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Obama-backed electric car battery-maker files for bankruptcy

Money is the root of it all.
If the product is to be viable, and so very few if any are actually developing the technology... once said technology is developed those with a monopoly on this type of product would stand to make lots of money.

Which means, why wouldn't private companies invest in this? Might it be because it isn't all that viable, and won't be all that profitable?

No, that's where positive externalities come in. A positive externality is a benefit of a business activity that the business can't charge for. So, for example, you could have a company that provides a service that generates $100 a year in profit for them, but also generates $100 in positive externalities. If it costs $150 to run the company, it will stop operating because it is losing $50 a year. But, overall, the company operating actually generates $50 of profit per year, it's just that the company can't capture that profit.

So that's where the government needs to step in. To find a way to help the company realize that profit. Maybe by subsidizing the product, maybe by somehow forcing the people who benefit to pay for that benefit, maybe by helping the company exclude those who don't pay from getting the benefit, etc. The market alone won't correctly pick which companies should survive if there are uncontrolled positive externalities in the mix.
 
Obama-backed electric car battery-maker files for bankruptcy

How much money did the taxpayers lose this time???
 
So that's where the government needs to step in. To find a way to help the company realize that profit. Maybe by subsidizing the product, maybe by somehow forcing the people who benefit to pay for that benefit, maybe by helping the company exclude those who don't pay from getting the benefit, etc. The market alone won't correctly pick which companies should survive if there are uncontrolled positive externalities in the mix.

And more bail outs are in the works?

These large sums of money are not being given away to fix anything. It's flat out robbery of the American people, period

Let them fail and let the bloodbath begin. Otherwise no one on Wall Street learns from their mistakes.
 
What? No, I didn't say that...

The measure of success is the positive externalities generated. The issue is that you guys are trying to measure it's success based on success in the market. That's the wrong measure. Certainly, the company needs to survive to generate positive externalities, but it could be that only 1 in 100 companies survive, but that one invents a kind of solar cell that produces twice as much electricity, and then it would all be way worth it.

Even private venture capital firms in high tech industries shoot for something like 5% success in their investments. To try to pretend that the whole program must be a failure because a couple companies go bankrupt is ridiculous.



Yes, yes... So right wing pundits blather all the time...



Obviously that doesn't make sense.... It isn't like you just invent the electric car and then that's that, no more need to develop them any further... That attitude would have left us driving Model T's still...

It didn't take one dollar of subsidy money for the Model T to become the Lincoln Mark IV, the Boss 429 or any modern Ford. Nor did it take subsidy to produce the Nissan all-electric Leaf.

The Obama insanity was to throw $500,000,000! on a project to build - in FINLAND claiming NO American facility has car manufacturing ability - an electric car expected to retail for over $100,000 - meaning a pipe dream that the rich would care about gas prices and buy them - spending literally $250,000,000 EACH for the TWO that were produced.

(But the most eye-opening welfare for the rich has been handouts to auto millionaires like Fisker Automotive’s Henrik Fisker and Tesla’s Elon Musk — builders of electric chariots for the well-to-do. Fisker has received $529 million in taxpayer money and Tesla $465 million.)
http://www.nissanusa.com/leaf-elect...id!.&dcc=ecid!.eaid!#/leaf-electric-car/index
 
It didn't take one dollar of subsidy money for the Model T to become the Lincoln Mark IV, the Boss 429 or any modern Ford. Nor did it take subsidy to produce the Nissan all-electric Leaf.

You seem to be just ignoring my whole argument. Positive externalities. The market doesn't take positive externalities into account on it's own. What is your response?
 
Who were the private investors who started the internet? Who were the private investors who created the GPS satellite system? Who were the private investors who started manned space flight? Who were the private investors who started nuclear power generation? The list goes on and on. There is a long history of our government investing in technology that ended up changing the world.

The government also funds a LOT of medical research. Obviously it doesn't all pan out. Does that mean it isn't worth doing?
 
Obviously it doesn't all pan out. Does that mean it isn't worth doing?

It is one thing to think there is a good plan and later find out you were wrong and there were flaws. It is quite another to have those flaws pointed out to you before it became a crisis and you actively oppose efforts to correct the system. All the while using it to reap financial and political rewards.​
 
It is one thing to think there is a good plan and later find out you were wrong and there were flaws. It is quite another to have those flaws pointed out to you before it became a crisis and you actively oppose efforts to correct the system. All the while using it to reap financial and political rewards.​

I agree. Clearly the Solyndra deal was a **** up. That doesn't mean that they all are.
 
Who were the private investors who started the internet? Who were the private investors who created the GPS satellite system? Who were the private investors who started manned space flight? Who were the private investors who started nuclear power generation? The list goes on and on. There is a long history of our government investing in technology that ended up changing the world.

The government also funds a LOT of medical research. Obviously it doesn't all pan out. Does that mean it isn't worth doing?

You are right...

But when "green energy" technology keeps failing... Solar, Now Fancy Batteries...

Its time to "pull the plug" on it.
 
You are right...

But when "green energy" technology keeps failing... Solar, Now Fancy Batteries...

Its time to "pull the plug" on it.

I disagree. While the administration should have paid better attention to Solyndra, the reason they went under was drastic reduction in the cost of a competing solar cell technology.

Prior to our investment in lion auto batteries, the top eight manufacturers were all based in China, Japan, or S. Korea. With increasing fuel standards, hybrids, plugin hybrids, and EVs will become increasingly popular. If we don't develop this industry now, we will be hopelessly behind when demand picks up. Been there, done that.

Needless to say, the Chinese and South Korean manufacturers receive government assistance.

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/...isguided-assessment-of-clean-car-investments/
 
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Who were the private investors who started the internet? Who were the private investors who created the GPS satellite system? Who were the private investors who started manned space flight? Who were the private investors who started nuclear power generation? The list goes on and on. There is a long history of our government investing in technology that ended up changing the world.

The government also funds a LOT of medical research. Obviously it doesn't all pan out. Does that mean it isn't worth doing?

Is what went on here, what went on there?
 
personally, I believe in the technology, but I think it is time for many people to wake up to what is going on with these companies. Obama is fastracking these loans to these companies and basically giving them a no overhead start or boost. But, rather than investing back into their business, they pocket these insane loans and then file bankrupcty soon after. This is the corruption in todays government and yet another example of how the Obama administration is not in any way working on behalf of the American people who it supposedly represnts.

I have no problems with the government investing in technology that helps with energy independence and creates work. I have serious problems when it invests in companies that are completly bogus and basically throws money into already wealthy peoples pockets. These "clean energy" investments are being done with dirty money. WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!
 
Very much so. What do you see as my arguement?

Well, you're putting up an example of a government agency accomplishing an amazing task, one that did involve private industry as well.

You are right...

But when "green energy" technology keeps failing... Solar, Now Fancy Batteries...

Its time to "pull the plug" on it.

Incredibly short-sighted. You'd be trading foreign oil dependency for other foreign products.
 
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Well, you're putting up an example of a government agency accomplishing an amazing task, one that did involve private industry as well.

It was not completely reliant upon something that could go bankrupt was it? Was getting to the moon based upon the idea that a profit had to be made to do it? If we had funded a Haliburtion to take us to the moon, do you think we would have ever got there?
 
It was not completely reliant upon something that could go bankrupt was it? Was getting to the moon based upon the idea that a profit had to be made to do it? If we had funded a Haliburtion to take us to the moon, do you think we would have ever got there?

So what you're saying is that private industry is terrible at doing things so we should just cut them out of the process of innovation?

But your analogy doesn't quite fit right because this is a small task (development of car batteries|develop thruster nozzle reaction unit thingyjig) as part of a larger goal (replace gas car fleet/infrastructure with electric|get onto moon)

NASA didn't do everything itself. Some of its moon-related ventures failed. And you're right, it didn't worry about the bottom line. Some of those ventures failed, cost tax dollars. Oh well, press on.

So I guess we agree. Sometimes things don't work out. Oh well. Press on.
 
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So what you're saying is that private industry is terrible at doing things so we should just cut them out of the process of innovation?

No, private industry is great at doing many things.

But your analogy doesn't quite fit right because this is a small task (development of car batteries|develop thruster nozzle reaction unit thingyjig) as part of a larger goal (replace gas car fleet/infrastructure with electric|get onto moon)

If it's such a small task, why the bankruptcy?

NASA didn't do everything itself. Some of its moon-related ventures failed. And you're right, it didn't worry about the bottom line. Some of those ventures failed, cost tax dollars. Oh well, press on.

So I guess we agree. Sometimes things don't work out. Oh well. Press on.

Never mind you didn't answer my question.
 
all anyone had to do was say NASA and ya got my attention lol. I have never minded the government funding a project or department, such as NASA and the moon missions. What one must remember is back in those days, the government would fund an agency and project, then turn to the private sector to have it built. If it wasn't for the private sector, we would have never got off the ground. That is not how things work these days. at least no where near where it used to. Now we are funding companies but not to build things, but merely to exist after their failure. What's worse is often times we are funding them while they drastically decrease their output and lay off sometimes thousands of people. Sometimes we are merely funding bogus companies who whose CEO's take the money and run then declare bankruptcy. We should go back to funding projects and companies that create, not desecrate.
 
No, they sent it to 10,000 scientists.

Apologies, I thought you were referring to a different study.

Anyway, 70% of the scientists didn't even respond to the survey, and only seventy-nine of them were "climate scientists", whatever that means. If you think seventy-nine climate scientists are representative of the "climate science" community, then you need to retake statistics 101.

Every single scientist on record with a university or government institution as being any kind of earth scientists. It is, by far, the biggest survey every completed of scientists on the topic. If we don't go with the results from that, what is the alternative? Just making things up willy nilly?

http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf

They surveyed 10,000 but only got a response from 3,146. I'll see your 3,146 and raise you 9,029 PhDs: Global Warming Petition Project

Yeah, they're the subsection that studies the climate.

Technically speaking, every scientist studies "the climate", as "the climate" is nothing more than the aggregation of globalized physical phenomena. Physicists, chemists, biologists, geologists, meteorologists, engineers, mathematicians, statisticians, etc., are all in fields that are relevant to "the climate" or to climate modeling or to the basic application of the scientific method. Citing a survey (not a very scientific sampling method, by the way) that only consists of seventy-nine so-called "climatologists" as evidence that 97% of "climate scientists" say AGW has been "scientifically proven" is just ridiculous and demonstrates a profound ignorance of basic statistical methodology and scientific nomenclature. The mere phrase "scientifically proven" is itself a contradiction in terms. Hypotheses are not "proven" in science, one can only fail to reject them.

I do. As does the Obama administration. Dr. Chu- the secretary of energy- is focused on a plan to convert over to primarily nuclear over the course of the next 50 years. The problem is that it isn't really totally ready for primetime yet safetywise and it takes forever to deploy plants and they're really expensive. So, he wants to fill in the gap with alternative energy. I think that's about right.

I commend you for not reflexively rejecting nuclear energy like so many liberals are apt to do, but I think your fixation on green energy and AGW is clouding your judgement as it concerns the immediate energy needs of our country.

Brian
 
Apologies, I thought you were referring to a different study.

Anyway, 70% of the scientists didn't even respond to the survey, and only seventy-nine of them were "climate scientists", whatever that means. If you think seventy-nine climate scientists are representative of the "climate science" community, then you need to retake statistics 101.

A 30% return rate is considered pretty good for any survey. It does not detract from the results. Flagging that as a problem might call into question one's credibility on matters statistical.

Likewise, 79 climate scientists is quite likely a reasonable number to draw conclusions about what climate scientists think. You have to keep in mind that there are probably fewer than 5,000 climatologists in the world. Using that (probably too large) number, the survey encompassed about 1.5% of climatologists. Keep in mind that national polling firms regularly draw statistically valid conclusions about ALL Americans by polling 1,000 or fewer people -- a far far smaller percentage.
 
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Anyway, 70% of the scientists didn't even respond to the survey, and only seventy-nine of them were "climate scientists", whatever that means. If you think seventy-nine climate scientists are representative of the "climate science" community, then you need to retake statistics 101.

Statistically it's ultra representative. For example, if you want to poll all Americans' approval rating of a politician, you need to get around 400 responses to have a 5% margin of error. 3142 of 10,000 scientists gives you a margin of error of 1.4%.

It doesn't say how many climatologists there are, but they got a 31% response rate overall and 157 (5% of 3146) climatologists responded. So, if we assume that was around 31% too, we get 157 out of 506. That gives us a margin of error of 6.5%.

They surveyed 10,000 but only got a response from 3,146. I'll see your 3,146 and raise you 9,029 PhDs: Global Warming Petition Project

LOL. It's funny that you still were unaware that was a hoax 2 years later... Anybody can go there and fill out any information they want. There is no verification. Amongst the esteemed signatories are Bart Simpson, Scary Spice and I.P. Freely. The local paper picked 100 names at random and tried to figure out if they were real. They found that about 80 of them were totally made up- fake phone numbers, fake addresses, fake names. Then they found that about 10 were real people, but they were not connected to science in any way and did not have advanced degrees. Just run of the mill foxbots. About 5 they were unable to determine whether they were real or if they had signed it. 3 were real names and real info, and were really scientists, but when they contacted the person the person said they had not signed it and did in fact believe in AGW. Then there were two who were real people who had actually signed it and had some kind of advanced degree. One of them was a dentist, the other had a master's in finance.

That all came out way back when. I'm shocked they even still have the website up. lol.
 
A 30% return rate is considered pretty good for any survey. It does not detract from the results. Flagging that as a problem might call into question one's credibility on matters statistical.

Yes, a one-third response rate is typical for a survey, but typical does not automatically translate into a representative sample.

Likewise, 79 climate scientists is quite likely a reasonable number to draw conclusions about what climate scientists think.

That's only true if they're chosen at random.

You have to keep in mind that there are probably fewer than 5,000 climatologists in the world. Using that (probably too large) number, the survey encompassed about 1.5% of climatologists. Keep in mind that national polling firms regularly draw statistically valid conclusions about ALL Americans by polling 1,000 or fewer people -- a far far smaller percentage.

That's because they use randomized sampling methods.

Brian
 
Statistically it's ultra representative. For example, if you want to poll all Americans' approval rating of a politician, you need to get around 400 responses to have a 5% margin of error. 3142 of 10,000 scientists gives you a margin of error of 1.4%.

It's only a "representative" sample if the observational units (scientists) are chosen at random.

It doesn't say how many climatologists there are, but they got a 31% response rate overall and 157 (5% of 3146) climatologists responded. So, if we assume that was around 31% too, we get 157 out of 506. That gives us a margin of error of 6.5%.

It says that 79 "climate scientists" responded to the survey. Since they were not chosen at random, there is no way you can claim they're representative of the "climate science" population.

LOL. It's funny that you still were unaware that was a hoax 2 years later... Anybody can go there and fill out any information they want. There is no verification. Amongst the esteemed signatories are Bart Simpson, Scary Spice and I.P. Freely. The local paper picked 100 names at random and tried to figure out if they were real. They found that about 80 of them were totally made up- fake phone numbers, fake addresses, fake names. Then they found that about 10 were real people, but they were not connected to science in any way and did not have advanced degrees. Just run of the mill foxbots. About 5 they were unable to determine whether they were real or if they had signed it. 3 were real names and real info, and were really scientists, but when they contacted the person the person said they had not signed it and did in fact believe in AGW. Then there were two who were real people who had actually signed it and had some kind of advanced degree. One of them was a dentist, the other had a master's in finance.

That all came out way back when. I'm shocked they even still have the website up. lol.

Either you are lying or you've been terribly misinformed.

I used the search function (ctrl+f) and none of those names (Bart Simpson, Scary Spice, I.P. Freely) appeared on the list of signatories.

There is a verification process:

Opponents of the petition project sometimes submit forged signatures in efforts to discredit the project. Usually, these efforts are eliminated by our verification procedures. On one occasion, a forged signature appeared briefly on the signatory list. It was removed as soon as discovered.

In a group of more than 30,000 people, there are many individuals with names similar or identical to other signatories, or to non-signatories – real or fictional. Opponents of the petition project sometimes use this statistical fact in efforts to discredit the project. For examples, Perry Mason and Michael Fox are scientists who have signed the petition – who happen also to have names identical to fictional or real non-scientists.

Global Warming Petition Project

And your other claims are just unsubstantiated assertions.

If you cannot debate honestly, then you should stop wasting people's time.

Brian
 
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