Viewing profile — bob13579

Maybe because federal taxpayers paid his salary?

Balanced Payments only allows transfers to customers with Wells Fargo accounts, right? Does Stripe allow transfers to all banks?

Can you give me an actual link that explains what you're specifically talking about?

Fisker and Solyndra and several others couldn't pay back their loans. The government didn't arrest any of them and didn't take any of their personal assets. The debt was simply dis…

Who determines what needs funding? A lobby of People Who Know Things? If you wanted to curb carbon emissions, there are many more efficient ways to do so.

This is just funny. Which car manufacturers on that $7,500 federal tax subsidy electric car list get $500M loans to build out their electric cars?

They have to. Franchise laws. Look it up. Here is MA's: http://www.malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXV/...

"What many of them did instead was to go bankrupt and ask for bailouts." This is quite astonishing. A few large American car companies with large pension liabilities needed the sub…

How do you explain the $7,500 subsidy for each Tesla sold? Also, the government would have gifted them the money regardless of their ability to pay it back. Fisker couldn't pay bac…

"But to your point, yes it is okay to give them half a billion. I don't see why government should not have supported them." I find it quite outrageous that we're enriching well-con…

The federal tax credit of $7,500, plus any state subsidies, for each Tesla sold doesn't ring a bell to you?

"they know what they're doing, and they're not picking winners and losers, they're playing the same game every investor plays: trying to decide who is going to win or lose before i…

So any startup that competes in the pharmaceutical sector or biotechnology industry should be given hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded loans?

No, if you study the automotive industry, you'll see that those car manufacturers have been trying to get around those dealers by building their own dealerships (which are quickly …

Because we're subsidizing inefficient actors already, that makes it okay to subsidize other actors? Why subsidize any of the inefficiency at all? Tesla is certainly not curbing car…

The critical component, by far, is the battery. If you find ways to build a better battery, electric cars are a practical reality. Academia is perfect for battery research.

Umm, no. Taxpayers are still subsidizing $7,500 per Tesla sold.

It's okay to give them half a billion dollars in loans because others got billions? Why not be outraged at everyone involved? The industry is colossally inefficient.

So the government is now a venture capitalist or investment bank and should be encouraged to pick winners and losers now? It's quite funny that these Tesla Roadsters are being boug…

"Honda, Toyota, BMW, Mercedes, or smaller ones like Think, BYD, Tango, or Venturi" "smaller" was in reference to Honda, Toyota, BMW, and Mercedes. You can substitute Bright Automot…

How exactly did Tesla earn an "A" up to that point? Every small electric car manufacturer was losing money left and right. Two smaller startups got the loan (Tesla and Fisker) to s…

This is a different argument altogether. The original argument was about Tesla playing on an unfair playing field, which is demonstrably false. Other car manufacturers have to go t…

Manufacturers would love to sell directly. They're doing it in Europe and aren't trying to enact protectionist dealership laws to protect their interests from upstart competitors. …

Any of those dealers would love to sell Tesla cars, especially the higher-end ones that sell BMWs, Mercedes, Porsches, and Lexuses. Nothing is stopping Tesla from partnering with d…