Tesla repays DOE loans nearly a decade early.

The federal government isn't efficient.

And if current trends continue, all scenarios say that it will be even more inefficient in the year 2080.

Yep, purposefully prevent it from doing anything, and people lose faith in the idea that it can do anything. It's a pity that Republicans decided to kill what at one time could place a man on the Moon and create the Internet. At least the occasional Tesla still slips through.

Defund, Defang, Delegitimize, Destroy.

Which has more to do with the vision of Elon Musk than any triumph of government.

That's a pretty creepy sentiment, that a government, which is nothing more but force and coercion, instituted by men, is something we should have faith in. Seriously, it's just odd.

Yeah, nothing dogmatic there at all.

Or it's a social compact, freely entered in to. Did somebody force you to live in Oklahoma? The United States? Why did your parents insist on bringing a baby to this tyranny?

The best policy available when dealing with an awful president like, say, Obama is to obstruct his misguided agenda by any reasonable means and just wait the piece of shit out. When the two sides do cooperate, we get stuff like the Too Big to Fail Reform Act that doesn't actually end too big to fail.

Yeah, even if it's something sane like hurricane relief.

Those people will just have to "take one for the team".

Suffering is patriotism.

Criticism is heresy. Apostasy will not be tolerated. Is there some sort of pledge I should recite every morning? Would that make it better?

Last week you were Chad, now you're garamet.

The shmucks that operate on your ideological behalf seem to think it is.
Don't you read the news?
I think ya do.

You don't even have a passing acquaintance with my ideology, so forgive me I find you a bit off field when you imply you understand those who "operate" on my "behalf."

Technological progress notwithstanding, interference in the private sector by doling out billions to businesses and corporations will never end when there is the odd success to parade about. If you're going to accept Tesla, you're going to get future Goldman Sachs, AIGs, and Fannie and Freddies.

Oh, and it may be nothing, but now that Musk has bought a bunch of stock with money borrowed from Goldman Sachs to pay off the government loan which required him to maintain 65% ownership of the company, Musk has now unlocked that portion of stock he was required to retain.

Basically, he borrowed money from a loan shark to pay off the impound fee of his towed car that he can now use to high-tail it out of Dodge if the going gets tough.

Almost should be "present" not "future" when talking about Fannie and Freddie which are (again) off the Fed's balance sheet and gorging on subprime and generally putting every US taxpayer at risk of major loss. But technically I guess it's the future since they haven't imploded again yet - it'll take some time, if it even recurs because after all kicking the can has been perfected to nearly an artform in Washington.

Oh, and it was good fortune for Goldman to downgrade Tesla before lending money to Musk to invest in Tesla which resulted in a higher trading price.

It's a general mishmash of barbaric "free market", fundamentalist stupidity, if I can't call it conservatism, then what should it be labeled?

Go on, it's your land of make-believe, you get to make the rules.
Explore the wonder.

Not that I've ever said I was in favor of subsidies for banks and farms, but I bank and I eat. I need banks and farms. I don't buy a lot of $100,000 electric cars.

No, you'd have to have worked a full-time job for at least half your adult life or been able to sustain yourself solely through your own efforts for a period of time before you could even begin to comprehend my ideology. That's just a starting point. [And you said the words "free market" but nothing else in your glib insult had any genuine content, just the usual Dicky reactionary rant/screed.]

E.g. like say I went to a South African BBS in 1980s and started mouthing off about the political system there, the people there might look at me a certain way. You just can't relate to some things when your life experience and values are alien or unfathomable.

Paladin is about as Republican as you are.

That's certainly what I said

Strutting arrogance with nothing to warrant it, let's go with Randroidism.

And you would be right if only all those other companies that went belly up were actually pushing the industrial/technological envelope.

You know.....All those companies that got huge amounts of government money and then just went *poof* with nothing to show for it......

Government is God to the left.

Oh they won't ever admit it and will scream bloody murder that you accuse them of it but it's what they worship.

Has nothing to do with "libertopia" or some imagined neat little box.

If you have government invest in the private sector, POLITICIANS will be picking winners and losers, not the market. The government is big enough that, through investment, it can control which companies succeed and which ones don't. If you and I are competitors making widgets, but I get a sweetheart loan from the government to expand my business, you're fucked. You can't get a similar loan from the private sector, and the politicians are in my pocket.

I'm glad Tesla's taking off, but you should be aware that Tesla founder Musk is a BIG contributor to the DNC. You're supporting the kind of crony capitalism that you would almost certainly denounce if it weren't in the service of some "green" objective.

And let's not forget that for every Tesla, there are also Solyndras.

"Strutting arrogance" when all I demanded is for you to have been self-sustaining for a period of time.

Wow, with such a low set of expectations for yourself, do you wonder why so few people here (eveng amongst the lefties) feel there is any common ground with which to relate to you?

Hood was probably right. But then again, he went through the very hard work of becoming a physician. There it is again that awful bugaboo: hard work.

How childish. The real world isn't all or nothing.

As right as usual. Paladin has admitted to voting straight party line.

Many at Wordforge see it as that, all black and white, all them against me. At least Enlisted Person is man enough to admit his status as a simpleton.

Links?

I bet really stupid people think you're a silver tongued devil.