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Can we wean Elon Musk off government support already?

thehill.com

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Re: Can we wean Elon Musk off government support already?

#11

Post by simplicio »

I mean, Plan A to achieve the same goals with regards to electric cars and solar without gov't subsidies was a cap-and-trade or carbon tax, but since the articles author's group helped shoot that possibility down, we're left with less market oriented, less elegant approaches, like direct gov't subsidies on companies that develop the necessary tech.

I'd certainly be happy to go with the more free market oriented approaches, but that doesn't seem likely to be possible in the US in the near future.

Re: Can we wean Elon Musk off government support already?

#12

Post by wlesieutre »

fhood wrote: post #4
wnevets wrote: post #3

Can we wean oil & farm companies off of government support first?

Hey! I really like my cheap produce.

Cheap meat is more likely to take a hit if we cut farm subsidies; feed crops are the biggest beneficiary (mostly corn).

The data on wikipedia[1] is from 2004, but I haven't heard of any major reforms since then. From greatest to least, subsidies went to: corn, cotton, wheat, rice, soybeans, dairy, peanuts, sugar, minor oilseeds, tobacco, wool and mohair, vegetable oil products, and honey. Anything else is in the remaining 2%.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy#United_St...

EDIT: Note that sugar and onward are individually <2% (smaller than the "anything else" bucket)

Re: Can we wean Elon Musk off government support already?

#13

Post by norswap »

> As wide-ranging as these various entrepreneurial ventures may be, they all have one thing in common – not a single one of them would get funding in a competitive private capital market if it weren’t for massive (and I do mean massive) taxpayer-funded government subsidies.

Correct, but that's a problem of the current incentive structure in the market (some would say it's a problem of capitalism... I wouldn't go that far). The government isn't tied to those incentives, and so can (and should) use its money to promote initiatives that have large expected payback in the long run.

Re: Can we wean Elon Musk off government support already?

#14

Post by brightball »

sp332 wrote: post #2

Ugh, what a bad-faith argument. The whole reason government puts subsidies on things is to encourage those things. The article starts with the assumption that market distortion is always has a bad outcome, but it's going to have to back that up. It also assumes (at the end) that our representatives in Congress can't possibly really be representing us. The rebates and tax cuts are working as intended. For example, by…

Probably a better counter point would be for somebody to provide some examples where market distortion hasn't had a bad outcome.

Re: Can we wean Elon Musk off government support already?

#15

Post by stuaxo »

aianus wrote: post #8
wnevets wrote: post #3

Can we wean oil & farm companies off of government support first?

Without enough domestic farms and oil fields the US would be extremely vulnerable to foreign sanctions etc. in times of conflict. The subsidies are intended to keep some of these unprofitable operations running domestically.

Maybe that would be an incentive against conflict ?

Re: Can we wean Elon Musk off government support already?

#16

Post by sp332 »

merpnderp wrote: post #5
sp332 wrote: post #2

Ugh, what a bad-faith argument. The whole reason government puts subsidies on things is to encourage those things. The article starts with the assumption that market distortion is always has a bad outcome, but it's going to have to back that up. It also assumes (at the end) that our representatives in Congress can't possibly really be representing us. The rebates and tax cuts are working as intended. For example, by…

I'm not saying the government subsidies are wrong, but a counter case might be what if the government subsidized scientifc GPU's at the turn of the century over gaming GPU's? Would gaming have grown as big as it is without modern GPU's targeted at gaming? Would we have gotten such cheap GPU compute power without the massive investment in gaming? Would the government subsidy have ended up hurting long term advancement…

There's always a chance of unintended consequences. But of course doing nothing isn't always the right answer.

Re: Can we wean Elon Musk off government support already?

#17

Post by knieveltech »

brightball wrote: post #14
sp332 wrote: post #2

Ugh, what a bad-faith argument. The whole reason government puts subsidies on things is to encourage those things. The article starts with the assumption that market distortion is always has a bad outcome, but it's going to have to back that up. It also assumes (at the end) that our representatives in Congress can't possibly really be representing us. The rebates and tax cuts are working as intended. For example, by…

Probably a better counter point would be for somebody to provide some examples where market distortion hasn't had a bad outcome.

How about some examples of "undistorted markets" resulting in unambiguously good outcomes first?

Re: Can we wean Elon Musk off government support already?

#18

Post by devmunchies »

fhood wrote: post #4
wnevets wrote: post #3

Can we wean oil & farm companies off of government support first?

Hey! I really like my cheap produce.

Most of the government ag subsidies go towards meat, dairy, and corn. Gotta keep that bacon and high fructose corn syrup flowing into Americans, and corn flowing into the animals.

Re: Can we wean Elon Musk off government support already?

#19

Post by jostmey »

Elon Musk has earned every tax payer dollar he has received. From what I can tell by reading the news, the man works himself and his companies insanely hard. Perhaps this argument could be made about any other organizations or institutions, but not Elon Musk and his companies

Re: Can we wean Elon Musk off government support already?

#20

Post by hfourm »

dawnerd wrote: post #6
wnevets wrote: post #3

Can we wean oil & farm companies off of government support first?

I'd love to see the subsidies instead given to small urban farmers to help push more local food sources.

Probably would conflict with the massive agri/farming industry lobbies
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