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I spell it correctly. How I pronounce shall remain a mystery.

First of all Frazzled I say it like that, it's deeply ingrained and I cant make it stop.
@ Manchu, I'm not always disagreeing with everything said. Theres some things that are ok and some that arent. The government isn't a capital investor, but building and maintaining infrastructure for the general welfare is a part of thier mandate. If guaranteeing cheap power can only be done through government ownership then so be it.
@Dogma (and Manchu about nuclear facilities) I'm more than willing to admit I can fail to get my point across sometimes. I say the only thing standing in the way of nuclear power is the American people because it has been sensationalized into unpopularity. Even people who would like nuclear power just don't want it in thier backyard. it has obvious benefits, and equally obvious risks. But as well regulated as nuclear energy is here in the US it's safe barring act of god accidents. You know like a record breaking earthquake followed by a typhoon. Fukajima got a bad rap for not predicting what most people had agreed was impossible.
You wouldn't think it would be hard to pitch nuclear energy, half the cost of coal but double the cost of hydro power, can be built anywhere and can run off unreclaimed sewage. It does lack the sex appeal of electric sports car. Which is endemic of the people we elect to office...different rant.
Even easier to pitch would be rebuilding hydroelectric power again the purvue of the DoE, but instead firmly regulated publically owned energy companies were allowed to privatize and feth over the people who paid to have the dams. So instead of investing in permenant renewable energy, sold at cost or using small profits to fund more cyclic renewal of public infrastructure we invest in the electric DeLorean? That worked so well for Ireland

AustonT wrote:The government isn't a capital investor

On the contrary, the government invests vast sums of money into various projects which may or may not "pay out" at the end, into research and development, into social reform, etc. One could say that the government is the ultimate capital investor, investing money for the potential good of society, rather than purely because they think it will make them profit.

Manchu wrote:

Orlanth wrote: You are more careful with your own than with a handout.

When you go to the bank and get a loan, is that a handout? No. Getting a loan from the government is not one either. If your borrow from Merrill and your business successfully files for bankruptcy, you don't pay back Merrill, either. Whether or not the Fisker company will succeed and be able to pay back the loan -- along with making tidy profits -- is conditioned upon how it uses its capital. So either Fisker is not a sham company and it will be careful with its capital (inlcuding the "handout" money) or it is a sham company and isn't careful with its capital.

To use your analogy, when I get a tax credit for installing energy-efficient windows in my house I don't consider it a "handout" and spend it willy-nilly. Unless the windows were fictitious and all part of my evil plan.

Government loans and bank loans are not the same thing.

Banks can and do lend half a bilion, but the bank will want its investment back, and it will want the interest paid. All of it. Bankers will also have their own guys in place to ensure they can pull the plug if they see the investment going down the toilet so as not to throw good money after bad.

Government loans are different, you can offset replayments simply by convincing a minister to do so, or getting a lobbyist to convince the media to comnvince the puvblic to convince the minister etc. Loans are not looked at quite so stringently and are often written off for the public good. A bank cares abnout the investment capital and interest alone, a government cares about the project, especailly if it employs people or has potential to do so. A bank doesnt give a feth how many people a project employs, who they vote for when the election is and whether they have effective lobbyists.
Many many government loans tuirn into de facto grants, or are written off. Most tellingly of all a large scale investor can blow a government loan on a huge project then get another one. That doesnt happen with banks. In fact often the mentality is the bank loan is the real one, you government loans are 'practice', this is why an investor can secure a bank loan after a government loan, but not after another bank loan. The only exception to this is when a project appears to be a failure but the banks at least got their money, normally this involves government bail outs of some description.
However all this need not be so, competent government can exist and large scale capital investment deserves it. The Germans and Japanese are effective in this regards, and it tells in their economies, just look at the Euro crisis, many government want to just sign off on it. It was the Germans that looked through the bills. The UK handled public financing of companies appallingly, the French even worse. However even the French are not so laid back as to miss out on manufacturing site clauses when they sign a funding agreement.

Frazzled wrote:Thats "NUK-U-LIR" say it right buddy.

Or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdSJFrhb-HM

SlaveToDorkness wrote:Sounds about right for D'Ohbama.

Indeed, Taxbama is truly history's greatest monster.

On a side note, it appears that the DoE knew that the initial run would be made overseas, but that a chunk of the loan - $170 million - in engineering and development costs would be spent in California, and the vast majority of the rest of the loan would be used in Wilmington, DE for the later run, which will create 2k to 2.5k new jobs.

Also, the program that made these loans gave Ford $11 for every $1 Fisker got. For what that's worth.

SilverMK2 wrote:

AustonT wrote:The government isn't a capital investor

On the contrary, the government invests vast sums of money into various projects which may or may not "pay out" at the end, into research and development, into social reform, etc. One could say that the government is the ultimate capital investor, investing money for the potential good of society, rather than purely because they think it will make them profit.

I respect you and I respect your opinion, but mine is that the government is not a capital investor and should not engage in investment practices. Jus because they do, doesn't mean they should. If you and I belonged to a home owners association and I collected dues from you (and the other neighbors) to maintain the comment park and garden. And instead I let the park fall into disrepair and loaned the money to a start up company with an empty warehouse to develop artificial turf for the park, wouldn't you be a little angry at me?

AustonT wrote:I respect you and I respect your opinion, but mine is that the government is not a capital investor and should not engage in investment practices. Jus because they do, doesn't mean they should.

I agree with this, generally speaking. My feeling is that the best role of government is when it provides an even playing field for the players. Lending money to any of them (but not all of them) edges them closer into picking winners and losers.

Some exceptions, of course. I don't have a problem with the government subsidizing enterprises that are unprofitable that are otherwise clearly in the public benefit, such as, example, flu vaccine that is expensive or difficult to produce that drugmakers are reticent to do so when they could be making more profitable stuff, like viagra or whatever. In narrow exceptions like this, it's a little different in my opinion.

Eh when we start talking about drug companies, how, what, and how much they do. We enter a whole different discussion. In which no one, and I do mean no one. Will like where I stand.

Should the US government have invested in;

The Hoover Dam
The Manhattan Project
The Lake Portchartrain Levee
NASA

...?

AustonT wrote:
I respect you and I respect your opinion, but mine is that the government is not a capital investor and should not engage in investment practices. Jus because they do, doesn't mean they should. If you and I belonged to a home owners association and I collected dues from you (and the other neighbors) to maintain the comment park and garden. And instead I let the park fall into disrepair and loaned the money to a start up company with an empty warehouse to develop artificial turf for the park, wouldn't you be a little angry at me?

That would be an explicit misappropriation of funds, which is very different from using funds rendered to the state for its discretionary use as discretionary funds.

Kilkrazy wrote:Should the US government have invested in;

The Hoover Dam
The Manhattan Project
The Lake Portchartrain Levee
NASA

...?

PFFFT! What? Why would the government invest in THAT stuff?! Those are needless commodities compared to this issue! WE NEED ELECTRIC CARS RIGHT NOW!!! HURRY!!!

dogma wrote:

AustonT wrote:
I respect you and I respect your opinion, but mine is that the government is not a capital investor and should not engage in investment practices. Jus because they do, doesn't mean they should. If you and I belonged to a home owners association and I collected dues from you (and the other neighbors) to maintain the comment park and garden. And instead I let the park fall into disrepair and loaned the money to a start up company with an empty warehouse to develop artificial turf for the park, wouldn't you be a little angry at me?

That would be an explicit misappropriation of funds, which is very different from using funds rendered to the state for its discretionary use as discretionary funds.

The state is not entitled to discretionary funds, it may only collect taxes for specific purposes. I do welcome enlightenment if I'm wrong but I'm fairly certain that Art 1 Sec 8 doesn't mention discretionary funds.

DickBandit wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Should the US government have invested in;

The Hoover Dam general welfare
The Manhattan Project common defense
The Lake Portchartrain I had to look this one up, not from the Louisiana or the South for that matter. General welfare.
NASA back in the day, common defense. Nowadays it's questionable weather maintaining a space program is defense spending. I know it's not part of the DoD budget but the argument for space travel was military first and exploration second. Like backwards star trek.


...?

PFFFT! What? Why would the government invest in THAT stuff?! Those are needless commodities compared to this issue! WE NEED ELECTRIC CARS RIGHT NOW!!! HURRY!!!

All of the projects mentioned were wholly funded by the government and directly owned, manned, and maintained by it. I'm not sure the status of the ownership of Hoover now though. I was pretty sure I mentioned Hoover as a worth project further up.

AustonT wrote:
The state is not entitled to discretionary funds, it may only collect taxes for specific purposes. I do welcome enlightenment if I'm wrong but I'm fairly certain that Art 1 Sec 8 doesn't mention discretionary funds.

The ability to exercise discretion in the use of revenue is implied by any specific power to do a thing that entails the use pf said revenue. In essence, when vested with the authority, or obligation, to exercise a given power, if the use of funding is necessary for that exercise, then Congress has the power to use said funding at its discretion; rendering the funding discretionary. Since the taxing and spending clause includes the phrase "general welfare", Congress has a large amount of leeway in terms of what it may spend money on; meaning that calling the Federal budget discretionary as a whole is not entirely without merit.

AustonT wrote:
All of the projects mentioned were wholly funded by the government and directly owned, manned, and maintained by it. I'm not sure the status of the ownership of Hoover now though. I was pretty sure I mentioned Hoover as a worth project further up.

I don't see why investing money in a third party is inferior to the direct undertaking of a project. In both instances the state stands to lose money.