Posted on 12/21/2013 2:29:10 PM PST by nickcarraway
In the movie Elysium, the wealthy and privileged flee Earth to inhabit a Larry Niven-like artificial ringworld, leaving the rest of humanity behind on a destitute planet. The future, if left to Elon Musk, bears an eerie resemblance to Elysium.
Musk, the chief executive officer (CEO) and chief technology officer (CTO) of SpaceX, the CEO of Tesla Motors, and chairman of the board of SolarCity, doesn’t care about the poor or middle-class and his business models prove it. The technology-centric crowd fawns over Musk like he is the second coming of Steve Jobs. He is a creative problem solver who looks to the future. However, his products serve only the wealthy and elite.
Government support through taxpayer and ratepayer subsidies of a billionaire’s business models is a form of fascism, blind to your labels of liberal and conservative.
There was a recent article in Quartz,”Why Elon Musk is a Utility Executive’s Worst Nightmare” fawning over SolarCity for upending the traditional power companies. Here is what they are all missing. Only homeowners can lease those solar panels that SolarCity installs. How many low, and even middle-income people are homeowners in California? The same California, and particularly Santa Cruz, which is one of the most expensive states and metro areas in the country. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Santa Cruz’s homeownership rate is 59.4 percent and California overall is 56.7 percent compared to the national average of 66.1 percent.
Traditional power companies, like Pacific Gas & Electric, still maintain the power lines, transformers, substations and equipment for connecting those houses to the grid, yet SolarCity bears none of those costs. So, the lower- to middle-income renter subsidizes SolarCity and their customers through higher rates on electricity. Ratepayers in California have spent $1.68 billion on these subsidies to the benefit of SolarCity, competitors of SolarCity, their customers, and other industry players.
How many coal, natural gas, or oil power plants have been removed? Zero. Not one of those polluting plants has been decommissioned in California. One nuclear plant, San Onofre, is being taken off-line and not as a result of solar installations, but because of actual problems at the plant. The result of San Onofre’s discontinuance of contributing power to the grid is concern about rolling blackouts.
Is that fair, equitable, or just?
Don’t forget that those solar panels, constructed in the name of clean energy, are manufactured in heavily polluting China. They are then transported across the ocean in bunker fuel-burning super freighters that produce massive amounts of pollution, and installed only to have high failure rates since the Chinese stole the solar panel manufacturing industry. When the sun isn’t shining, do you turn off your lights, refrigerator, television, and computer? So much for SolarCity providing an environmental benefit, since the coal, oil, gas, and nuclear plants are still required as base-load power sources on the grid.
It makes sense that Mr. Musk is heavily involved in a solar power company since his automobile company, Tesla Motors, makes electric vehicles. Electric vehicles that must plug into that electric grid for charging the lithium-ion batteries used to power the car. Tesla only makes vehicles for the top 5 percent earners in the United States. The base Model S starts at $62,500, which includes a taxpayer funded $7,500 incentive. Who pays those taxes again? We all do, including lower- and middle-income families. Now we subsidize both the power and the purchase of the vehicle using that power, all for the upper middle-class and above.
This is all starting to look like a regressive series of tax incentives benefiting the advantaged few on the backs of the many, isn’t it?
Tesla also builds a very large lithium-ion battery for use in their vehicles. This size battery is highly energy intensive to manufacture, resulting in a very long lifespan necessary to return the energy invested. Furthermore, lithium-ion batteries contain toxic and hazardous materials that lack a robust recovery, recycling and reuse industry.
Oh, but Elon Musk is a tremendous philanthropist, many might argue. It is true that he has signed on to The Giving Pledge, meaning he will give most of his wealth away before he dies. In the meantime, we have homeless, hungry and sick people that need help. His companies consume tax dollars from budgets, and his philanthropy today is limited to grid-connected solar panel systems. Musk is also founder and chairman of the Musk Foundation, which is mainly focused on solar and space.
Why do we continue spending taxpayer and ratepayer money to support billionaires, even the darlings of tech?
Ethan Bearman is a writer and talk show host of the nationally syndicated “Ethan Bearman Show” on GCN, KSCO Presents, Tech Talk with Ethan Bearman on KBYR. Visit ethanbearman.com.
“Elon Musk” sounds like the kind of perfume that accidentally attracts stray dogs to you.
How is that blind to the label? Government funding and subsidizing corporations is indeed liberal/fascist/socialist in my book.
Why does Elon Musk cater to rich people? To quote Willie Sutton, “that’s where the money is.”
Dear Mr. Bearman,
If a Tesla roadster sold for $ 45.00, how long do
you think he would stay in business?
Would he make it up in volume??
Economic morons will be the death of us.
Or deliberately does. :=)
It’s “fascist” only in the sense that intervening in the economy and using ostensibly “private” companies as agents of the government was one thing Fascist governments did. It’s also something a lot of non-Fascists governments have done.
Certainly this is non-conservative, since economic conservatism, as commonly understood, holds that the free choice of consumers, independent of government manipulation, should determine the success or failure of products or companies.
Good point.
So let’s see, here we are on freerepublic.com, complaining about someone who doesn’t cater to poor people...
The bigger point, though, is that lots of times technology is more expensive early in the adoption cycle. Only wealthy folks could afford the first Fords for instance...
Musk is an entrepreneurial genius, and one of the few in these times that compares to Ford and Edison...
bump
That makes one if us who thinks so. He's an ultraradical left winger who uses government money to perpetuate Ponzi schemes.
Are you sure? Maybe give that another read ...
Okay, that was my worst mistype ever. And I am a terrible typer.
What you fail to understand is he uses government to subsidize the downside/risk of his businesses while his high end clients and he get the upside.
I could care a less who he caters to. Don’t demand money from me to do it through government extortion.
If he’s such a brilliant businessman he shouldn’t need government to make his business model work.
LOL! We knew what you meant.
exactly
Manure-spreading Musk PR hacks work FR for sure, but he’s hardly different from seat belt or air bag manufacturers, or alternative-fuel producers, or any of many other businesses whose markets are enhanced by government mandates.
It’s really quite simple; new world order is in full control, most rich folks are either knowingly or unknowingly fully participating in it.
New world order is like the most vicious, ruthless, crazy, evil, gangster-type mentality.
NWO calls the shots for government, which serves NWO.
Therefore...
They view paying taxes as NOT for them, but for the “little people”.
NWO views federal dollars as THEIRS for the taking. They take from the government, they don’t give to it. And government goes and takes from the sheeple.
It’s like every payday a guy shows up when you cash your check, and he robs you of 20% or 30% of it.
No matter HOW LITTLE you make, even if it’s $10k per year or less. Cuz your still payin’ employment taxes. That’s money TO the gubmint.
NWO views everyone who is not criminal and rich as idiots, saps, weaklings, not worthy of living, etc.
NWO RUNS almost ALL the do-gooder charitable foundations, the big Church denominations, unions, socialist/communist movements, etc. They are all simply a big catch-all trick to suck all the “little people” in so they think they are “opposing” “the rich”.
Instead, all those organizations corral these sheeple down the same path - they all support the candidates the organizations specifiy, the causes they specify, etc.
It’s so obvious only a moron could not see it - but it’s tricky and subtle. I only started to get it recently.
The “evil rich” are behind ALL the global warming, 99%, drug legalization, healthcare for all, etc., movements.
Hello sheeple, you’re not opposing the evil rich, you’re stepping right in line to help them enslave you.
Sheeple are enslaved because they have been tricked.
If you have any debt at all you’re enslaved. If you have one penny invested in Wall Street you’re enslaved. If you have cash in the bank you’re enslaved. If you pay taxes you’re enslaved. Etc.
Obviously, it’s impossible to avoid at this point.
But as sheeple wake up and smell the coffee, they can start taking off their chains by turning to God instead of rejecting him, gaining personal net worth, start exerting influence in society.
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