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Originally Posted by Cynthetiq
No it's not false. Since they should have been doing such things for years, lobbying against raising of the CAFE standards is money they could have used to put in this direction.
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You'll get no argument from me there. Believe me I do not view the automakers as anything close to innocent in this situation. I agree that they should have been putting their lobbying money into making more efficient cars from the get-go, but to stop them from lobbying, we have to stop treating corporations as persons, with the right to free speech and the right to petition the government, and that's a whole other argument that's well outside the scope of this thread. (Though one that would be good to chew on some day).
But, whatever they did with their money before, now they need to do the R&D with it, and provided the government is giving them a loan instead of free money, I'm fine with the government helping to hurry the process up.
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As far is it being a true loan, I don't know, it sounds free since I don't know the details and stipulations of the return payments, ie interest free means you and I shoulder it.
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Only the theoretical lost interest. We don't shoulder the principal. At worst we shoulder the cost of inflation.
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My small business doesn't get such generous loans.
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And I do have a problem with that, especially when you're talking about small business like Tesla, who are already doing research into alternative energy sources for vehicles. But again, that discussion is starting to get outside of the scope of this thread.
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Now, few banks are willing to loan them money if they were to get them off the street, well isn't that the point of issuing stock to raise funds and capital for such types of projects? Or is it just to churn and burn money and profiteer?
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You and I both know the answer to that. A corporation exists to make as much money as possible. But it isn't the fault of the current administration that for the last 30 years government has been rabidly cutting back on regulations on corporation's money making procedures.
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I will suffer from not retrofitting since we burn #6 oil about 2-3 trucks a day across 1600 apartments. Our fuel bills went from $2M to $14M in about 5 years.
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So that $12M increase has happened already, before this bill was even discussed in session. Fuel prices are increasing, and they will continue to increase as the supply dwindles (whether it dwindles because of actual supply shortfalls or because the oil cartels are screwing with us really doesn't matter to your bank account). Why not see this bill as a way to embrace reduced demand for that oil. After all, even if you personally don't retrofit your apartments, if they get people in, say, the upper midwest, where heating energy use in the winter is extremely high, to use less oil, that would lower the demand and therefore the price to you.
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Originally Posted by aceventura3
No. I work like most great artists. Basically you start with a little tease and then gradually lead to a mind numbing climax, followed by a satisfying denouement.
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Do I need a cigarette for this?
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I am simply not going to play the game of - if you don't support this legislation, you don't give a shit about the environment.
If you acknowledge that, I will move forward with you.
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That isn't the game I'm playing either. I'm saying if you don't support this bill, give us a better reason than "Crap, it'll cost money to upgrade our infrastructure," because the country's infrastructure has been neglected for over 3 decades, and it's high time we start modernizing it if we want to stay in the first world.