MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Posts Tagged ‘bribes’

Schumer’s Electric Escort Service – EPautos – Libertarian Car Talk

Posted by M. C. on October 30, 2019

And then the government dried up the supply of affordable uses cars by paying people to hand them over to be crushed.

Fast-forward. People increasingly can’t afford homes. And soon, cars.

Because of Schumer’s “plan”  . . . only it is the plan.

First, bribe people into electric cars; then make it impossible for them to get out of them by leaving no alternative to them – the supply of affordable ICE cars having been eliminated. 

https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2019/10/28/schumers-electric-escort-service/

By eric

If you have to pay a girl to go out with you, there’s probably something wrong with you. Especially if you let yourself believe she is going out with you because she likes you.

The same applies to electric cars – which most people, if they’re honest with themselves, only “date” because they’re handed wads of bills as compensation for the EV’s many functional deficits – as well as its much higher expenses.

The compensation is tendered in the form of  tax kickbacks (paid for by other taxpayers) and various special privileges, such as “free” (and tax-free) electricity  . . . also paid for by others.

That this is absolutely essential – in terms of perpetrating the fiction of EV viability – tells us all we need to know about the viability of EVs.

They aren’t.

We know this because when the bribes are withheld, the EVs stop selling  . . . for the same reason the escort isn’t going to show up at your hotel room just because you ask her to.

Something else is required.

If EVs could be sold on the merits, the bribes wouldn’t be essential. And yet, they are.

QED, as the saying goes.

We’re not supposed to notice this. We are supposed to pretend the attraction is real rather than bribed. That there is a “market” for cars that cost 30-50 percent more than their non-electric equivalents, but which only go half as far (maybe, if you take it easy and don’t use the AC or heat too much) and take 5-6 times as long (minimally, if you can umbilical up to a “fast” charger) to get going again.

And which only last half as long – due to the lifespan of their batteries, which is about half that of an engine or transmission.

The “market” for EVs is like the “market” for air travel via DC-3s (15 hours in an unpressurized cabin from NY to LA, with multiple stops for fuel) vs. five hours no-stop via 757.

We live in delusional times…

 

New York Sen. Chuck Schumer wants to pay people even more of other people’s money (about $400 billion) to “date” electric cars.

His “bold new plan” – announced last week in The New York Times – would increase the existing federal bribe of up to $7,500 used to cajole people into buying  EVs to potentially more than $10,000  – the amount of the bribe depending on the range of the EV.

The farther it goes, the more of other people’s money you’d get.

But only if the bribed also give up their ICE car to be destroyed, a la Cash For Clunkers – the infamous Obama-era ‘plan” used to “stimulate” demand for new cars by destroying the supply of used cars.

It’s also similar to another government “plan”- the one that preceded Cash for Clunkers and which triggered the financial meltdown that led to it.

This was the Chimp-era “plan” to “incentivize” homeownership by qualifying everyone not actually homeless for a home loan. Lots of people “bought” homes. Voila – the Ownership Society.

It worked so long as no one had to pay.

When the bills began to come due – and then past due – the whole thing came down like WTC 7 (another government-engineered crash). People lost “their” homes – and of course, could no longer afford to buy new cars by tapping into the equity credit lines they longer had.

And then the government dried up the supply of affordable uses cars by paying people to hand them over to be crushed.

Fast-forward. People increasingly can’t afford homes. And soon, cars.

Because of Schumer’s “plan”  . . . only it is the plan.

First, bribe people into electric cars; then make it impossible for them to get out of them by leaving no alternative to them – the supply of affordable ICE cars having been eliminated.  Schumer wants to “rapidly phase out gas-powered vehicles” within the next ten years; to destroy 63 million of them over the next ten years. 

Once that has been achieved, the bribes used to get people into the EVs will go the way of the nothing-down/no-interest home loan.

With similar and entirely predictable results.

Be seeing you

Cash for Clunkers

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War in All But Name as US State Department Offers Bribes to Pirates – Antiwar.com Original

Posted by M. C. on September 5, 2019

https://original.antiwar.com/thomas-knapp/2019/09/04/war-in-all-but-name-as-us-state-department-offers-bribes-to-pirates/

If at first you don’t succeed, spread some money around. The Financial Times reports that the US State Department is offering cash bribes to captains of Iranian ships if they sail those ships into ports where the US government can seize them.

The offers are funded from a “Rewards for Justice” program authorizing payouts of up to $15 million for “counter-terrorism” purposes. It’s not about counter-terrorism, though. It’s about doubling down on US President Donald Trump’s decision to violate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, usually called the “Iran Nuclear Deal.”

The other parties to the deal – especially France, the UK, and Germany – don’t want to let the deal go, but also don’t want to enrage Trump by violating the unilateral sanctions he’s imposed on Iran. The Iranians, on the other hand, have made it clear that unless those other countries find ways to deliver meaningful sanctions relief, they’re abandoning the deal too. They’ve started taking concrete steps in that direction.

On July 4 – Independence Day in the United States – members of the United Kingdom’s Royal Marines boarded an Iranian oil tanker, the Grace 1, off the coast of Gibraltar. They seized ship, crew, and cargo in an act of open piracy.

The pretext for the seizure was that selling oil to Syria violates European Union sanctions. But neither Iran nor Syria are EU member states, and the tanker was taken in international “transit passage” waters. That’s like giving a speeding ticket to a driver in Hungary for violating Kazakhstan’s speed limits.

Spain’s foreign minister, Josep Borrell, plausibly asserted that the seizure was requested by the US government. The ship was released after Iran agreed that the oil would not go to Syria (its whereabouts and destination remain unknown as of this writing).

In the meantime, a US court had issued a seizure warrant – for an Iranian vessel, carrying Iranian oil, to a non-US destination, clearly outside any reasonable definition of US jurisdiction. And the Iranians had hijacked a British-flagged tanker in the Strait of Hormuz in reprisal for the taking of Grace 1.

So now the US State Department is reduced to simple bribery in its attempts to clean up after Trump’s 2016 campaign promise to get the US out of the “nuclear deal.”

Under the deal, the Iranians went beyond their obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to “end” a nuclear weapons program which the US intelligence community didn’t even believe existed. All they got out of it was some relief from sanctions that should never have been imposed, and the return of some money stolen by the US government decades ago. All the US got out of it was an empty propaganda victory.

But electoral politics required Trump to throw even that tiny trophy away. He had to either promise foreign policy belligerence SOMEWHERE or risk establishment mockery as a peacenik. Enter the Israeli lobby and Sheldon Adelson’s millions. Iran drew the short straw.

So did we. This is war in all but name and only likely to escalate as Election 2020 draws nigh.

Be seeing you

‘Pirates of the Caribbean 5’: Brenton Thwaites Gives Plot ...

 

 

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Ex-Obama Campaign Director Drops Bombshell Claim on Facebook: ‘They Were on Our Side’ / Revealed: Trump’s election consultants filmed saying they use bribes and sex workers to entrap politicians

Posted by M. C. on March 19, 2018

https://ijr.com/2018/03/1077083-ex-obama-campaign-director-fb/

https://www.channel4.com/news/cambridge-analytica-revealed-trumps-election-consultants-filmed-saying-they-use-bribes-and-sex-workers-to-entrap-politicians-investigation

They are all dirty.

And you didn’t vote for Ron Paul because he was too radical!!!

Be seeing you

be seeing you

 

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