America is the land of the cognitively dissonant, a place where people will support and criticize the same thing at the same time.
It’s psychiatric – or cynical.
Either way, it leads to pretzelized outcomes such as ElonMusk objecting to the government of California “locking down” most businesses in that state – including his business, Tesla Motors – while being entirely dependent on the government for his business.
Elon loved the government when it passed laws that manufactured business . . . for him, at the expense of others. The government – with Elon clapping in the background – paid people to buy Elon’s electric cars, using other people’s money.
And it pressured other car companies to pay Elon, too.
By giving them the “choice” – Luca Brasi style – to either spend a fortune designing and manufacturing their own electric cars – which they might not be able to sell for a sum sufficient to recover their “investment” – or they could just pay Elon and get credit for having built them.
Elon managed, in other words, to get the government to force his rivals to subsidize his business, to the detriment of theirs.
No wonder Elon loved the government!
Which also dispensed other people’s money for solar panels made by Elon’s Solar City subsidiary, for which demand also had to be manufactured – via legislation. The LA Times estimates that Elon has lined his pockets with other people’s money to the tune of nearly $5 billion dollars so far.
That was five years ago, by the way.
But then came Corona, this year.
The same hand that fed now took away. The government shuttered Elon’s electric car plant at the old Toyota plant in Fremont, CA. It was not considered “essential” by the apparatchiks who had previously thought Elon’s operations so essential that other people were required to buy – or “help” others buy – what Elon had to sell.
But the dog has wheeled ’round and now bares his fangs at the one holding the leash. Elon finds himself forbidden to make cars now – and he cannot force others to buy what he isn’t allowed to make. By the very same government that helped him so very much until all of a sudden it changed its mind.
Elon is upset that government is harming his business!
He is threatening to take his business elsewhere – perhaps to Texas or Nevada, where a friendlier (to Elon) government may help him resume business.
But what of everyone else’s business?
Cognitive meet dissonant.
Using government to filch other people’s pockets – and bleed competitor’s businesses – is ok. But when Elon feels the same hand around his neck – and the same gun in the small of his back – it’s an outrage!
Fascism even.
He actually said this, used precisely that word. Elon apparently has never looked up the meaning of that word. The defining essence of which is government getting into bed with business; with favored businesses. To the detriment of those not favored.
Unsere fahne flattert uns voran is merely historical window dressing. It’s Elon who’s the fascist – without the jackboots but the thing in itself is the same thing.
Hilariously – dissonantly – Elon has filed a lawsuit against Alameda County, characterizing the shuttering of his plant as a “power grab” that “offends the federal and California constitutions. He says the “unelected and ignorant ‘Interim Health Officer’ of Alameda is acting contrary to the governor, the president, our Constitutional freedoms and just plain common sense.”
Ho ho ho!
An acronym forms in the mind. CARB.
The California Air Resources Board.
It is the unelected board of government bureaucrats who have helped Elon greatly – until just recently. It is CARB that decides – and decrees – vehicle “emissions” standards, which lately have been bizarrely juxtaposed by CARB with gas mileage standards.
This has been enormously helpful to Elon’s business – perhaps even more so than the “zero emissions” business that has served as a de facto production mandate for electric cars, thereby extorting business for Elon from other car companies, which must at least offer a certain number of EVs for sale in the state in order to do business in the state . . . or buy the “credits” from Elon, which is less hassle and a bit cheaper.
And which has made Elon much richer.
The conflation of “emissions” with MPGs is even more of a boon to Elon’s business. The higher the MPG minimums – the state wants 50 MPG by 2025 – the greater the pressure to manufacturer more EVs, since they use no gas at all.
Elon didn’t object to any of this.
Nor did he threaten to leave the state or sic the lawyers when California “helped” him begin the build-out of his network of “supercharger” EV plug-in points, which helps make his cars more salable since it helps people avoid waiting for hours to get going again or just skip it altogether because it’s not worth the hassle.
But when Elon’s porridge bowl is threatened, he transforms into a a stormy petrel of capitalism (sic).
Maybe being hit in his wallet – and having his freedom to do business Corona’d will cure Elon of his cognitive dissonance.
It could be just the therapy he needs.
. . .
Got a question about cars, Libertarian politics – or anything else? Click on the “ask Eric” link and send ’em in!
If you like what you’ve found here please consider supporting EPautos.
We depend on you to keep the wheels turning!
Our donate button is here.
If you prefer not to use PayPal, our mailing address is:
EPautos
721 Hummingbird Lane SE
Copper Hill, VA 24079
PS: Get an EPautos magnet or sticker or coaster in return for a $20 or more one-time donation or a $10 or more monthly recurring donation. (Please be sure to tell us you want a magnet or sticker or coaster – and also, provide an address, so we know where to mail the thing!)
If you’d like an ear tag – custom made! – just ask and it will be delivered.
My latest eBook is also available for your favorite price – free! Click here. If that fails, email me at EPeters952@yahoo.com and I will send you a copy directly!
Elon has forced the issue by restarting his Tesla plant anyway. He has learned something the hard way: what California really thinks of private vehicles. When the chips were down, his plant was deemed nonessential. It’s no coincidence Tesla is the last automaker building cars in that state.
You should view all of California’s rules about private vehicles as having one objective: making cars and light trucks too expensive and too big a hassle to buy and operate. Tesla’s products are just as much anathema to the state’s legislators and regulators as the biggest fuel-guzzling jacked-up pickup. The rulemakers don’t want clean or self-driving or electric cars for the population: they want no cars. At least not for most people.
This couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Look into his funding research that might enable authorities to read your thoughts. Don’t believe me? Search “Neuralink”. So I don’t look at him as some sort of libertarian hero. He has simply learned, or should have learned, where his operation stands in California’s scheme of things.
Indeed, ek –
There is an almost childlike naivete regarding EVs; the advocates think it’s just about “emissions” and that EVs are “clean” and so they’ll be able to continue driving (with a “clean” conscience) and all will continue as normal. Haven’t they noticed the not-accidental conflation of carbon dioxide with traditional “emissions”? And that EVs create lots of these “emissions”? What does that imply about the future of EVs?
Yes, these people really are fools. Like the Mask Wearers – who are too dim to understand that by wearing the masks they have accepted the premise – that WuFlu is a grave mortal danger to all of us that will require vaccinations and tracking and many other things besides.
I begin to think I made a mistake not joining the Illuminati when I was offered the chance.
eric, I just watched a new movie by Michael Moore this week. I tried to get the people I normally e with to watch it but it was the same snot, that big fat anti-gunner idiot, wouldn’t watch one of his movies blah blah blah.
No mention of guns in this one but he goes into depth on the energy industry and gets it right down to the T. Early in the film he nails the EV thing for what it is, just a way to waste money and leave the coal smoke elsewhere. Even the guy helping Mary Barra on the roll-out of the Volt said “The electricity here? in this building”? Oh, it comes from (a company I forget). How is it produced, about 95% coal. That was hilarious. Then he shows the 20 year life span of wind energy that will never pay for itself requiring some ungodly amount of concrete for the base alone and the ones they showed were up north and over 450′ tall with props that weighed over 36,000 lbs., a generator that weighed 50,000 lbs and the entire tops unit was much heavier than that. The tube strucure is huge, I forget the weight but have been around them for years and avoid hell out of the roads(seems like the road to a pit or a pipeline is always the same road. A couple years ago it came a big freezing rain one night and I was using the road by a line of the towers. The road was close enough so the blades were spinning over the road, something I don’t trust. But this time they were covered in ice. As the day warmed they began shedding ice so I was wary as hell. I saw one in front of me with the blades over the road and a few hundred pounds of ice I noticed was beginning to slide off. Good thing I noticed it too. I stopped and watched it and the ice slowly slid along the blade till it fell off, probably 500 lbs of sheet ice. It hit the road with an explosion. I warily drove past it and say the next in line about to do same and stopped again. Eventually they all shed their iced in a period of about 10 minutes and only then did I travel that road. Seeing that huge amount of ice on the road sorta made me draw up when I ran over it.
But Moore tells all about solar and all the other tomfoolery in producing ‘green’ power and gives the specs on how much petroleum it takes to build each type and how much it takes to operate each type. It would be much cheaper and not anywhere begin to use as much petroleum to simply mine coal and use Natgas. And if the evil govt. controllers(military/ad infinitum)didn’t have their way with nuclear, we’d be producing cheap nuclear power without all the dangers if they just used thorium, one of the easiest minerals to mine and probably the most of any mineral on the planet. But that would be too easy. You’d still need plenty petroleum to mine and half and process but the earth would emit of sigh of thanks for it. We’ll never know as long as the military controls this country.
I’d encourage everyone to watch this movie. He even made it for free.
8S,
Even though Michael Moore has been an avowed, faithful leftist, his fellow leftists EXCORIATED AND OSTRACIZED him; how DARE he tell the truth about the green energy fraud!
Hi Mark,
The left is also turning Elon; I love watching the revolution eat its own.
Eric,
The fact that they end up eating their own is their only hope. Until they reach that point though, they show a unity, determination, and sense of purpose that’s second to none; it’s that unity that’s led to their countless victories. I don’t know why they do that though, because it’s the opposite that led to their success. Then again, if I understood lefties, I’d be mentally challenged like they are…
MM, tell me this, do you know anyone who has watched the movie. I don’t want to have sex with Michael Moore but I’m more than willing to hear what he says on any subject.
I must have missed something in Bowling for Columbine. I didn’t necessarily consider it anti-gun. I think it was much more a look at our fucked up society. Kids left to do whatever it is they will do without parents to teach them and live the life showing them how to act.
Had I grown up all loaded up with guns….as I did, but with parents who just let me have anything I wanted and never lived a life to show me how to treat others and lived that life of being horrible people, I might have taken their cue and done anything I thought they’d do. To me it seems that movie was more about lack of morals and the children produced by such. Hey, but that’s just me.
Moore goes into an old store where they sell guns. He speaks logically to the owners and and nothing in their conversation would have you think he wants to buy a gun just to kill someone…..or did I miss something else again? He could have spun it as things really aren’t, such as a libertarian society and how guns are the very things that create a civil society. I couldn’t get that fired up about it as to negatively about Moore’s message. What did I miss?
I’m not a shrinking violet or a dangerous gun-toting redneck although I could be a redneck and a gun toter but I haven’t shot anyone yet.
That could change in the near future if my back gets pushed up against the wall to the degree “some” want it.
After that video, its no wonder that the Progs and their globalist masters, are turning on Moore. The Green Energy™ scam has always been about symbolism. Anyone who has honestly studied it, can’t came to any other conclusion. Modern generation nuclear power, is our best way forward. If the plants are properly designed, constructed and maintained, they are our safest, most effective power source. But because of the hysterical fear, that has been pushed deep into the public’s mind, that’s not likely to happen.
Now, ask yourself, who was behind that fear campaign? Who stands to lose the most, if we switch to nuclear power?
Not to mention the groups, that are convinced that what is needed, is a real Global Death Plague. Which would wipe out 2/3 to 3/4 of humanity. Leaving only a enough for a “sustainable” population, ruled over by their Wise Over Lords… Mad, doesn’t even begin to describe these people.
Plus the fact that thorium is cheap and safe. Just think of what the price of oil would drop to.
MM, just try to get some rightest to even watch that movie. They can’t do it. It’s just more than they can stand that he could be right about something.
Eight, many thinks indeed for that heads up. I’d also passed on anything from the clown, over the years. Looking at this, one wonders if he is going to get ripped up by his virtue signaling herd of rabid hyenas… He is FAR off Narrative. But its hardly surprising. One of the original founders of Green Peace, is now a pro nuclear activist, who actually knows what he is speaking about.
BJ, he tells of the huge money Green Peace takes from big oil and all the other feel-good associations(no, not ‘those’ associations….but here they are anyway doing their best hit, Flatulence..D’oh, I meant Windy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPYT9Vyu62A
Saw the same in a cartoon once:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL25r7QxFMU
Well, then you would no doubt be one of the Masters of the Universe™ by now, and you wouldn’t be hanging around the likes of us… ^^ You would have entire warehouses filled with classic cars, and bikes, as well as fleets of private jets, and at least a couple of mega yachts. But what profit it a man to gain a world of cars, but lose their soul? I’ll let myself out… ^^
***” But what profit it a man to gain a world of cars,”****
Ask Jay Leno. Seems pretty pointless to me! I love old cars…but these days, even one guy with a trailer queen in his garage, have taken it to the point of being more than just the enjoyment of old cars…now it’s more like shrines to Detroit….and guys like Leno have the biggest temples!
A friend of mine, has a Costco size warehouse, filled with classic cars (and some modern hyper cars). Its climate controlled year round, and has armed guards 24/7. Its just a hobby for him. Different things for different people.
Not that there’s anything wrong with it- I guess if ya have the moola for that, then it really doesn’t matter what ya do with it- but I can’t help but thinking that the more crap ya own- beyond a few niceties that you can actually enjoy and use on a regular basis, the more [I know…this will sound cliche- but never-the-less, it’s true] those things own you….even if ya never have to lift a finger to care for them, they weigh on your mind, and you’re never truly free.
It seems too, that people who tend to keep large collections of things, tend to be of the opinion that having those things makes them “happy”, and tends to distract from the true things which can make one happy.
Or maybe it’s just me- but I’ve always thought that the Gillagan’s Island lifestyle would be the ideal. (Hey, those people sure did bring a lot of crap on that “3 hour tour”!) 🙂
“Elon loved the government when it passed laws that manufactured business . . . for him, at the expense of others.”
Did he *love* the government, or did he *play* the government?
A confidence man doesn’t “love” his mark, he just feigns friendship.
E-loon may find out just how dangerous it is to cross the [government] Mob….. Wouldn’t surprised if they suddenly trot out some rape/sexual harassment allegations against him. They’ll likely find some way to destroy the favored-son now turned against the hand that fed him. Maybe they’ll declare him insane…or manufacture some drug charges or fraud or something? (Do I hear the SEC rattling it’s keys?)
It’s very possible you hear the SEC.
Billionaires who control the financial system could simply drive TSLA down, thus ruining Elon if he doesn’t play ball…
Hi Henry,
True; well-said. Trump smiles at those who line his pockets – who are of use to him.
So the orange man has come out in support of Musk!! Hard to tell if he means it, or if he’s doing it to have a laugh and make the heads explode on some of the virtue signalling lefties in California driving around in Teslas !!!…. This is getting more fun by the day to watch!!
They won’t arrest him. He has the money to hire good lawyers and prove the order is unconstitutional.
Oh, I don’t know, Anon- A good lawyer gets O.J. acquitted of the murders he committed…..but a white guy disobeying Uncle’s mandates? I don’t think even E-loon has enough money to get away with that!
Latest: Tesla factory restarts against orders as Elon Musk says they can arrest him. Elon could make it interesting – hire Pinkerton to protect the factory from intruders.
Hi libertyx,
Excellent news! Much as I have issues with Elon, this decision of his is laudable. It’s a high-profile revolt against Corona Mania. We need more such!
Damn right it is! I’m glad to see it. Who knows? He might even wake up…
If I’d been Elon, I’d have hired ex-Spetsnaz as security for the Newark, CA, facility. Those boys are as bad-ass as it gets, and can handle Alameda Co. SD easily if that’s what it comes to.
It’s a shame that we need HIM, I don’t care for the arrogant, virtue-signalizing rich liberal twits, many of the LOBBYISTS here in Sacramento that have gotten rich off of screwing the CA taxpayer, that drive Musk’s Telsa cars. But in a sense, about five years ago, I might have said the same thing of the “Orange Man”. This is kinda like the story from the Gospels, where Jesus’ apostles see a man doing the demon eviction procedure in the Savior’s name, and they wanted to forbid him, as he’d not been properly ordained (would make sense to a lapsed Mormon like myself). The Savior’s response? “For he that is not against vs, is on our part.” (Mark 9:40).
If I’d been Elon, I’d have hired ex-Spetsnaz as security for the Newark, CA, facility. Those boys are as bad-ass as it gets, and can handle Alameda Co. SD easily if that’s what it comes to.
Now that I think of it, there are more than enough veterans out there who have hard combat training to be able to provide security for businesses that want to reopen in the face of COVIDIOTIC tyranny. The only barrier might be getting large numbers of them to overcome their misplaced trust in the State.
Which is why I cited using Spetsnaz rather than American vets. Truly, I’d PREFER them, give me a ex-Navy Seal, or Green Beret, or any of “Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children” with combat experience, or even Air Force Parajumpers (they go in and get downed air crew from behind enemy lines, a trained F/A-18 or F-15 pilot is worth more than the lost aircraft), any time. But, as you well pointed out, too many are imbued with MISPLACED trust in “Authoritai”, which wouldn’t necessarily be bad, were our own Federal, State, and Municipal governments willing to respect the rule of law and operate within their Constitutional limits in the first place. At least one marine vet, now a chiropractor in the Southland, gets it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YPhUOpDydk
Maybe he could hire the Hell’s Angels, like The Rolling Stones did for their Altamont concert.
Quite a few of the Angels, along with other MC clubs considered to be “one percenters”, are military veterans.
What’s interesting is that the origins of the Biker “gangs”, in most cases, were simply young men, having seen the “world” (the ETO, or “European Theater of Operations, or the Pacific, all the way to Japan itself), and weren’t content to just go back to a humdrum factory job or “settle down”. Sure, some of them already had “rough” pasts even prior to their WWII service, but, for most, it was just a thing to do to replace the lost excitement that combat with the attendant feeling of brotherhood provided. The most (in)famous was the so-called Boozefighters, blamed for the July 1947 Hollister “riot”, with that famed posed picture of a beered-up club member on his ride. Indeed, the Boozefighters MC still exists, being mostly old men reliving their youth, and are hardly anything that “respectful” society need fear. It was mostly a good story to sell newspaper and magazines, and you can blame the Hearst and McClatchy organizations for hugely exaggerating the whole thing. In fact, the term “one percenter” came from that most clubs, desperate to fend off images as being outlaws, said that only “1%” of all bikers were those with (serious) criminal records. Naturally, the more, shall we say, “rougish” gangs took on that moniker as a symbol of pride, and it’s an official patch with them these days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boozefighters
Whats good for him is good . There’s only self and void. Arrogant C-E-O. Millennial android.
You want android? Have you ever watched ZuckerBorg? Now there is a classic example of a sociopathic android.
GJ, the wife and I were discussing Zuckerborg yesterday. She said there was something unearthly about him. I concurred and added that he was a very strange looking epitome of a psychopath. We had already discussed the possibility he and Gates might be the real reptilian creatures some posit as they both have snake eyes. Zuckerborg is the hidden slither around the corner while Gates is the more animated trying to blend in with humans and doing a bad job of it.
I concur with you and the Mrs., Eight- Sad thing is, that so many around us are complicit with these creeps, and even freely give them their money. Just make so0mething convenient and popular….you could be the Devil himself and nobody would care- they’d all rush to use his products.
Just kidding around. Yes Zuckerborg is the real android.
All I can say is this: the CA Democrats should watch how they treat one of their biggest supporters and employers. Are they DUMB?!
MM, you ask if California Democrats are “dumb”….I assume you’re speaking rhetorically, sir. Every wonder WHY California gets the derisive nickname “Granola” state? (i.e., Fruits, Nuts, and Flakes). I didn’t coin the term “Dummycrat” w/o REASON. With Governor “Pretty Boy”, and his EMPTY head, the party “leader” here in Sac town.
There’s no saving the once “Golden” State, unbridled, unchecked immigration, corruption, and the Democrat Party have ruined it beyond repair. There is but to take the remaining portions that are still somewhat like “Murica”, and join with likewise disaffected parts of Southern Oregon, and, the way things are going, Northern Nevada (maybe including Reno and Sparks, maybe not, it’s a tossup), and form the State of Jefferson.
http://www.soj51.org
Damn- Reno used to be a nice place- ‘Least it was when I last saw it, c. 1988.
The cancer (of liberal thinking) hath metastasized there, Nunz. Reno-Sparks is just more “Calipornia”, with casinos and no “last call” for drinks.
Douglas, we’ll all be safe soon. https://babylonbee.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6753249476fcd9d02359150a6&id=5f13537400&e=df5f63a4e2
Give Elon this: he is a BUSINESSMAN, and naturally he objects to unreasonable “fatwas” which are drastically harming his ability to run his company. Fine. Yes, his arguments in that regard are valid. But so would be the barber from Vacaville, or hairdresser from Dallas, or any number of folks whom have seen their livelihoods destroyed, in many cases irreparably, by these “fatwas”, handed down and enforced by bureaucrats and pompous politicians and judges whom aren’t worried about THEIR paychecks.
Yes, Elon is very much a “rent-seeker”, and the whole Tesla enterprise would be nothing like it is without the Gubmint handouts and tax credits and other unfair breaks. But he’s right to say, “screw this, I’ll move OUT of ‘Commiefornia’ “, as would ANYONE. Hell, Eric in as little as a year’s time, when I “ree-tahr”, the plan is already to move out to a state that doesn’t have a state income tax at all, or, at least like “Yew-Tah”, doesn’t tax retirement income. That’s a built-in 5% “raise” by virtue of getting the “Duck outta Fodge” versus staying in CA. You can believe that IF somehow the Dummycrats regain the White House and the Senate this time around, they’ll look to change current Federal laws that forbid states from chasing down retirees that leave their state, as well as reverse the limits on “SALT” which they’re screaming bloody murder over.
According to Reuters, last week Elon qualified for a $700 billion stock option payout, by virtue of keeping Tesla’s six-month average stock market capitalization over $100 billion.
Now Elon gets to buy 1.69 million Tesla shares at $350 each, when the market price of existing shares is over $800 each.
Who is going to pay for this enormous stock option compensation package, one might ask.
It’s simple: printing more TSLA shares out of thin air is just like printing more paper 20-dollar bills. It means the holders of existing paper get diluted. More pieces of paper means each one is worth less.
Unlike corporate leaders who are smart enough (and ethical enough) to reward their investors so as to retain their future support, Elon’s shtick is LOOTING his investors in order to ostentatiously line his own pockets at their expense. SUCKERS!
He’s already looted taxpayers by going into businesses that wouldn’t exist without government subsidies. Is anyone surprised that Elon is now openly looting his investors with an abusive stock option plan?
In fact, Elon can pull this stock option scam eleven (11) more times, if TSLA’s market cap reaches fresh $50 billion increments higher. But at this rate of dilution, that’s unlikely. Elon’s plan seems to be grab the money, climb into his spaceship, and jet off to Mars where he will be free, FREE from fellow humans and their annoying criticisms and lawsuits.
Hell, with a big enough laser mounted on a Martian mountaintop, Elon could zap this crappy planet to a smoking cinder and have the whole solar system to himself. NIRVANA!
You’ve confused your m’s and your b’s.
Musk was on Rogan recently talking C-19′ of course. Musk had the balls to say that people these days think that money comes from “some magic horn of plenty.” Well, for him, it does! Fucking hypocrite.
Hi Pappa,
Yup; listening to him is infuriating. He postures as a Libertarian but is arguably the apotheosis of rent-seeking and thus, the anti-matter opposite of Libertarian.
eric, I’d already heard my say “TexasNevada” as if it were one state. Why he didn’t say one or the other is anyone’s guess. But there’s something he’s not taking into account, the 30+ million people who lost their jobs are not getting them back. This is a “plandemic” and even the Chairman of the St. Louis said so in those words “everything is going as planned”. Bill Sardi puts charts and numbers to it.
https://lewrockwell.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad24f4cd1574f1f7b8a0a03a&id=3eee39c204&e=62e95e6f13
Elon, like most successful “businessman”, is a BS artist supreme, you HAVE to be in order to raise capital in the first place. I agree that his newly-found disingenuous and self-serving, but let’s make USE of him! Then folks may finally be swung over to demand their freedom, if for no else than “if it’s ok for Elon, why not ME?”. That’s been the whole fucking argument all along, but everyone was too busy lining up at Walley World and hoping to get some toilet paper to not sit down and work out the implications of some businesses and/or operations being deemed “essential”, while others are NOT, without any reasonable basis as to purported S-A-A-A-A-F-T-E-E-E. And at least it’s revealed the elitists and statists for whom and what they REALLY are, which is nothing that the “Founding Fookers” would have deemed risking their very lives, let alone their livelihoods, worthy of.
Dont know what to make of this strange new post corona world. On one hand – quite enjoy watching the lefties turn on themselves. On the other hand, I find myself agreeing with Musk, and I don’t like that….
Hi Nasir!
Of course, Musk is right… the problem is he’s also wrong. The guy annoys me on several levels, particularly that he is often referred to as a “Libertarian” – which is like referring to a soy patty as hamburger. I’d be in his corner and defend him with all my power if he weren’t a rent-seeker. I wish he had taken his PayPal fortune and used some of it – his own money – to found a company devoted to designing and building a highly-efficient and highly affordable car, electric or otherwise. A real alternative to the bloated, over-equipped, overpriced cars people are effectively forced to buy, if they want a new car.
Imagine a $12,000 electric commuter car, for instance. Small and light enough to go as fast as 60 or so MPH – and thus capable of short hops on the highway, when necessary – with a range of 100 miles. Very possible given the available technology.
Or: An $8,000 IC economy car, also ultra-light and so not needing more than a 60 hp engine and capable of averaging 100 MPG and able to maintain 70-75 on the highway, with a range of 400 miles on 5-6 gallons of fuel.
Elon could have done that. And if he had, he’d be a Libertarian – and he’d have a claim on our sympathy.
“Imagine a $12,000 electric commuter car, for instance. Small and light enough to go as fast as 60 or so MPH – and thus capable of short hops on the highway, when necessary – with a range of 100 miles. Very possible given the available technology.”
Hi Eric this may be your ticket https://www.businessinsider.com/electra-meccanica-solo-first-drive-pictures-2018-5
If you like your CARB approved fumble bumble gas can you can keep your fumble bumble gas can. A bureaucratic masterpiece with revisions. Welcome to the drug addicted progressive California carnivore government the rest of us live in Elon.
Hi Torino,
Those wretched gas containers – plastic now, not metal (Because Ethanol) are everywhere. I get a perverse pleasure sloshing – spilling – gas every time I have to fill up the mower.
There you go, CARB – and “environmentalists.”
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=metal+gas+can&i=automotive&crid=39C9HD2TMCPAV&sprefix=metal+gas+ca%2Caps%2C178&ref=nb_sb_ss_c_2_12
You can still get metal cans, just cost more. Still worth it though.
All those extra parts to take the place of a removable plastic cover over a hole in the can to allow air to displace the removed gasoline. What stupid idiotic nonsense. A $5 can that now costs minimum of $35 just to please a stupid bureaucrap.
Well, “2020: The Movie” is certainly interesting and fascinating and has a lot of plot twists LOL
But I think the scriptwriters are on crack!
Hi Anon,
One of the characteristics of our time is incoherence. It’s hard to have a conversation about anything when people feel – rather than reason. When the former assumptions that facts and logic are the basis of a debate are no longer assumed. When words no longer have meanings except those chosen by the speaker/writer, fungible at whim.
Out of the ethers
comes a man named Elon.
From PayPal vig,
His first stock scheme gig,
Made a billion or two,
Now his ego’s the size of a rig.
Billion dollar Elon,
Building Teslas and SpaceX rockets,
Figured out a game called I’m a prophet,
From freebies and graft,
He stole from the daft,
Now he’s smoking up
on Joe Rogan’s podcast.
Hi Anon,
I like Rogan; he’s smart and seems like a regular guy. But – like depressingly many guys – he doesn’t base his questions/analysis on principles and go from there. Like so many Americans, he is a utilitarian – what “works” – which leaves him open to accepting all sorts of loathsome ideas without appreciating the loathsomeness of it. What “works” being very subjective and your view may perhaps be quite different from Joe’s (or Elon’s) and you’d really prefer to not have what others believe “works” imposed on you nor be forced to fund it.
I occasionally garner some good content from Rogan, but by and large he is far too much a friend of tyranny. Like the masses he panders to, he still harbors the fantasy that forcing others to do what he thinks they should is a solution. He’s not the #1 Youtube podcaster because he has a unique perspective, but because he’s a “regular guy”, of a common mind with his highly misinformed audience.
Hi JWK,
Yup. It’s depressing how casual, how glibly authoritarian he and others like him are. The always used “we” need this; that “plan” is good. It’s unconscious tyrannical, like a rooster pecking at a red dot on the sideboard.
I really believe that these media personalities exist to grab the people around the fringes and drag them into the mainstream- Ya know- “Two-party system”- pick your poison- the only difference is that one pays lip service to some mantra of vaguely-conservative idiom, and the other to a liberal mantra.
eric, I can’t stand Rogan. He has no good sense and only wants to be a celebrity. He’s a raving anti-gunner but loves the country that uses it’s guns on it’s population….such as right now. I have yet to hear him bleat on a subject I agree with him. He’s a wanna be Bill Maher.
Hi Eight,
I’ll sidle over to your side on this one! I don’t watch/listen to him often but the few times I have, he’s been as predictable as Pravda when it comes to “sensible” (says him) “solutions” (for us, on our behalf).
E-loon is just like the average American: They love the tyranny when it benefits them, or is in sync with their own values and ideals….but it is contrary to what they want, they complain. (They never demand actual freedom- because they always want the benefits that government coercion and redistribution of wealth provides for them….they just want a different tyranny, that will favor them at the expense of those whom they don’t like/don’t care about.
Just like the Tea-Party nuts who chanted “Medicare for Americans”- Not “Dismantle Medicare!”.
And how foolish E-loon looks [Even more so than before]- You mean to tell me, he failed to notice the tyranny extant in California until now?! What a douche!
Morning, Nunz!
Yup. I’ve mentioned my (ex) “conservative” friend, who is a fanatic defender of the 2A but also an equally fanatic defender of armed government workers, unable to grasp the cognitive dissonance.
And: Back in the early 2000s, when I attended a few Tea Party gatherings and found myself literally shouted down by aged “conservatives” defending “their” Social Security and people my own age enraged by my criticism of property taxes and government schools. Such people are worse than liberals because they are the grossest hypocrites. At least liberals are open about their collectivism and coercion; they don’t pretend to believe in “less government” and so on.
***”Such people are worse than liberals because they are the grossest hypocrites. At least liberals are open about their collectivism and coercion; they don’t pretend to believe in “less government” and so on.”***
Ah! Well-said, Eric! I know people like that, and they are every bit as loathsome as libruls. They may share some views on some issues with us, but it doesn’t matter, because they just want to use the power of the state to mandate those ideals on everyone. Just more people pushing the brand of tyranny which they are comfortable with. Most people never get past that- they just hook-up with the group or party which represents their own values and what they are personally comfortable with, and hope to use numbers to gain control of the tyranny and use it to impose their ways on everyone.
Elon is a psychopath CEO.
psychopathic CEOs she has worked with were sent off to boarding school at a young age, and experienced institutionalised humiliation and violence during their time there.
https: // http://www.businessinsider.com .au/ ceos-often-have-psychopathic-traits-2017-7 (spaced out link for spam filter)
…Musk was severely bullied throughout his childhood and was once hospitalized after a group of boys threw him down a flight of stairs.[39][43][47][48]
Musk attended Waterkloof House Preparatory School and Bryanston High School[47] before graduating from Pretoria Boys High School.[48]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Early_life
Clearly the man needs help. He won’t get it because the Sand Hill Road guys think that Hitler would have been alright if only he had “adult supervision.” Besides everyone makes a whole lot of money betting on him. But at some point the bad dogs need to be put down, no matter how good they are in the pits.
It is both psychotic and skeptical, and psychiatric and cynical. That would be all denial.
As long as I hate anyone, there will be someone to hate me.
Maybe, I hate you, Are you obligated to hate me?
The higher the MPG minimums – the state wants 50 MPG by 2025
Which these tyrannical bozos know damned well is impossible as long as corn liquor, er, sorry, “ethanol” remains a component of gasoline.
Incidentally, and forgive me if this blatantly obvious question has already been asked and answered elsewhere, but how is it that Big Oil, a VERY powerful arm of the Deep State cabal, is permitting the forced advancement of electric vehicles, something that stands to catastrophically impact their profits? CogDis indeed!
Maybe being hit in his wallet – and having his freedom to do business Corona’d will cure Elon of his cognitive dissonance.
It could be just the therapy he needs.
Highly doubtful. Such a change requires not only empathy, but a moral compass and sociopaths like Elon don’t have either one.
Liberranter:
Good point. Why are all the power groups singing the same tune even when it is apparently against their particular interests. A really paranoid person might think there was a “conspiracy”. Nah, can’t be big oil and the green energy folks working together. Better get Michael on it he can do a documentary exposing the conflicts.
50 mpg doesn’t have to be possible. The current EPA tests don’t use E10 or E15. They use good old regular 87 or 91 Octane for their mileage testing. Also, the posted mileage on your new car does reflect what the car does on the EPA cycle. The EPA still uses the old 1978 forumula of 55 percent city and 45 percent highway rating for its combined fuel economy rating. It uses the old tests. The newer tests, initiated in 2008 are done for the window stickers only. Confusing, eh?
Hi Swamp,
My take on this is the mileage reporting ought to be a privately done thing, like Underwriters Laboratories does for electronic devices. The government ought to have nothing to do with decreeing – or even posting – mileage numbers. The court system could be used to suss out fraudulent claims; beyond that, let the market determine whether MPGs are a Big Deal – and how they ought to be rated/reported,if at all!
Not only that, but we need an UL version of the FDA, and also one for doctors and hospitals. But ending those government agencies, just isn’t possible, as long as the various industry lobby groups own the politicians. Can you even imaging the howling and fear mongering, that the corporate mass media would be pushing?
Hi BJ,
Of course – in re the howling – and notwithstanding that the UL does a fine job of rating appliances.
UL doesn’t rate appliances or anything. UL has a set of standards to which for electrical stuff everything right down to the components must conform to. Then UL tests the finished product.
I’ve had a few things in my career go through UL. It’s not a fun process. I’ve also had to deal with the FDA regulations in my career. Which was someone else’s problem because the FDA is mostly bureaucratic and companies hire people who specialize in that. So long as I picked material from the lists and that sort of thing I didn’t have much to worry about. UL needs everything to be in their good graces for electrical stuff. Mechanical and gas powered products are easier. Once upon a time I had to find specially approved heat shrink tubing of all things. There was exactly one that met the UL requirements for the product and where in the product it was used. One. Thankfully I was able to obtain it.
All the oil companies are heavily invested in those subsidized electric schemes. It’s a win/win for them.
What the won’t be hot on, unless they control it completely, is energy by thorium. There’s no money in it, for the most part, in producing fissile material….not that it can’t be but it’s not nearly on the scale of uranium. The biggest negative is a small amount of thorium in a house sized reaction would power the house for more than a lifetime. And thorium is replete and one of the cheapest minerals to mine (it’s right on the surface). The deserts are piled up high with thorium tails in places where it’s cheaper to mine for uranium than drill and flush it out of the ground. p;[” So what is p;[” ? That was Two Tone going by. He’s pretty good.
[