Wehrwolfen
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By TOM BLUMER
June 28, 2013
If not taxpayer-funded, the massive failure of warmism advocates would have been addressed long ago.
At a private firm, if a new product or idea loses — or is on track to lose — serious amounts of money, or if a research project is going nowhere, it gets killed (see: the Ford Edsel, New Coke, Apple Newton). Those who fall in love with these flame-outs and blindly defend them even when the handwriting is on the wall get fired.But within government?
If a new idea or product is failing or initially seems destined to fail, bureaucrats, their corporate beneficiaries, and their cronies work to get them underwritten or subsidized. The fact that the government is even involved likely indicates that the private sector knows better than to touch it without putting taxpayers on the hook. This explains why the Obama administration has had losers like Solyndra, A123 Battery, Beacon Power, and so many others in its energy “loan” portfolio.
When companies continue to flounder, governments usually either institutionalize their failures or double down on them.
Hopeless passenger-rail romantics and then-powerful rail unions couldn’t bear to see the end of nationwide train travel, so they convinced Congress to have the federal government take over the entire enterprise in the early 1970s. What followed were four decades of annual Amtrak losses averaging over $800 million, and benefiting far less than 0.1 percent of daily travelers nationwide. Recent narrower losses should — but won’t — bring on discussions of selling off Amtrak’s profitable routes to private firms and abandoning the losers once and for all.
After a $5,000 price reduction to about $28,500, the Chevy Volt, produced by General Motors — an entity which is still under de facto government control — still sells only about 1,600 units per month. The vehicle’s fully loaded cost to produce is about $75,000. Yet don’t expect GM to pull the plug, figuratively or literally, on their financially disastrous electric car experiment any time soon. Too much false pride is on the line.
(Excerpt)
Read more:
PJ Media » Failure Deniers: Climate Change and Public-Sector Science
Why is Obama and his administration continuing to spends the hundreds and millions of taxpayer money to fund these scams?
June 28, 2013
If not taxpayer-funded, the massive failure of warmism advocates would have been addressed long ago.
At a private firm, if a new product or idea loses — or is on track to lose — serious amounts of money, or if a research project is going nowhere, it gets killed (see: the Ford Edsel, New Coke, Apple Newton). Those who fall in love with these flame-outs and blindly defend them even when the handwriting is on the wall get fired.But within government?
If a new idea or product is failing or initially seems destined to fail, bureaucrats, their corporate beneficiaries, and their cronies work to get them underwritten or subsidized. The fact that the government is even involved likely indicates that the private sector knows better than to touch it without putting taxpayers on the hook. This explains why the Obama administration has had losers like Solyndra, A123 Battery, Beacon Power, and so many others in its energy “loan” portfolio.
When companies continue to flounder, governments usually either institutionalize their failures or double down on them.
Hopeless passenger-rail romantics and then-powerful rail unions couldn’t bear to see the end of nationwide train travel, so they convinced Congress to have the federal government take over the entire enterprise in the early 1970s. What followed were four decades of annual Amtrak losses averaging over $800 million, and benefiting far less than 0.1 percent of daily travelers nationwide. Recent narrower losses should — but won’t — bring on discussions of selling off Amtrak’s profitable routes to private firms and abandoning the losers once and for all.
After a $5,000 price reduction to about $28,500, the Chevy Volt, produced by General Motors — an entity which is still under de facto government control — still sells only about 1,600 units per month. The vehicle’s fully loaded cost to produce is about $75,000. Yet don’t expect GM to pull the plug, figuratively or literally, on their financially disastrous electric car experiment any time soon. Too much false pride is on the line.
(Excerpt)
Read more:
PJ Media » Failure Deniers: Climate Change and Public-Sector Science
Why is Obama and his administration continuing to spends the hundreds and millions of taxpayer money to fund these scams?
