and ignored) in other threads.  Gotta love more hit and run linkage of terrible articles from Jazz "all taxes are theft therefore no government should exist" Guru.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BR 

Nice biased article. 

 

 

 

The battery things have proven to be nothing more than right-wing propaganda.   The evidence has been presented (and ignored) in other threads.  Gotta love more hit and run linkage of terrible articles from Jazz "all taxes are theft therefore no government should exist" Guru.

I know, let's isolate one sentence out of the entire piece, say it's biased, and ignore the rest of the article, replete with links to sources. That'll show jazz and those right wing nutters.

Replete is an understatement.  The author's tone was absolutely biased against the Volt and I'm not about to spend a ton of time reading through his myriad of links to verify the veracity of his claims.  He has an obvious agenda.  Find me an article without the obvious bias and flippant Trumpetman-style rhetoric and I may look at it in more detail.  I'm not wasting my fucking time on this hit-piece, though.

If he has an agenda prove him wrong. Don't bring this "holier than thou" attitude and claim reading the piece and researching the cited sources is somehow beneath you.

I don't have to prove him wrong.  And I'm not about to invest that much time on someone who can't even bother to write like a professional journalist.  I have no holier-than-thou attitude here.  I am simply not going to waste my time on someone who can't be bothered to write a news article or editorial professionally.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sr2012 

Sadly, nothing to see here, in terms of the Volt.
But.
Tesla.
It will be the most successful pure-electric car of this decade.
Roadster, Tesla Sedan, Tesla SUV.
Can't wait to get mine, maybe in a few years.

I had a ride in a friend's Tesla Roadster last year - what a fantastic, amazing car. If I had $100,000 to spend on a vehicle, that is what I would buy, or the new Tesla sedan, but there's such a long waiting list for all these cars. They are expensive, but surely there's plenty of rich patriotic people around who, on principle, would prefer to buy an American designed, American manufactured, and American parts-sourced vehicle, especially judging from the rave reviews on the automotive press, especially the new sedan and the forthcoming SUV.

I would buy one of these just to go tell the oil companies where to jump. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know - re-charging electric cars from the grid still involves fossil fuel burning, but the overall cost per mile is far less than an equivalent gasoline powered car.

Unfortunately, there still remains that traditional "mind"set that associates electric vehicles with golf carts... and they will criticize and castigate a new idea until the cows come home - even when the innovation is home grown. 

Electric is the future. Its also a national security benefit, in more ways than I can be bothered to list right now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sammi jo 

but the overall cost per mile is far less than an equivalent gasoline powered car

I'll bet not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jazzguru 

Every article is biased. We must look past the bias to try to discern the facts for ourselves. It would seem that in this case, you can't be bothered by facts.

Don't be an ignorant tool.  In this case, I can't be bothered by information overload coming from a source that makes no attempts whatsoever to hide his utter disdain for the Volt, even repeating and perpetuating false allegations (disproved right-wing talking points, no less) about the battery.  This author doesn't even make the slightest attempt to appear like a professional journalist.  It might as well be a Trumpetman post--and those are certainly worth ignoring.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BR 

Don't be an ignorant tool.  In this case, I can't be bothered by information overload coming from a source that makes no attempts whatsoever to hide his utter disdain for the Volt, even repeating and perpetuating false allegations (disproved right-wing talking points, no less) about the battery.  This author doesn't even make the slightest attempt to appear like a professional journalist.  It might as well be a Trumpetman post--and those are certainly worth ignoring.

Nice ad-hom.

It's a blog post and should be treated as an opinion piece.

He backs up his opinion with facts.

The Volt is worthy of utter disdain based on the facts you refuse to acknowledge.

Which is why most of the "whining and arguing" is centred around having governments step back from picking winners and losers, and let passionate ideas rule the market.

If the government had decided to subsidize the tablet market, would we had ever gotten the iPad?

Quote:

Originally Posted by sr2012 

Of course. This screw-up happened because the government gave their crony buddies, aka big four auto piles of money, and this is the big four auto industry's half-assed response to "comply" or what not.
Subsidies are different to R&D, seed funding, loans and so on, which are supposed to be merit-based, rather than "Oh, you iz GM? Shuree, money piles out the back, help yourself..."
Government:
Here Wall Street, take trillions
Here Military-Industrial, take trillions
Here Big Auto, take, ah, trillions
Here Big Oil, take, er... whatever you want
Here Private Health Insurance, take... our lives
All in the name of greed, decreptitude, and decadence. A government run by the corporations for the corporations.

And, yet, you appear to be blind to the root problem here. Odd.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sr2012 


Of course. This screw-up happened because the government gave their crony buddies, aka big four auto piles of money, and this is the big four auto industry's half-assed response to "comply" or what not.
Subsidies are different to R&D, seed funding, loans and so on, which are supposed to be merit-based, rather than "Oh, you iz GM? Shuree, money piles out the back, help yourself..."

If you seriously think Steve Jobs would have entered the tablet market with the government subsidizing tablets you know absolutely nothing about the man and his legacy.

And even less about the economy. Random government intervention in economic sectors is responsible for killing more jobs and innovations than can be counted.

GM to close Volt plant four weeks

GM is losing as much as $49,000 on each Volt built.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jazzguru 

GM is losing as much as $49,000 on each Volt built.

Doesn't that fact alone make it a successful government program?

Chevrolet’s Volt selling, but not at sticker price

Click the link above for the full story.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jazzguru 

Plant that got $150M in taxpayer money to make Volt batteries furloughs workers

Wasn't even an american company

Edit - responded to wrong post.

Volt no jolt: LG Chem employees idle - Factory has yet to ship out a single battery

Your tax dollars at work...er...idle?

Quote:

Originally Posted by sr2012 


The Obama "fake left" is now seen. I feel he has now betrayed in no small way us "progressives". This franken-policy of old skool government fiddling with new skool genuinely good planet-saving ideas is... disturbing.

This is a microcosm of government, in general. Crony-capitalism, rampant fraud, backroom deals, payoffs, with the end result being the continued transfer of money and property from the poor and middle class to the wealthy elite.

Republicans and Democrats are different sides of the same coin.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sr2012 


I have to agree. In the past few years I'm finally starting to understand why you guys hate the Fed government so much. The state-level governments do quite a bit of good stuff (I guess more for the "well-run" states) but at the federal level it's degenerated into dumb-assery. Australia is still okay here because it's similar to a well-run state in the US, and at the Australian federal level none of the obscene bloat of the US federal govt. (though we got to keep an eye on the bloat here).
California has its problems but in 2000-2002 it was quite okay despite the chaos, I suppose I'm talking Northern California here.
Seriously, California should be one of the first to secede. They just got to figure out military defence and stuff.
Not going to happen soon, but in 25 years, I suspect 2025-2075 there will probably be some states seceding.
Think about it. Just 100 years ago the world map was extremely different compared to today.
15 Trillion in the hole, running badly out of cheap oil, not looking good for the US as a federation. Of course the term "confederation" is taboo now but in 2025-2075 there will be secession probably in the form of "autonomous regions" like in Spain.
Eg. California could become some sort of "autonomous region" only requiring USA to handle things like defence and emergencies (may not even that).

The problem is California itself.  Over the past 30 years, the people have chosen one party rule.  As a result, the people of California have supported fiscally insane policies time and time again.  Democratic governance in California (legislative) has run the state into ground.  I doubt it could even be fixed at this point.