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Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production

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Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production

#121

Post by webXL »

daveguy wrote: post #111
ctdonath wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a substantive difference between being given money vs keeping your own money: one is theft, the other isn't. If we can't get tax cuts across the board, then I'm all for reducing taxes on whoever we can, however we can.

If you appreciate roads, education, police, fire, private property, military, food safety, breathable air, safe drugs, etc, then you shouldn't be trying to cut taxes whenever and however you can as a base principle.

It looks like you listed every sacred cow of public finance, but I'll just pick on the first... sure, for the most part, roads are publicly financed/owned (although built by privately owned companies). But, conversely, if you appreciate all the privately financed/owned driveways, toll roads, parking lots, fueling infrastructure and vehicles(!!), then you shouldn't be trying to raise taxes as a base principle either.

The truth is that there's plenty to appreciate and hate in both sectors, but there's only one that forces us to finance it, and we don't like being forced to finance something without having much say in the matter or if the results are suboptimal.

Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production

#122

Post by webXL »

powvans wrote: post #120
webXL wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you come on. You are not giving me the money in my bank account just because you say I don't have to give it to you.

These incentives are often transferable tax credits. It isn’t unusual for a company to have little or no tax liability in the state offering the incentive. There are markets where the tax credits are sold to companies that do have tax liability in the state. It’s effectively putting cash directly into the pocket of the businesses you seek to attract.

Other companies are putting that cash directly into those businesses, not the state. The ones with the tax liability just get to keep more of their cash, again not the state's!

Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production

#123

Post by sumedh »

civilian wrote: post #94
webXL wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you come on. You are not giving me the money in my bank account just because you say I don't have to give it to you.

Dude I'm as libertarian as they come; taxation is theft. But you're doing stupid things with semantics here. The company has more money to operate with; we're just talking about this from a business-operation point of view.

> taxation is theft.

So who should pay for the US military so that your private property is safe from Russian attacks.

Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production

#124

Post by dragonwriter »

wav-part wrote: post #108
dragonwriter wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversely, the concept of taxation is as old as civilization, and private property at current depth and scale is barely as old as the most recent extension of the rights associated with copyright in the DMCA, and already showing cracks.

You are talking to a libertarian and you assumed a right granted by state is a private property. Why ? The private property I referred is land right, which IS as old as civilisation and have been acceptable by most humans ever. Since most democracies are less than 200yrs old, the taxation cannot have been as old as civilisation. When 100 people form a camp, they implement property rights before taxation. Historically…

> Since most democracies are less than 200yrs old, the taxation cannot have been as old as civilisation.

That would be true if the concept of taxation was dependent on the concept of democracy (and if it was correct that democracy was less than 200 years old, which is off by around an order of magnitude), which it is quite obviously not; taxation long precedes democracy.

> Historically taxations have been imposed by distant rulers

Historically, taxation (until fairly recently, in-kind; money taxes as the primary form is fairly new) has been imposed at every level from small bands to vast empires; it certainly is not correct that they've normally been imposed by distant rulers.

Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production

#125

Post by Jesus_Jones »

emusan wrote: post #78
JohnStudio wrote: post #10

I'm not a big fan of Elon Musk, but let's not get political. I do however, want to point out Buffalo .. its troubles with Solar City .. and its troubles with Elon Musk. Key (non-disputed / non-political points) - Tesla did not hire local workers, and did not hold up on its end for diversity of work-force - SolarCity received 750$ million in the Billion to Buffalo at a time it hadn't operated at a profit in over 2 yea…

Aside from maybe your first point, what do any of those points have to do with "troubles with Elon Musk"? After the second point I'm not even sure what they could have to do with Solar City in general. Your third point seems to be more of an issue with a local construction company and the last point seems to be an issue with Cuomo. Could you clarify? Am I missing some connections?

Yeah, if he hadn't merged solar city with tesla, it might have failed as a company. i'm just waiting till they merge tesla+solar city with space x. and the boring company.

Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production

#126

Post by SubiculumCode »

wav-part wrote: post #112
ajnin wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the oldest forms of writing that we know of, Babylonian tablets, are mostly about goods exchanges and paying taxes. I think that you assessment that taxation is a new thing is blatantly wrong.

Taxation is old. Democratically-decided taxation is new.

Then democratically-decided property law is new too.

Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production

#127

Post by SubiculumCode »

kodis wrote: post #2

I really love the work that Tesla is doing in this area, and wish them all the luck in the world, but if the estimates in the article are even close ($57K for a Tesla roof, $41K for a tile roof with a small solar panel, $22K for a conventional asphalt roof) it's hard for me to see this being cost effective.

This is like the Apple iPhone of solar panel solutions. It looks better than regular solar panels, so those who can afford them, will get them.

Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production

#128

Post by mmsimanga »

OrwellianChild wrote: post #34
mmsimanga wrote: post #28

Just over two years ago solar panels were prohibitively expensive for me. I read a couple of Instructables showing how to make your own panel using solar cells. I ordered the solar cells. The plan was to cover the whole garage roof with solar cells. The price of solar panels dropped. Now I have a box full of solar cells and it just isn't worth it to go the DIY route. The Solar Roof is out of my price range.

Frustrating to see prices change, but it sounds like you were up for doing the work at the old price, so it could be a learning opportunity... Alternatively, you might be able to sell the cells (at a loss) to recoup some funds and still end up with solar power for cheaper than you were originally intending to pay!

Thanks for the encouraging response. I will use the solar cells as a learning opportunity. I am thinking that they will be a good way to teach kids the basics of solar power.

Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production

#129

Post by wav-part »

dragonwriter wrote: post #124
wav-part wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are talking to a libertarian and you assumed a right granted by state is a private property. Why ? The private property I referred is land right, which IS as old as civilisation and have been acceptable by most humans ever. Since most democracies are less than 200yrs old, the taxation cannot have been as old as civilisation. When 100 people form a camp, they implement property rights before taxation. Historically…

> Since most democracies are less than 200yrs old, the taxation cannot have been as old as civilisation. That would be true if the concept of taxation was dependent on the concept of democracy (and if it was correct that democracy was less than 200 years old, which is off by around an order of magnitude), which it is quite obviously not; taxation long precedes democracy. > Historically taxations have been imposed by…

We are taking about subset of taxation not all taxation, namely "politically constructed taxation" as described by ajnin.

Historically, taxation has been imposed at every level from small bands to vast empires

Agreed.

it certainly is not correct that they've normally been imposed by distant rulers

Then by whom is it normally imposed ? Give an example of a historic taxation voted and imposed by a small-band/.../vast-empire on itself.

Coming back to the topic, my claim is that private property social contract have been more stable than taxation (the social-contract version).

Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production

#130

Post by cycrutchfield »

bradlys wrote: post #73
cycrutchfield wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what would the effect on property value be for an asphalt roof with garish panels vs. the Tesla option?

Probably depends on the home. I don't think it would add $35k worth of value over the other installation to a home (especially for a typical $200k home). Also, who cares about property value? If you're selling anytime soon after installing either system, you're going to be taking a significant loss because I doubt you'll make it back in added property value. Especially for the Tesla system. Hard to justify to folks,…

Sounds like you figured out what their target market looks like then.
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