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Manchu wrote:

Frazzled wrote:I am annoyed with the US government doing this.

For acting like a good capitalist?

Wait I totally missed this the first go around.
The US Government is not capitalist, and has no right to engage in activities to generate capital. Those are called corporations, partnerships, and proprietorships. Not governments, I can see where your confusion is now.

mattyrm wrote: As always, its easier to get outraged if you leap in feet first, but im sure it makes sense if you really think about it.

If the company assembling in Finland makes it a bigger profit and makes them a success, then the loan gets paid back with interest, and the American company makes loads of cash and pays loads of tax.

Its that simple really surely?

No matty it isn't. Let us look at the options. The last three of each being critical.

A government (doesnt matter which one) pays for a company funds for development then:

A factory owned by the company is built in the donor country.
- The government may or may not get a % of profits.
- The government may or may not get its loan back, or a payback for the grant to unlock new contract opportunities.
- The donor company claims its taxes on the factory
- The donor country claims tax on corporate profits.
- The donor country retains legislative control.
- The donor country can more easily secure sensitive technologies and business information from leakage.
- Jobs are directly created in the donor country.
- Those jobs are taxed by the donor country and the workers pay is mostly spent in the donor country thus recycling the monies invested swiftly into the economy at large.

A factory owned by the company is built abroad (host country).
- The government may or may not get a % of profits.
- The government may or may not get its loan back, or a payback for the grant to unlock new contract opportunities.
- The host country claims the taxes on the factory.
- The donor country and host country share corporation tax on corporate profits.
- The donor and host country share legislative control.
- The company has to share at least part of potentially valuable or sensitive information wirth security bodies of more than one nation.
- Jobs are not seen to be directly created in the donor country.
- Those jobs are taxed by the host country and the workers pay is lost income from the pouint of view of the donor countries economy and tax system.


While public funding of manufacturing may seem a waste there are good reasons to throw money at factories, even failing ones. Notably because most money goes on wages and those wages are taxed recovering immeidately a proportion of the investment equal to the tax rate. Second the money not taxed is usually spent locally, this in turn is taxed or enters the system. Tax evasion and benefits accounts for leakage, as does wage money spent on inported goods and services. However all told a very large percentage of the value of public investment is involved with the size of the factory and the number of workeers it employs.
This is why large factory closures and openings make the news, not for the benefit of the few thousand actually employed but because of the far larger cycle in the economy. However from a politcians point of view making x thousand jobs always looks good, and letting them slip through your fingers has the opposite effect. Expect angry murmers from Senators who beleive that the factroy can (and therefore should) have been built in their region.

The US administration dropped the ball when it offered development funding and failed to secure a manufacturing agreement. It ought to be one of the first things looked at.

AustonT wrote:The US Government is not capitalist, and has no right to engage in activities to generate capital. Those are called corporations, partnerships, and proprietorships. Not governments, I can see where your confusion is now.

We're not talking about what one thinks the government does or does not have the right to do. We're talking about what it actually does, regardless of who is in power -- and for that reason, what it will continue to do.


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Orlanth wrote:The US administration dropped the ball when it offered development funding and failed to secure a manufacturing agreement. It ought to be one of the first things looked at.

According to Fisker, Solyndra failed because it spent nearly all of the loan money on building a factory in the US.

Manchu wrote:Are you saying American conservatism is "progressive"? Because American conservatives always seem to be the ones stressing how the US Government should be run as a private business. Most people use the word "progressive" to indicate that the government should not be run that way.

They mean efficiently, not like running their own bank to fund sports cars.
Why are we loaning money for the electric version of Ferrari again? If we lose 20% (Recovery rate of 2-3 which is way better than these jokers will get) thats $200MM down the whole. How many chemo treatments is that? Lets see its costs $487 per chemo for lung cancer that a Medicare patient has to pay out of pocket.

$200,000,000 / $487 = 410,677 treatment copays. If we figure the average of 7 chemos per patients thats 58,667 Seniors who could have just had their chemo treatments paid.

Tell them this is a good idea.


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Manchu wrote:

AustonT wrote:The US Government is not capitalist, and has no right to engage in activities to generate capital. Those are called corporations, partnerships, and proprietorships. Not governments, I can see where your confusion is now.

We're not talking about what one thinks the government does or does not have the right to do. We're talking about what it actually does, regardless of who is in power -- and for that reason, what it will continue to do.


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Orlanth wrote:The US administration dropped the ball when it offered development funding and failed to secure a manufacturing agreement. It ought to be one of the first things looked at.

According to Fisker, Solyndra failed because it spent nearly all of the loan money on building a factory in the US.

The fact they think that is the problem, is its proof their management is as inept as I thought they were.

Frazzled wrote:Why are we loaning money for the electric version of Ferrari again?

Why do you insist on obscuring the actual topic? I mean, you can still make good points while remaining grounded in the story at hand. The luxury car is a logical first step. Small production means high costs, which must be passed on to the consumer. Since the cost is already so high, it needs to be justified by design choices -- basically making it not just an expensive electric car but a luxurious electric car. See the difference? The first option is not desirable to anyone. The second one is. I know this isn't as mystifying to you as you are making it seem with your gak-stirring slogans.

So how about you look at this post again instead of pretending that we didn't just spend three pages clarifying what the actual issue was, which you should have known anyway by being the first person to (presumably) read and then post the story:

Manchu wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Well, we're borrowing that money to loan to them. Unless we're getting better interest I can think of better things.

Now that's a talking point that I can get behind. Forget whether the government should be acting like a private investor -- let's just consider whether we shouldn't demand investments with a quicker turnaround. (Turn around? Help me out, Phanatik.) Was this a good investment? I think that we do need to eventually get the majority of people driving in electric cars for reasons of environmental sustainability and national security. But is this the kind of investment that's going to do it? Shouldn't a condition of this loan, if it was made to create jobs in America, be that jobs should exist by some definite point in America? Or is that constraining the ability of business to the point where no return would be possible on the investment? We have to consider the example that Fisker mentions, of Solyndra.

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Frazzled wrote:

Manchu wrote:According to Fisker, Solyndra failed because it spent nearly all of the loan money on building a factory in the US.

The fact they think that is the problem, is its proof their management is as inept as I thought they were.

You're going to have to clarify. You think that Fisker's management is inept for looking at another company's business plan, which isn't working, and deciding to try a different approach?

Manchu wrote:Are you saying American conservatism is "progressive"? Because American conservatives always seem to be the ones stressing how the US Government should be run as a private business. Most people use the word "progressive" to indicate that the government should not be run that way.

I had to reread my thing to catch where you might have gotten the idea I was calling conservativism progressive.
Without the quote box it's here with red added for a poorly constructed train of thought.
Since American Conservatism is based on the reduction of the public sector and reducing the amount of monies it has available to only that needed to provide government services, yes it loaning money to the private sector is progressive.
Two separate thougts that should have been separated by punctuation and full sentences.

Yes the republicans advocate running the government like a business, yes this kind of nonsense goes on under both parties. You can make the argument both parties are in fact progressive, I'd rather not today.

The basic point of conservatism is to restrict or return the government to it's most basic constitutional powers. Different conservative groups subscribe to that policy at varying levels.
The basic point of progressivism is to push the limits of the current government to standard and to "progress" to a new one.

Progressivism and Progressives are not synonymous with how the government shouldn't be run, it's a political ideology. One I don't happen to agree with but not "wrong" per se.
but back to my original statement, loaning money to private business stretches the definition of general welfare even for progressives (people who want to progress and change wha taxes can or should be spent on, regardless of party affiliation)

Manchu wrote:

Orlanth wrote:The US administration dropped the ball when it offered development funding and failed to secure a manufacturing agreement. It ought to be one of the first things looked at.

According to Fisker, Solyndra failed because it spent nearly all of the loan money on building a factory in the US.

Not really relevant. The loan was half a billion dollars, that in itself buys a lot of negotiating power for the donor government.

AustonT wrote:Yes the republicans advocate running the government like a business ... You can make the argument both parties are in fact progressive ...

Yes, I could but you basically just spelled it out there yourself.

... I'd rather not today.

Okay, but you just did.

The basic point of conservatism is to restrict or return the government to it's most basic constitutional powers.

That's the most recent point, the Tea Party point. It's not Dwight Eisenhower or even Ronald Reagan conservatism, however.


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Orlanth wrote:Poorly monitored government loans and grants are often taken to be throw away experimental money in the minds of companies, to be dumped into a project which can then be written off if it doesnt work leaving the government to pay the price.

That simply doesn't make sense in the case of Fisker nor is it even what happened. They are trying to create a new industry. Like Solyndra, Fisker's continued existence depends on doing so. The money was loaned to research and design a new car. It was used to do just that. Whether they can pay back the loan is partly contingent on their other costs -- such as manufacturing costs.

Sure, you can say that Fisker is just a sham company abusing loans -- but you can't back that up in this case at all. If anything is irrelevant, it's that claim. It's like Frazzled saying that Fisker is a liar. Maybe he is. There is nothing in any article yet linked here to indicate that it's the case.

Manchu wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Why are we loaning money for the electric version of Ferrari again?

Why do you insist on obscuring the actual topic? I mean, you can still make good points while remaining grounded in the story at hand. The luxury car is a logical first step. Small production means high costs, which must be passed on to the consumer. Since the cost is already so high, it needs to be justified by design choices -- basically making it not just an expensive electric car but a luxurious electric car. See the difference? The first option is not desirable to anyone. The second one is. I know this isn't as mystifying to you as you are making it seem with your gak-stirring slogans.

Obfuscating nonsense. At the end of the day a Ferrari startup got a loan to make electric Ferraris in another country to be sold to rich pukes who wouldn't give me the time of day. They aren't going to get bigger. They aren't going to make money. The loss the US will incur will be significant and could have gone to far better uses.

Further, the technology is there. More inexpensive (relatively ) electric cars are already available (and being ignored). Give it up. This was a Ferrari manufactured who got crony money with the help of friends in high places from a department being run like their private piggy bank.
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Frazzled wrote:

Manchu wrote:According to Fisker, Solyndra failed because it spent nearly all of the loan money on building a factory in the US.

The fact they think that is the problem, is its proof their management is as inept as I thought they were.

You're going to have to clarify. You think that Fisker's management is inept for looking at another company's business plan, which isn't working, and deciding to try a different approach?

Manchu wrote: That's the most recent point, the Tea Party point. It's not Dwight Eisenhower or even Ronald Reagan conservatism, however.

No it's a conservative point. Dwight Eisenhower was a progressive republican. That's like trying to throw out Teddy Roosevelt as a conservative. The closest one is Reagan and it's not even that close. There's a difference between what someone calls themselves and what they are.
If you are going to go out throwing labels call a duck a duck.
Government investment in private industry is progressive.

Conservatism is mostly about trying to control peoples' lives via social laws (IE banning gay marriage, banning abortion, forcing people to pray in school, etc-- basically force their backwards religious views on everyone else in the form of laws, rules, and regulations, in most cases, but communism was also conservative in this regards).

I think you're referring to "right wing" rather than "conservative". No, the two are not the same.

Frazzled wrote: rich pukes who wouldn't give me the time of day.

A little beside the point, but the "1%" aren't all evil characters cuddling cats and plotting your doom. Sure some of them are dicks, but 66% of all charitable donations are made by that 1%. so clearly at least some of them care. it's also fair to include that I probably would not be so generous were I to become rich.

AustonT wrote:

Frazzled wrote: rich pukes who wouldn't give me the time of day.

A little beside the point, but the "1%" aren't all evil characters cuddling cats and plotting your doom. Sure some of them are dicks, but 66% of all charitable donations are made by that 1%. so clearly at least some of them care. it's also fair to include that I probably would not be so generous were I to become rich.

Truly. However, if you're shelling out $100,000 for an electric sports car, you're going to be an aforementioned rich puke who wouldn't give me the time of day.

Shrug. You are probably right.

Frazzled wrote:At the end of the day a Ferrari startup got a loan to make electric Ferraris in another country to be sold to rich pukes who wouldn't give me the time of day.

For the third time, it's not the end of the day. You say that this company will not succeed, will not get bigger, will not produce cars that people like yourself could afford. Can you lend me your crystal ball? I'd like to know the future as clearly as you do. And before you say you're just going on similar past cases, remember that the same anti-American "can't do" spirit could have been applied to Henry Ford.

Frazzled wrote: Why on earth do you think a company is going to have cheaper manufacturing costs in Finland?

Because it is. The options were: use a factory that already exists in Finland or build a new one in the US.

@AustonT: You're definition of conservative is so narrow that it is irrelevant. I don't mean that in the sense of a throw-away insult, either. I mean that if you only mobilized a political party on that one point you'd never win elections much less offer candidates capable of running the government. The Republican Party is much bigger and more diverse than the Tea Party, as the Republican Party will find out on the way to November 2012.


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AutsonT wrote:Sure some of them are dicks, but 66% of all charitable donations are made by that 1% ...

Thanks to "progressive" tax policies.

... so clearly at least some of them care.

I don't dismiss the rich as uncaring. But they have a stake in it, which isn't a bad thing. I'm all for the government enforcing policies which give the rich very, very strong incentives to be philanthropic.

Frazzled wrote:Truly. However, if you're shelling out $100,000 for an electric sports car, you're going to be an aforementioned rich puke who wouldn't give me the time of day.

If the $100,000 car paves the way for the $80,000 car, then the $50,000 car, then the $30,000 car, etc, etc, then that would be progress. You know, kind of like how the PC used to require a specially constructed building and a team of engineers and gradually over time demand and advances caused by said demand drove development of better, cheaper computers.

Every technology starts expensive - just look at TFT/LCD monitors, plasma TV's, etc. I remember when plasma TV's were £10,000, now larger, better versions are down at the £2-3,000 mark. Hell, my first LCD monitor was over £300, now I can pick up a screen which is better in every way for less than half the price.

Melissia wrote:Conservatism is mostly about trying to control peoples' lives via social laws ... forcing people to pray in school, ...

I believe this is the 2nd time in the recent past you have posted this.

You are either ignorant of the true position, or you are being deliberately disinformative.

Conservatives/right-wingers want people to have the right to pray in school, not force people to pray in school. I think you should be able to tell the difference.

Otherwise, regards,

SilverMK2 wrote:Every technology starts expensive - just look at TFT/LCD monitors, plasma TV's, etc. I remember when plasma TV's were £10,000, now larger, better versions are down at the £2-3,000 mark. Hell, my first LCD monitor was over £300, now I can pick up a screen which is better in every way for less than half the price.

This is exactly why, despite what Frazzled may think, I love capitalism. Capitalism makes populism possible. God bless the USA!

Phanatik wrote:Conservatives/right-wingers want people to have the right to pray in school, not force people to pray in school.

Bullgak they don't.

Conservatives work every day in Texas to try to force prayer sessions into an already limited classtime in school.

Conservative is not the same thing as right wing. Only in the deluded "everything is left or right" mindset of the mass media is this true.

SilverMK2 wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Truly. However, if you're shelling out $100,000 for an electric sports car, you're going to be an aforementioned rich puke who wouldn't give me the time of day.

If the $100,000 car paves the way for the $80,000 car, then the $50,000 car, then the $30,000 car, etc, etc, then that would be progress. You know, kind of like how the PC used to require a specially constructed building and a team of engineers and gradually over time demand and advances caused by said demand drove development of better, cheaper computers.

But it raises the question of whether or not that same type of automobile is not already achievable for 30,000 or less. We know its possible (given the existence of other electric cars at a similar price point), and if so, then why would the initial offering, paid for primarily by the tax dollars of the other 99%, be made available exclusively for the 1%? I consider it a misappropriation of tax dollars

For the third time, it's not the end of the day. You say that this company will not succeed, will not get bigger, will not produce cars that people like yourself could afford. Can you lend me your crystal ball? I'd like to know the future as clearly as you do. And before you say you're just going on similar past cases, remember that the same anti-American "can't do" spirit could have been applied to Henry Ford.

1. I make corporate loans for a living (Plea to authority). No financial institution would touch this as the risk is too high. Its equity level risk. Let private capital be raised and quit taking money from better uses, like saving lives.

2. It sets up a new market.
For rich people. This is not the business of the US government.

3. It will expand to more moderate vehicles.
No it doesn’t. They are a dwarf compared to a genuine car company. Further they have several car companies already selling electric cars, including companies the US already has stakes in. Further, those companies have plants in the US. Even if Fisker wins, the US loses as those employees would be…unemployed.

The more this is discussed, the dirtier this deal sounds.

Because it is. The options were: use a factory that already exists in Finland or build a new one in the US.

Or use a factory that already exists in the US. Hell I heard GM shut a few plants and we own those bastards.

Manchu wrote:This is exactly why, despite what Frazzled may think, I love capitalism. Capitalism makes populism possible. God bless the USA!

Though unfortunately it does mean that some technologies are lost to history, despite arguably being more promising than the tech that took off.

Please stay on-topic. This isn't about prayer in classrooms, although one could certainly open another thread on the topic if they really wanted to. Thanks!

SilverMK2 wrote:If the $100,000 car paves the way for the $80,000 car, then the $50,000 car, then the $30,000 car, etc, etc, then that would be progress.

Thats all well and good right up to the moment you look on the internet and realize we already have them.
Leaf, Volt ring a bell?


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Manchu wrote:

SilverMK2 wrote:Every technology starts expensive - just look at TFT/LCD monitors, plasma TV's, etc. I remember when plasma TV's were £10,000, now larger, better versions are down at the £2-3,000 mark. Hell, my first LCD monitor was over £300, now I can pick up a screen which is better in every way for less than half the price.

This is exactly why, despite what Frazzled may think, I love capitalism. Capitalism makes populism possible. God bless the USA!

and its already occurred-Leaf/Volt. I love capitalism. This wasn't an example of it.

SilverMK2 wrote:Though unfortunately it does mean that some technologies are lost to history, despite arguably being more promising than the tech that took off.

Absolutely, hence why the US government is loaning half a billion to Fisker instead of us all driving electric cars already. But we have to be willing to accept some drawbacks for other benefits. No one can say the gas-powered automobile hasn't been a very useful thing, even in terms of making this country a more equitable place. If the drawbacks are starting to outweigh the benefits to the nation, then the nation needs to re-consider its relationship to the gas-power automobile -- and that's what it's doing. I said I was a capitalist, not an Objectivist.

This isn't the school prayer thread, as I mentioned. Thanks! ~Manchu

Melissia wrote:

Phanatik wrote:Conservatives/right-wingers want people to have the right to pray in school, not force people to pray in school.

Bullgak they don't.

Conservatives work every day in Texas to try to force prayer sessions into an already limited classtime in school.

I can't say if that's true or not, as I haven't lived there since 1986.

Even so, your blanket statement about conservatives should be amended to "Texas conservatives want to force people to pray in school." I would support condemnation of that. I'm an atheist, but I think people should have the right to pray wherever they want to.

I don't want manchu to chastise me again, so:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Establishment_Clause
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Exercise_Clause
Regards,

Crap, I was composing this before the edict. mea culpa.

Further they have several car companies already selling electric cars, including companies the US already has stakes in.

Why hasn't the Volt sold? Because it is an expensive but not luxurious electric car. Because, without the luxury or the cache, all you can rely on is Americans genuinely putting long-term environmental goals ahead of their everyday needs to sruvive and thrive. Ain't gonna happen. Fisker is trying something different.

Frazzled wrote:

SilverMK2 wrote:If the $100,000 car paves the way for the $80,000 car, then the $50,000 car, then the $30,000 car, etc, etc, then that would be progress.

Thats all well and good right up to the moment you look on the internet and realize we already have them.
Leaf, Volt ring a bell?

Sure, but take a look at the features on the $100,000 car as compared to the current crop of $30,000 cars - newer battery tech, more efficient recharging, etc, etc. Premium cars command premium prices and give a better return despite, in many cases, not being too much more to produce than the stock cars.

Kind of like the multipart Orks vs the AOBR orks - same materials, same kind of production costs, yet one sells for significantly more than the other. The mark up on the "luxury" version helps fund development more than the sale of "X" number of sales of the basic version (well, in the case of GW models, it actually funds Kirby's retirement, but you get the idea).

Not to mention (oh wait, it already has ) the luxury versions of products attract the kinds of names that can make or break brands.

I took it as an insult, and I'm glad you added that bit. I felt my blood start to boil and then cool of.
But conservatism is:
Conservatism (Latin: conservare, "to preserve")[1] is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism and seek a return to the way things were.
Conservatism in the United States includes a variety of political ideologies including fiscal conservatism, supply-side economics, social conservatism, libertarian conservatism, bioconservatism and religious conservatism
US president Ronald Reagan, who was a self-declared conservative, is widely seen as a symbol of American conservatism.[86] In an interview, he said "I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism."
Libertarianism includes diverse beliefs, all advocating strict limits to government activity and sharing the goal of maximizing individual liberty and political freedom.

I did say

The basic point of conservatism is to restrict or return the government to it's most basic constitutional powers.

and one of the main tenets of conservatism is

seek a return to the way things were.

I really didn't think I was that far off base.