The electric car needs to die . . .

January 25, 2012

Dear President and CEO of General Motors Mr. Obama,

As an old life guard I wonder sometimes if a liberal were drowning, and I through them a jug, half filled with water to save them, would they, right before they were about to take their last breath, would they look for the recycle logo on the jug or would they just be happy that I was saving their life with it? If the electric car was drowning I would fill it with Quikrete and sink it. At least then it could not hurt anyone and it would become provide a home to some fish. I know all of you up their have a fetish for this thing. You think that it is a panacea to our use of oil or to clean the air, or whatever, but it’s all a lie. From production to delivery, to use, to disposal, it is a bad idea. The only way ideas like this come to be is a result of forcing people to invest in failed ideas, and the takeover of companies like General Motors by the federal government.

In a sane world an entrepreneur would go to the public market or invest their own money and set out a few goals. Number one would be to build the lightest and coolest car possible. Number two would be to make a profit. Number three would be to sell as many of them as possible to the most people possible. Unfortunately, the car business has been decimated by over regulation. Good thing you people never got your hands on the cell phone industry. Apple Computer would still be making the Mac II. This mythical car company would hire people, build plants, and create a product that would get fantastic mileage. To do this it would use composites, high strength plastics and aluminum to reduce weight. The enemy in efficiency is weight and aerodynamics, not propulsion. In fact when one fixates on the that aspect they end up with too much weight and not enough bang for the buck; and like Elliot Spitzer Americans love a little extra bang for the buck:) In short, if any company took a four cylinder vehicle and used these light but strong materials a gasoline powered vehicle would do far better then a battery coal driven car from factory floor to disposal, but liberal auto executives like yourself don’t want the truth, they just want their fantasy, just like Elliot Spitzer, the problem here is all of us have to pay for it.

I drive cars that are big and powerful. I love Corvettes. You can’t beat them for the buck. I drive them less now because I can no longer afford the gasoline. The reason I can’t afford the gasoline is because the government is making it so the refineries and energy companies cannot make enough product to allow the market to clear at a price that would induce me to consume. That is why America is dieing with you as President, that is also why, President Carter failed so miserably too, you are trying to deliver the same medicine to a patient that just wants to escape the hospital. President Reagan provided that escape, and one day President Gingrich or President Romney or some other fellow will do the same. Or you could continue to run this nation, and General Motors, for that matter into the ground.

Thankfully, we get a say in that, and on November 6, 2012, we will be voting for the other guy.

Respectfully,

Joe Doakes

Thanks Joe, most helpful,

President Reagan once said “if we lower our standards we lower the flag;” it doesn’t take a genius to see that for too long we’ve had none. Remember all positive change starts around the kitchen table, like Mr. Reagan once asked us to do we must continue this peaceful fight around that table. Make it happen. One meal at a time. We can beat this government induced Depression

I too attempted to listen to the POTUS SOTU but became too annoyed after 15 minutes. I used to be able to listen in full to Clinton's but perhaps he wasn't as unlikeable, perhaps I'm just getting cranky.
Re: Jobs, I believe it was on your show JB where I learned the magic number is 400,000. Below that and the growth is not keeping up with graduates, immigrants etc. If so I can't be pleased with the number 200,000. Although I can understand why the Administration would be pleased, it looks like a big number. Also on the same subject I see 350,000 first time filers of unemployment. OK let me do this 200,000 minus 350,000 equals...carry the one... negative 150,000. Oh Happy days! what a recovery! That's why Benjamin Desraeli said "there are lies, Damn lies, and statistics."
Finally did you notice that that Evil capitalist Mitt Romney donated 15% of his income to charity? While self appointed savior of all Obama managed a mere 1%. I bet the President would have spent more in Golf fee's than he gave to charity. (If he actually paid for his golf.) What of Joe Biden the Human Gaff Machine? He managed $369.00. Pathetic and disgraceful.

all of it paid by me and none of it by my wife, I might apostrophise here ....

I was tryin' to keep it simple so even a Demmy-crat could understand it ... heh heh

I don't listen to those things for the same reason I don't listen to debates: what's said about them is much more important than what's said in them.

I hope you won't think me prying, but I don't get the relationship between a drowning man and using a half-filled jug of water to save him. What am I missing?

To save money my summer camp would take a bleach jug and fill it half fill with water; used properly it allows a life guard to launch a rope past a swimmer in distress. In my case, it knocked me out, lights out baby. Went down like a rock.

In my letter I guess what I'm trying to say I'm politically agnostic as to who I would save with what ever I had. I'm older now. But I can still swim like a fish. One day I'll probably get into real trouble, but I'd rather go out trying to save someone then calling out bingo at the nursing home.

Hope this clears it up for you.

I like Newt.

And the fact that he walked out of Congress w/o anyone liking him just makes me like him that much more.

Did anyone mention Jim Wright and Newt's all-out campaign to unseat him as speaker, which campaign revolved, at least publicly, around a spurious book deal that was a not-so-well disguised way to funnel money to Wright? http://www.amazon.com/Ambition-Power-Wright-Story-Washington/dp/0831783028/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327561702&sr=1-1 It was during the Wright investigation that many previous book deals for Congressmen were stripped of their fig leaves and disclosed as basically shoddy and questionable sources of campaign cash. Many recognized the irony in the excuse used to send Newt packing.

Clinton got a deal similar to Newt's and nobody batted an eye.

I hope you know by now that Newt didn't shut down the government. All Clinton had to do was sign the Republican budget bill. But the President is one guy with a bully pulpit, while Congress is 535 cats all marching to their own drummers, often more than one, and each one demanding to be heard when most of them didn't know what the hell they were talking about. It was painful watching the Republicans trying to get their word out to a media that hated them before they ever took office in Jan 1995. This is the Time cover from the issue dated the day after the 1994 election http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19941107,00.html. Their hatred was evident from the start. This haughty disdainful looking photo was how they protrayed him when the Republicans took office in Jan 1995 http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19950109,00.html. When Time named Newt man of the year in Dec 1995, they doctored the photo they used for the cover to make him look like a sinster, red-faced, bilious menace. http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19951225,00.html. That was after they'd spent a year covering the Republican Revolutionaries. It was remarked on at the time.

Newt's sin was costing the Republicans 5, count 'em f-i-v-e, seats in the 1998 elections. The backbenchers who largely had been selected via a process Gingrich set up for bringing in young talented guns to run in marginally Democratic districts rebelled against him, led by some older longer serving "traditional" Republicans like Boehner. I remember particularly Steve Largent's whiny explanation that they all chafed under Newt's "my way or the highway" attitude toward party discipline. I mean, really! They wouldn't have been in office but for him, and once there, they thought they knew how to run the place. Sound familiar? What did we get in return for his resignation? Good ol' Denny Hastert, party apparatchick of no distinction and singularly devoid of imagination, who had no idea what movement conservatism was.

He never mentioned unions, a large source of political corruption and economic interfernece.

Roads are crumbling due to the expense of construction workers. Airport projects take forever. LAX and JFK are ancient and crumbling. 10 years later the WTC is nowhere near completion.

Universities was interesting, the American Association of Universities has been tossing out members who do not use enough GOVERNMENT sponsored research. Syracuse and Nebraska are two examples. They are a lobbying group for Government paid research.

Obama's comparing Reagan to Neville Chamberlain is absolute folly. We can see his far left bigotries if we look close.

I am always amused when people speak of "shutting down the government" as if it were a bad thing.

If I'm repeating myself, I apologize. I was a government employee at the time, and I was still cheering for the Republicans. I knew we'd all be made whole when the govt returned to normal operations. I didn't have to line up at the unemployment office, although to this day I think that aspect, heavily covered by both national and local news, was a union publicity stunt, especially during the first shutdown. I didn't have any vacation plans that went south because 1) I couldn't get into a national park (although just for sport I drove out to Great Falls national park http://www.nps.gov/ncr/_cs_apps/fls_photoGallery/customcf/display-slideshow.cfm?gID=146279 http://www.nps.gov/ncr/_cs_apps/fls_photoGallery/customcf/display-slideshow.cfm?gID=146275 just to see if I could - I ended up driving north a couple of miles to the lovely Fairfax county park, Riverbend http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/riverbend/nature.htm), where I could get in; or 2) I couldn't get into a passport office (I've kept my passport current since 1979).

What the media spent time covering was those incidental consequences of the shutdown: angry parents with squawling kids or obviously foreign visitors standing forlornly outside a national park with a big "Closed!" banner slapped across the entrance sign; people milling around outside a closed passport office telling reporters about how they couldn't visit their dying relative in Cyprus or wherever, or the vacation they spent a lifetime planning was now forfeit to willful politicians; long lines of government workers at unemployment offices; and empty halls in cavernous government office buildings. Then they would talk about how unreasonable the Republicans were to cause all this misery, scarcely once apportioning any blame to Clinton. In fact Clinton and Reuben spread a lot of disinformation before the shut down about what they would never do to bail the country out while the impasse went on, then they went right ahead and did them anyway. Perhaps sucker punch credits the Dems with too much cunning rather than luck, but survivors of those two experiences remember well the fall out. The Republicans were lucky to lose only 5 seats in the '98 election. That's why Krauthammer always shudders at the mention of shutdown and pleads with Republicans not to provoke another round with a Democratic president.

From The Atlantic:

The State of the Union: What Obama Doesn't Get About America

By Conor Friedersdorf

Comparing the citizenry to a military unit, he says we need to cooperate better and trust more. But prospering as diverse individuals is our greatest strength

See web-only content:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/01/the-state-of-the-union-what-obama-doesnt-get-about-america/251956/

The State of the Union Address began and ended with President Obama extolling the U.S. military. Invoking all those who served in Iraq, and especially the American men and women who died there, he said that they "made the United States safer and more respected around the world," a strange assertion coming from a man who himself insists fighting in Iraq made us less safe, campaigned on pulling out the troops, and knows the war made us less well respected. So he got off to a bad start, if we're to judge him on the truth of his words.

Thereafter it just got worse.

It ought to be self-evident that a free country neither can be run nor should be run like an army or a navy. America encompasses hundreds of millions of people with diverse values, priorities, and talents, each free to pursue happiness as he or she sees fit. The modern military is a hierarchical organization made up of self-selecting people compelled to take orders from their superiors. They're highly trained, expelled from the organization if they lack discipline, and expected to both risk their lives and kill other people to achieve the mission dictated to them.

Does Obama understand this about our warriors? "At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations. They're not consumed with personal ambition. They don't obsess over their differences. They focus on the mission at hand. They work together," he says. "Imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example. Think about the America within our reach: A country that leads the world in educating its people. An America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs. A future where we're in control of our own energy, and our security and prosperity aren't so tied to unstable parts of the world. An economy built to last, where hard work pays off, and responsibility is rewarded."

Forget the fact that, along with all the tremendously brave and honorable veterans, our military has some bad apples; forget too that there are decent men and women who come home armless or uncharacteristically violent or suicidal; even accepting the rosy portrait Obama paints of the military, surely he must understand that it is in fact impossible for a free people to cooperate as efficiently as the armed forces; that there are deep disagreements among principled Americans about how best achieve the civilian goals Obama mentions; that it would be tyrannical for an authority to dictate a strategy; and that it would fail too, for at the height of America's relative power, when it attracted the highest paying jobs and led the world in educating its people, the folks making it all happen weren't cooperating like a military at all. They were marshaling the power of the market, running uncoordinated educational institutions (some private, some public), and taking orders from no one. In a free country, it is difficult to think of a less apt analogy than the one Obama offers.

Unlike some hardcore conservatives and libertarians, I don't have a principled aversion to a progressive income tax, nor do I mind redistributing wealth if the purpose is a legitimate one, like compelling taxpayers to fund a basic safety net for those unable to acquire food, shelter, or medical care. Infrastructure projects, public health agencies, certain kinds of scientific research -- these are among the several things I'd prefer that the federal government help fund, and I've never thought that Obama is a socialist or a radical departure from past presidents.

In this speech, however, the president suggested a course for America that is insufficiently solicitous of its diversity; misunderstands its strengths; and presumes that the federal government can be far more nimble, effective, and incorruptible than has ever been demonstrated. Judging from Twitter, some of you are already nodding along with this critique; others are perplexed by these objections. Perhaps folks in the latter group can better understand my concerns if we depart from abstractions and delve into more of the speech's particulars.

Three quick things as preface: (1) I don't blame Obama for the bad economy. (2) I have no opinion about whether the tax rate for folks making over $250,000 per year is too high, too low, or just right, and Obama's desire to raise rates on the highest earners isn't at all a part of what I objected to in his speech. He may be right. (3) I operate from this premise: when possible (alas, it isn't always), the government should avoid imposing majority values or priorities on individuals or minority groups who don't share them.

Okay, on to some excerpts.

Let's start here:

On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen. In exchange for help, we demanded responsibility. We got workers and automakers to settle their differences. We got the industry to retool and restructure. Today, General Motors is back on top as the world's number one automaker. Chrysler has grown faster in the U.S. than any major car company. Ford is investing billions in U.S. plants and factories. And together, the entire industry added nearly 160,000 jobs. We bet on American workers. We bet on American ingenuity. And tonight, the American auto industry is back.What's happening in Detroit can happen in other industries. It can happen in Cleveland and Pittsburgh and Raleigh.

If you favored the auto bailout, know this: even if it succeeded beyond anyone's imagination (a point on which I offer no judgment) it was political factors as much as sound economic analysis that caused its passage. Presume, for the sake of argument, that federal intervention worked this time: that bailing out a politically powerful industry was also the right thing to do economically. How frequently are the stars going to align so fortuitously? Especially after watching the Wall Street bankers get bailed out, does anyone really want to bet that federal attempts to bail out industries in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Raleigh would disinterestedly and reliably pick winners, as opposed to being captured by the most well-positioned special interests? Making a habit of industry bailouts makes it highly likely that government will be corrupted, that politicians will determine winners and losers as much as the market, and that long term growth will decline.

Then there is the energy sector.

Say that you're concerned, as I am, about climate change, and that you wish to hasten the speed at which alternatives to fossil fuels develop. You could argue that the costs that carbon actually imposes are currently underpriced, and address that market failure by instituting a carbon tax.

Or you could advance this agenda:

When Bryan Ritterby was laid off from his job making furniture, he said he worried that at 55, no one would give him a second chance. But he found work at Energetx, a wind turbine manufacturer in Michigan. Before the recession, the factory only made luxury yachts. Today, it's hiring workers like Bryan, who said, "I'm proud to be working in the industry of the future."

Our experience with shale gas shows us that the payoffs on these public investments don't always come right away. Some technologies don't pan out; some companies fail. But I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy. I will not walk away from workers like Bryan. I will not cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or Germany because we refuse to make the same commitment here. We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That's long enough. It's time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that's rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that's never been more promising. Pass clean energy tax credits and create these jobs.

We can also spur energy innovation with new incentives. The differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change. But there's no reason why Congress shouldn't at least set a clean energy standard that creates a market for innovation. So far, you haven't acted. Well tonight, I will. I'm directing my Administration to allow the development of clean energy on enough public land to power three million homes.

And I'm proud to announce that the Department of Defense, the world's largest consumer of energy, will make one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history - with the Navy purchasing enough capacity to power a quarter of a million homes a year.

Of course, the easiest way to save money is to waste less energy. So here's another proposal: Help manufacturers eliminate energy waste in their factories and give businesses incentives to upgrade their buildings. Their energy bills will be $100 billion lower over the next decade, and America will have less pollution, more manufacturing, and more jobs for construction workers who need them. Send me a bill that creates these jobs.

As Yuval Levin put it, "This speech offered a vision of a profoundly technocratic and activist government, with its hands in every nook and cranny of the nation's economic life -- a government guiding particular business decisions and nudging individual choices through just the right mix of incentives and rules to reach just the right balance between fairness and growth while designing the perfect website for job retraining programs and producing exactly the proper number of 'high-tech batteries.'" It isn't enough to achieve the ends of less carbon in the atmosphere and better alternative fuels. Obama wants to dictate the means too, and that is folly. The knowledge needed to make alternative fuels viable is distributed too widely for a top down approach to work.

Another excerpt:

There's never been a better time to build, especially since the construction industry was one of the hardest-hit when the housing bubble burst. Of course, construction workers weren't the only ones hurt. So were millions of innocent Americans who've seen their home values decline. And while government can't fix the problem on its own, responsible homeowners shouldn't have to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom to get some relief.

That's why I'm sending this Congress a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low interest rates. No more red tape. No more runaround from the banks. A small fee on the largest financial institutions will ensure that it won't add to the deficit, and will give banks that were rescued by taxpayers a chance to repay a deficit of trust.
Did you catch the sleight of hand? Taxpayers as a whole bailed out the banks. If that justifies an initiative to repay the taxpayer, shouldn't the repayment flow back to all of us? What Obama proposes is yet another redistribution of wealth to the subset of taxpayers who own homes. It seems to me unjustified for government to decide it prefers helping homeowners to renters; nor do I want Congress defining who counts as a "responsible homeowner," a job for which it is ill-suited.

As Obama concluded his speech, he returned to the military theme, this time talking about the Bin Laden raid:

All that mattered that day was the mission. No one thought about politics. No one thought about themselves. One of the young men involved in the raid later told me that he didn't deserve credit for the mission. It only succeeded, he said, because every single member of that unit did their job -- the pilot who landed the helicopter that spun out of control; the translator who kept others from entering the compound; the troops who separated the women and children from the fight; the SEALs who charged up the stairs. More than that, the mission only succeeded because every member of that unit trusted each other -- because you can't charge up those stairs, into darkness and danger, unless you know that there's someone behind you, watching your back.

So it is with America. Each time I look at that flag, I'm reminded that our destiny is stitched together like those fifty stars and those thirteen stripes. No one built this country on their own. This nation is great because we built it together. This nation is great because we worked as a team. This nation is great because we get each other's backs. And if we hold fast to that truth, in this moment of trial, there is no challenge too great; no mission too hard. As long as we're joined in common purpose, as long as we maintain our common resolve, our journey moves forward, our future is hopeful, and the state of our Union will always be strong.
This is deeply wrongheaded.

Yes, we're bound together as Americans in certain tasks, like defending the homeland and seeing that those who cannot care for themselves are provided with what they need. And there is agreement on certain broad goals: better educated children, safer infrastructure, etc. But a nation of 300 million free people doesn't share a common purpose, nor should it; government's role is to facilitate our ability to live as we see fit, not to bind us together like Navy SEALs on a military raid ordered up by our commander-in-chief. This nation is great because it affords such a diverse polity the opportunity to pursue happiness, not because "we built it together."

(We didn't in fact build it together.)

How can Obama say that the Bin Laden mission "only succeeded because every member of that unit trusted each other -- because you can't charge up those stairs, into darkness and danger, unless you know that there's someone behind you, watching your back," and add, "so it is with America"? It just isn't that way with America. Lots of people within our polity mistrust one another, as is inevitable; in the post-WWII period of prosperity that Obama earlier invoked, there was segregation and the Red Scare and all manner of Americans short on mutual trust, and while there isn't anything wrong with calling for less unfounded paranoia, positing that only a trusting nation can succeed fundamentally misunderstands our past and our future.

The strength of our system -- the free markets, the best of our regulations, our very culture -- is that it brings about progress even if the leader doesn't himself know what energy investments will pay off; if we maintain the system, we'll prosper even if the federal government doesn't adeptly line up the economically efficient community college training program with the right applicant and employer; folks will find jobs even if we never develop the single perfect web site for job searches; we'll thrive even if our diverse passions and values create mistrust and infighting.

Obama's critics have long asserted that he doesn't understand these core strengths of the American system. His State of the Union speech suggests they're more right than I once imagined.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/01/the-state-of-the-union-what-obama-doesnt-get-about-america/251956/

By my count there are exactly two people who can really be considered small-government conservatives on this blog - Hayek and myself. Maybe a few others with leanings in that direction, and please speak up if I've overlooked anyone, but I think Hayek and I are the only two who'd really be pleased to live through the consequences of a 90% reduction in the federal government. Even if it means rioting and looting (it wouldn't). Even if it meant being invaded by Iran (it wouldn't.) Even if it meant I would lose 90% of my personal wealth and maybe even an arm and a leg. I would rather suffer all these depredations and more in a free country, than live "comfortably" in our current socialist state.

We don't need fancy cars or computers or smart-phones or supermarkets with almost infinite selection; we don't need jewelry; we don't need different clothes for every day of the week; we don't need fancy food, or $50+ a bottle wines, or cigarettes or cigars or drugs or any of that stuff. What we need is FREEDOM.

Brian Tracy used to say, ask yourself two questions: "What is it I want most in the world", and "What am I willing to pay to get it?" My answers to those questions: "Freedom", and "My Life".

LF

"Even if it means rioting and looting (it wouldn't). Even if it meant being invaded by Iran (it wouldn't.) Even if it meant I would lose 90% of my personal wealth and maybe even an arm and a leg. I would rather suffer all these depredations and more in a free country, than live "comfortably" in our current socialist state."

Methinks you suffer from a poverty of imagination as to how bad your model could be for most Americans, including you, or an exaggerated estimate of what you could do without. Big talk as long as it ain't likely to happen, Lou.

I could just summarize my views on point with the words of Steely Dan: "Any world that I'm welcome to is better than the one that I come from."

The same could be said for one's ability to imagine the consequences of maintaining the status quo. If I go out I could be hit by lightning. If I stay at my desk my arteries might clog up and I'll get a massive coronary.

Epictetus said that one should not forgot that we shouldn't treat our lives and our bodies as our property, since they are on loan from (God, Supreme Being, life force, what you will)....

The only thing we have that is truly ours is our will.